Nanapi [J], a web service to share hacks posted by users, had acquired 3.8 million US dollars from Globis Capital Partners in Tokyo.
Nanapi is a service to share life hacks, called as life recipes in this service, posted by users. Users can post their own hacks easily via Nanapi works [J], and can earn points worth 100 to 10,000 Japanese yen.
It’s hard to find a similar service in U.S. but has a similar concept hunch.com has; Making a guide for living by using the power of internet users.
Nanapi is currently getting 4.5 million pageviews via PC and 5 million pageviews via mobile per month. Nanapi is aiming to gather 100 million pageviews/month by the end of 2011.
Groupon Japan’s Rival, Ponpare[J] has started to sell a special coupon today. You can get Häagen-Dazs ice cream ticket for 2 mini cups by paying only 100 yen ( about a dollar and quarter). This means you can get 84% discounts but what makes this coupon drawing attention is the number of sign up required to get the deal.
500,000 people need to buy this coupon to get the deal.
At this moment at 20:00 on Nov. 5th, 32400 people had already signed up and about 300 hours (more than 12 days) are remaining until this deal ends.
The question is, will this deal be made or not?
If the deal won’t be made, Ponpare still can acquire many new members without paying for the deal.
Or is this gonna be a successful campaign fulfilling both users joined to this campaign and simultaneously achieve Pompare’s purpose to boost its growth against Groupon Japan?
Minimum sign ups for the deal is 500,000 but maximum number is 1,000,000. This ticket worth 660 yen so Ponpare needs to pay 660 million yen, about 8.3 million U.S. dollars. However Ponpare may already have good discounts from Häagen-Dazs for promoting their product.
Ponpare is a service operated by Recruit[J], Japanese largest B to C matching service provider based on internet and magazine publication. Groupon Japan, formerly known as Q-pod acquired by Groupon this Summer is growing faster than other competitors in Japan.
This challenging campaign may change such situation.
But be careful, if you are not living in Japan you can not join to this attractive deal.
At the end of last month a rumors had spread that Apple would buy Sony and Sony stocks had moved up.
If Apple buy Sony we might be able to see Sony Pictures’ movies on iTunes, more games on iTunes and Sony Music artists’ songs on Japanese iTunes store ( and Japanese iTunes music store is not rich on song lineup so this might be a great benefit for Japanese iTunes lovers).
It was just a rumor but Google has more reasons to buy Sony than Apple does.
1. Google TV
Sony recently release Google TV and being the best partner to spread Google TV against little Apple TV set top box. Although Sony is not shinning as it was on 80′s, Sony is being a top leading company and known brand for TV.
2. Good partner to spread Android handsets
Sony’s first Android handest Xperia is the second best selling smartphone in Japan. 2.2 million smartphone was shipped in the first half year of 2010 in Japan and while Apple iPhone occupied 60.1 % of the market, Sony covered 20.6%, shipped 460 thousand Xperia handsets.
3.Google is a company good to make software / Sony is a company good to make hardware
Sony can provide hardware for Google, and Google can provide software for Sony. This might be a best combination. Apple is not making hardware by themselves but selling hardware is their main business.
4. Good executive relationship?
Former president of Google Japan, Koichiro Tsujino was president of Sony’s personal computer division, where he led VAIO PC brand before joining Google.
Of course this is just a speculation but Google might work to buy Sony if Apple is really thinking to buy it.
This is a presentation “What is iPad”. Not in English nor in typical Japanese but in Hiroshima dialect.
You may not be able to find what is funny if you don’t understand Japanese but a dub made on this video is gaining lots of applause from Japanese users, especially from people who live in Western region of Japan, around Hiroshima.
It’s not a typical dub made by a person who can speak clear Japanese and fluent English… words spoken in Hiroshima dialect with quite unique accents compared to standard Japanese. If you’ve visited Tokyo you may feel how it’s strange.
It’s difficult to say what this would be like in English. Not Irish English, not Indian English, even not Japanese English.
What you can say is you may feel warmness behind those words… some friendliness only obtainable from the words made by people who keep living in their hometown since their childhood. It’s not a power obtainable from the text but from the voice.
Comments posted for this video is also heart warming; “I was never interested to iPad. I didn’t know what that is. But this is so funny. I feel like I’m listening words from my grand father. I decided to buy iPad.”
Well, iPad is one of the most cool and world wide targeted product. Could you imagine a guy who lives in… wherever, totally away from California speaking about iPad with words they speak in their local pub? Or just imagine your grand father’s friend is talking about iPad with their own accents and intonations to him. These are not words targeted for people living in all over the world but well communicate for certain people more than the words spoken by the genius, Steve Jobs.
These are words spoken by your local friends, local neighborhoods but broadcasted for all over the world.
Yahoo Japan released 16 free iPhone Apps simultaneously at Japanese iTunes Store. By locating each app on the screen correctly, like solving a number slider puzzle, you can depict a face of the most famous character in Japan, Doraemon.
Each app icon is designed to be a part of the face of this character. Usually, iPhone app icons have a unique gradation effect common to all, but icons of those apps don’t have such kind of effect on them.
These apps were released as a part of the campaign to promote the animation movie of Doraemon. Apps are comprised by 11 comic book apps, a battery level checker app, mini-game apps and etc.
Currently, 16 apps are all ranked in the top 20 free apps in Japanese iTunes App store.
