DeNA announced today that DeNA's Korean subsidiary DeNA Seoul and Popular Korean Internet portal Daum [Kr] agreed to provide Korean version of its social game platform Mobage to 38 million Daum users. The release date will be targeted in 2011 4Q for smartphone users.

In Japan, DeNA has been cooperating with the nation's largest portal Yahoo! Japan on PC-version social game networking Yahoo! Mobage for more an year. Yahoo! Mobage added more users from PC by it.

TOKYO, JAPAN – November 8, 2011 — DeNA Co., Ltd. (DeNA), today announced that its Seoul-based wholly owned subsidiary, DeNA Seoul Co., Ltd, has signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with Daum Communications Corp. on bringing DeNA’s Mobage social gaming platform to South Korea through Daum’s popular Web portal and mobile apps. This Mobage Korea service will be focused primarily on smartphone users in South Korea and is scheduled to launch in the first quarter of 2012.

By leveraging Daum’s existing 38 million registered users, social graphs and AD@m, South Korea’s largest mobile advertisement network with over 10 billion monthly page views, DeNA Seoul will be able to bring Mobage Korea to millions of new consumers. The two companies will also collaborate to promote Mobage Korea on Daum’s websites and apps.

Daum will also be able to take advantage of DeNA’s proven expertise in platform operations, delivering internationally popular social game titles to their users with Mobage Korea, in addition to growing its own social game offerings.

Game developers across the globe will also be able to benefit from the planned collaboration, with global development tools such as the Mobage API to help them deliver games to the rapidly-growing smartphone market in Korea and other countries worldwide.

Daum’s Web portal (www.daum.net) is visited by nearly 93% of South Korea’s Internet users every month. Daum’s Web portal receives approximately 20 billion page views each month. More than 38 million people have registered on Daum, and MyPeople, Daum’s free fixed/mobile voice call and text chat service, has more than 14 million users.

“Through synergies with DeNA and domestic mobile game developers, we plan to build the nation’s top mobile gaming network.” said Kyongwan Son, Daum’s Director of New Initiative Division. “Daum has lead the domestic mobile market with AD@m, MyPeople and Daum MAP among other offerings. We will leverage such services to focus our power on mobile games business.”

“South Korea is an explosive market for smartphones and social mobile games and DeNA is excited to collaborate with Daum to deliver Mobage Korea to South Korean gamers.” said Steven Yang, DeNA Seoul’s Regional Head. “Mobage Korea will deliver great games to local audiences, while also helping developers around the world quickly and easily deliver their contents to an increasingly global audience.”

DeNA International site release

Daum Mobage – DeNA’s Social Game Platform To Be Provided In Korea

The Google+ iPhone App's huge but only affected for some countries has been fixed after about 10 days.

As we reported on September 26, Japanese (Chinese and Korean as well) Google+ user who updated the app found that they were unable to put in their native language letters.

The new version 1.0.5.2346 has come on October 4 with changes;

• Fixed bug with Chinese, Japanese and Korean
• Re-enable autocomplete when composing a post

It was quite a show-stopper for East Asians. I hope they will have test item with Asian languages before shipment.

Google+ iPhone App Bug (unable to write Japanese/Chinese/Korean) Fixed

As noticed on this story, Japanese four tech start-ups and Korean two start-ups five Japanese tech start-ups and six Korean tech start-ups had jointly a presentation event in Seoul on Wednesday.  I just wanted to join them for covering what happened onsite, however, I couldn't make it because of my another assignment in Malaysia.   Alternatively, I tried my best for making a wrap-up of the event by checking out a Ustream video and a series of tweets by those who were attending.

The event took place at a hotel near Teheranno St., known as the epicenter of many tech start-up movements in the city.   Presentations were made in English, Japanese and Korean with simultaneous interpretation.   Let's start with a presentation made by Korea's start-up Mindsquare.

Presenter: Park Hongwon (박홍원), Mind Square[K]

Mindsqaure provides a variety of foreign language learning apps.  They employs app developers in Korea and are doing business in Korea, Japan and the US.   Most of their revenues came from Japan, and intends to the US market.  Mr. Park says,

• Shares of the iPhone apps by category: entertainment 47% and education 35%.   No iPhone game app is unavailable because of restriction by the Korean government.  In Japan, entertainment shares 9%, education 9% and game 68%.
• An average price for the iPhone apps on the Korean AppStore is USD1.96.
• The most popular paid iPhone app records 1000 downloads a day, which is one-third of that of Japan.   There are more free apps than paid apps in Korea.
• A series of their iPhone apps is available here.

Revolutionizing Digital Entertainment by advanced video search technology
Presenter: Jonnpyo Lee (이준표), Enswers Inc.

• The Company has developed a video search technology that allows users to find an expecting result from YouTube and other video sharing services.
• They have head-hunted many talented engineers from all across the country.

Big trends in Japan – Optimization and Personalization Technology
Presenter: Takashi Uemura(上村崇), ALBERT Inc.

He explains Japanese ad industry.

Information to collective intelligence LastSupper – spot to intelligent map / mironi – listen, share, enjoy
Presenter: Jongil Yoon (윤정일), Revlix[K]

• Revlix is an app developer in Korea. They have introduced a smartphone app called Mironi[K] (coming soon), which is called a social music player, allowing you to share your music listening experience with other users.
• Mostly 50% of all businessmen and students have smartphone handsets.
• The company has also introduced a social app called Last Supper[K], which allows you to share your dining experience with other users.

Japanese mobile market and Global mobile ads
Presenter: Kiyotaka Kobayashi(小林清剛), Nobot Inc. (see these Asiajin stories for more details)

• They earned 1.1billion monthly impressions last month, and are planning to partner with major ad networks in Korea.

Evolution of ebook – interactive ebook
Presenter: TaeWoo Kim(김태우), Moglue[K]

• Moglue is developing a desktop platform that allows publishers, amateur authors and artists a way to create interactive stories and release them as apps for iOS and Android operating systems with one-click publishing.
• Their apps for iOS and Android are currently available only in closed beta.

Social Monitoring "@hentaiAlert"
Presenter: Yusuke Takahashi(高橋雄介), Individual Company

• The company is currently developing a social monitoring service called Hentai Alert.
• The service, literally alerting against suspicious people, helps you find suspicious people around you by analyzing accumulated knowledge about them on social media.   As more vicious crimes happen in these years, the service helps you keep away from possible dangerous people.

Social network meets advertising
Presenter: Josh Jaehong Kim(김재홍), AdbyMe[K]

• Korea has USD 7billion-worth ad market, however smartphone in-app advertising is not so acknowledged  in Korea.
• Adby.Me allows you to use Twitter and measure advertising effectiveness on a ad placement basis.

Social translation "Conyac"
Presenter: Naoki Yamada(山田尚貴), Anydoor

Refer to this Asiajin story for more about Conyac services

How to Build a Clean Web
Presenter: Benjamin Beomjin Kim(김범진), CIZION inc.[K]

• Cizon develops a social comment service called LiveRe[K].Live Re, that allows you to leave a comment with your account of Twitter, Facebook and Korean social networks such as Me2Day[K] and Daum's Yozm[K].  It's Korean version of Disqus.
• Live Re is now adopted by 200 companies for their websites, it shares 80% in this entire web service category.

In app purchaise iOS/Android/Japanese Style
Presenter: Kentaro Hashimoto(橋本謙太郎), Conit

He introduces the in-app purchase system for multiple smartphone platforms that Conit has developed.  Refer to this Asiajin story for more about the system.

Japanese And Korean Start-ups Hold Presentation Event In Seoul For Potential Partnerships

Here is some recommended reading, probably of value for just about everybody reading Asiajin: in 2007, Students at Singapore Management University have created a wiki called "Digital Media Across Asia", which now covers a total of eleven countries (in English), namely:

• Australia
• China
• Hong Kong
• India
• Indonesia
• Japan
• Malaysia
• Singapore
• South Korea
• Taiwan
• Vietnam

On the site, the wiki is being called the "world's most comprehensive wiki dedicated to digital media throughout Asia", and I think this could well be true.

The wiki is updated 2-3 times per year (only the students themselves and faculty can edit it), and it's a great resource for country-specific information on social networks, mobile, search engines, video sharing platforms, etc. etc.

Wiki Covering 11 Countries: Digital Media Across Asia

In the beginning of next month, four tech start-ups from Tokyo and two start-ups from Seoul will jointly hold a presentation evening event in South Korea's capital, which is called Asia Startup Summit, for expanding their presence in Asia and exchanging their perspectives on the region's start-up community.

Presentations are:

• Revolutionizing Digital Entertainment by advanced video search technology
  by Jonnpyo Lee (이준표), Enswers Inc.

• Big trends in Japan - Optimization and Personalization Technology
  by Takashi Uemura(上村崇), ALBERT Inc.

• Information to collective intelligence LastSupper - spot to intelligent map / mironi - listen, share, enjoy
  by Jongil Yoon (윤정일), Revilx

• Japanese mobile market and Global mobile ads
  by Kiyotaka Kobayashi(小林清剛), Nobot Inc. (see these Asiajin stories for more details)

• Social Monitoring "@hentaiAlert"
  by  Yusuke Takahashi(高橋雄介), Individual Company

• Social translation "Conyac"
  by Naoki Yamada(山田尚貴), Anydoor Co-founder (see these Asiajin stories for more details)

Venue: Spaceplus (스페이스 플러스), 810-10, Yeoksam 1-dong, Gangnam-gu.
서울特別市江南区駅三一洞810-10

Time: 7pm-9pm, April 6th (Wednesday), 2011

Admission fee: Free

The organizers are currently inviting techpreneurs and geeks to the event, if you are interested in attending, please contact them from their Facebook page.   According to Mr. Kobayashi, one of the organizers, their entire presentation will be livestreamed.

Tokyo’s Start-ups To Hold A Presentation Night In Seoul

NHN Japan, the local arm of South Korean web giant NHN and operator of online gaming portal Hangame, is planning to seriously step up game development for smartphones, especially on Android.

Japan's biggest business daily, The Nikkei, is reporting that NHN in Korea has set up a 100-people team that's supposed to create the titles, for example action and puzzle games (see below). Japan is expected to see 10 new titles from NHN as early as spring this year, but the company is planning to have a whopping 100 games on the Japanese and Korean markets by year-end.

According to the Nikkei, the company is also planning to add social networking functionalities to the games, including multi-player options.

NHN has been offering games on the iPhone since summer last year, for example this one (Puchi Puchi Same Puzzle):

NHN Plans To Flood Japan With Smartphone Games

We proudly announce that the first Asiajin meetup in Seoul will be held on 16th, October (Saturday). Asiajin co-founder, Shunichi Arai, will visit the city and talk about the situation of the Japanese web and startup industry.

This will be a great opportunity to meet new friends, and learn about the differences between Korean and Japanese web market.

Feel free to join us. Everyone is very welcomed.

Please register from this Eventbrite page.

Asiajin Seoul meet up on October 16th

Japanese Facebook Mixi announced [J] today that they are shaking hands with China's huge social networking service Renren [Chinese] and Korea's massive social networking service CyWorld [Korean].

The initial project among the three is to standardize their social application platform, which enables third-party social application providers (SAP, Mixi calls) to run their applications over three social networks. Mixi is also thinking to make common basement for another social APIs.

The release notes that this alliance is talking with other major social networkings in other regions, like Europe and America.

Renren's company Oak Pacific Interactive does not post any news on this alliance yet. Neither does CyWorld company SK Communications [Kr].

Locals versus Facebook?

As seen on the World Map of Social Networks, China, Japan and Korea are few markets where Facebook could not penetrate into.

Facebook in Japan is far behind from major three local networks. However, all those Japanese social networks have a problem that they are hitting the ceiling of Japanese market, and working on oversea projects.

This time's announce does not include much substantial things. And it is unlikely that the alliance can become the single interconnected Asian social networks in future. But those local major players must be feeling pressure by Facebook.

Mixi Partners With Renren and CyWorld – 3 Asian Major Social Networks Cooperate

Can you think of a great mobile or web application that's either made in an Asian country or specifically geared towards users in this region? Or have you developed such an application yourself?

Then you should nominate and/or vote for your favorite app in the "Top 50 Apps In Asia" program that e27, a startup community from Singapore, have set up. The goal is to identify the coolest mobile and web apps in Asia and give them some serious airtime and other perks (more in the FAQ below).

The Top 50 Apps page is already pre-populated with apps from Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, India, and the Philippines. But there should be room for many, many more.

The program is part of Accelerate 2010, an apparently huge technology industry event that's going to be held in Singapore from September 22-23 (register from here/early bird info in the FAQ below). South East Asian telecom behemoth SingTel and venture fund Neoteny Labs are the other organizations behind the conference.

Here's a quick "Top 50 Apps In Asia"-FAQ that e27 has put together:

“Top 50 Apps In Asia”: Help Accelerate 2010 Identify The Best Asia-Related Mobile And Web Apps

It shows ramdom street-casted 3 hundred Korean girls holding up sign which wrote current time.

Its concept, feature and functionality are almost identical with Bijin-Tokei [J], which we covered the gadget and the iPhone App before. There are no mention about Japanese one so it does not look licensed or affiliated.

In addition to Japan's Bijin-Tokei, Mi-in sigye shows you the girls' profile.

Some pictures show girl's blog address or cellphone number

You see the picture above shows her phone number. Some pictures have not only the girls' blog addresses but also their phone numbers. In Korea, many people put their self-taking pictures on blogs and other internet services, which is different from Japan, where anonymity is cared more.

To see all girls' photos and profiles, registration to the site is required.

Megacoms is going to offer Mi-in sigye in appstore. and also planning to offer "hot guys" version of the clock gadget. 

via Talkon

Mi-in sigye: Korean compny offers Korean Hot-girl clock gadget similar with Bijin-tokei