Asiajin

An interview to the president of Yahoo! Japan Masahiro Inoue (photo) by Nikkei Business Magazine with a catchy title “Google? I think none of their services are cool.” is getting huge attentions in Japanese web.

To answer the interviewer’s comment “By comparing Google’s services such like Street View and Book Search, Yahoo! seems not to generate surprising services”, Inoue said “Google’s those services are nothing impressive for me. There are tons of things you would do if there are no laws and rules. If you abide laws, your options are restricted. You should not do what you are not supposed to do.”

He continued, “Those Google’s services surprised people are all in gray zone. Advertising on search result was copied from Yahoo!, Street View is kind of peeping, Book Search is violation of copyright law, lots of YouTube traffic are illegally uploaded. You may say that those are cool. But can established company behave like that? In Yahoo! those projects should be stopped by legal section.”

Overall, reactions to the article from Japanese blogs, tweets and social bookmarks are negative to the president. Net-savvy people have been loving No.2 search engine Google and its enterprising spirit. Many comments tell that they have never used Yahoo! in several years.

However, majority of Japanese net users never express their opinions on those social media, or never knew what social media is, and visit huge Yahoo! portal every day, click ads and buy things online. National clients also prefer Yahoo! for their ads maybe because Yahoo! Japan is such a conservative company.

Yahoo! Japan goes oversea?

The interviewer Kei Ogasawara also asked if Yahoo! Japan expands to oversea markets.

Inoue answered that Yahoo! brand is licensed for their activities within Japan, and Japanese web market is promising enough to get more.

Interestingly, he revealed that they were suggested to go abroad by US Yahoo! before, which Yahoo! Japan disagreed with and was not realized.

He also talks on their original developed “Interest Match” ads system, and a plan to license it back to US Yahoo! in future.

Tags: Japan, Person by Akky Akimoto
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Today, J-Magic[J] CEO Takuya Miyata[J] (@takmiyata[J]) unveiled that he had joined Japan’s largest social network service company Mixi[J] as an employee working with the Mixi business department.

As reported here on Asiajin, J-Magic handed over their breed-winning business of the face recognition mobile app to Mobile Factory last month, and they have been said to shut down all business very soon.   CNET Japan asked them how they would be running themselves[J], but no comment was given on that.

Here’s an English translation of what he has posted on his blog:

Besides having announced in our press release that we handed over our mobile app business to our partners, we decided to cut down or close the other all business.   We all thank our shareholders, our partners, our clients and all whom may be involved for their support.

And please excuse me my impoliteness that I tell you suddenly that, I joined Mixi.   Needless to say, Mixi is no longer just a social network service operator, but now leading this country’s entire Internet economy.   By making the most of my experience that I’ve been working in Japan and abroad, I will do my best for the company’s further success.   I appreciate your support.

Tags: Japan, News, Person by Masaru IKEDA
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Judge Ogura at Osaka High Court found Isamu Kaneko, a developer of Winny, not guilty today, reversing the guilty ruling of 1.5 million yen fine made by the lower court.

Winny is a popular P2P file sharing software in Japan. Kaneko developed Winny and released it on notorious 2channel forum on May 6th, 2002.

In 2004, the developer was arrested for abetting copyright infringement. Prosecutor’s office said that Kaneko has created Winny to proliferate copyright infringement to overthrow copyright system in Japan.

However, Osaka High Court concluded that the accused didn’t have a clear intent to proliferate copyright violation. Also the judge decided that he can’t condemn Kaneko for just knowing that copyright piracy is rampant in Winny network.

Disclosure: Shunichi Arai is a vocal supporter of Isamu Kaneko.

Tags: Japan, Person, Society by Shunichi Arai
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(Photo by Jim Lindley (cc-by-nc))

Ruby’s creator Yukihiro ‘Matz’ Matsumoto is going to become an honorary citizen of Matsue city where he lives.

The city will award three people this time but other two are awarded posthumously. Matz, a 44 years-old geek, is the youngest recipient of the award.

Matsue city considers Ruby and Matz as very important “assets” of the city. They held a conference called ‘Ruby World Conference 2009‘ in September to strengthen their presence in Ruby community.

(via Yomiuri Shimbun)

Tags: Japan, Person by Shunichi Arai
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Japanese pop singer and song-writer Kohmi Hirose[J] (@kohmi), who has released a number of popular songs in ’90s and been singing winter dating stuffs for young couples, is also one of the celebrity twitterers.   Kohmi exchanged many tweets with Kazuyo Katsuma[J] (@kazuyo_k), a friend of her, economist and the best-selling business book author in Japan, and found out what Twitter is and how it can contribute especially in giving her a good opportunity for the better interactive communication with her fans.

Kohmi calls Twitter a nickname “he-we-he-heey” (an onomatopoeia) as she pleases, and today she released an original theme song[J] titled “Viva! he-we-he-heey!”.

As far as we’ve learned from several news sources, Kohmi composed the song on her voluntary basis, and she didn’t seem to be asked to do so by Twitter’s management or its Japanese business partner Digital Garage.   In the future, Twitter might have several aliases especially in non-English speaking countries, but this could be also an essential combination of ultimate translation and well-localized marketing strategy to be required when a new service goes into a different country from where the service originates.

Meanwhile, Digital Garage announced it would co-develop a localized mobile interface for Japanese Twitterers this fall, which caused its share price to mark limit-up on Thursday.

Tags: Community, Japan, News, Person by Masaru IKEDA
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