"Tell Your World ", the song which is used for Google Chrome Promotional campaign of livetune feat. Hatsune Mike (初音ミク) tops at iTunes Japan among all categories.
iTunes Japan chart at 19th January was following.
The song was released in 18th January on iTunes Japan and right after the release, ranked top 10. On next day, it ranked 1st.
2011 is over - reason enough to take a look at some of the key trends that shaped Japan's web, mobile, and gaming industries last year.
I could think, in no particular order, of five major developments that made a significant impact last year:
March 11 Triple Disaster
The triple disaster that hit Japan on March 11, 2011, highlighted the power and importance of social media and the web at large when it comes to communicating and sharing information with others - especially as the phone networks went bust immediately after the earthquake and made voice communication impossible.
Challenges remain, such as the digital divide (young vs. old people, users who are web-savvy vs. those who aren't, etc.) or the danger of mass-distributing false information through social media, but the web's "reputation" has clearly risen in Japan.
Internationalization
The list of Japanese web, mobile, and gaming companies that started expanding across borders (or bolstered their efforts) in 2011 is long: Rakuten, DeNA, GREE, Dwango's Nico Nico Douga, and CyberAgent are just the most prominent examples.
Quite a few startups are now creating services that are multi-lingual from the get-go (i.e. Sumally, Beatrobo, Crowsnest, etc., etc.).
The tech industry is maturing, Japan's population is greying, and entrepreneurs need to deal with saturated markets: expect internationalization to only pick up speed in the next years.
Android Revolution
The smartphone revolution started earlier than 2011 (mainly driven by the smash success of the iPhone), but it was during the last year that Android really started gaining a foothold in Japan. Just one example: SoftBank's winter 2011 cell phone line-up includes just one feature phone - but nine Android handsets.
Feature phones are still king in Japan, but market research companies like Tokyo-based MM Research are expecting smartphone shipments to outnumber those of traditional handsets next year.
Americanization
2011 is the year that Facebook started to become popular in Japan even though it will take at least another year to determine how sustainable the growth really is - not too few people think it has the potential to eventually throw market leader Mixi off the throne. Twitter has seen another massive boost in popularity after March 11 (see above).
In mobile, Google's Android and Apple's iOS are set to dominate the market in the next years - local mobile platforms have no chance in the foreseeable future.
Cool Japan
I saw Techwave editor-in-chief Tsuruaki Yukawa highlighting this trend in a recent presentation, and he's right in saying that quite a few Japanese startups in 2011 started riding on the "Cool Japan" wave: Snapeee and Decopic are probably the most successful examples, next to Nico Nico's newEnglish version, Japan portal FindJPN, or e-commerce brand satisfaction guaranteed on Facebook.
Incubator Boom
I still hold there is a clear disconnect between the number of incubators in Japan and the number of startups and entrepreneurs they can "absorb", but that didn't stop venture capital (and other) companies in Japan from launching one incubator after the other in 2011.
The boom started with Open Network Lab in 2010, and now this country has well over ten full-scale startup incubation programs.
Other trends
Other interesting developments observed in 2011 include:
If you don't know AKB48, you don't live in Japan (or in fact, many other parts of Asia.) They are phenomenon that might be equivalent to the Beatles + American Idol + the Spice Girls + Justin Timberlake... They are a roster of more than 200 hand-selected performers who are the subject of huge media attention, and support from millions of devoted fans.
According to Google+ Ranking by UserLocal, top Japanese Google+ user by number of followers totally replaced with AKB48 girls. UserLocal also set up an AKB48-only followers ranking as it is the biggest interest on Japanese G+.
7 of the top 10(#2, #3 and #5-#9) are now AKB48 members who began Google+ yesterday. 20 AKBs are ranked in top 30. I was at around 25th before AKB but now at 67th after 42 AKBs
In compare to Twitter, where the top rankers boast million followers, the most followed Japanese user only has sub-40K followers. When you think the influence of TV, it is not strange and the ranking will be soon occupied all by AKB48, or other TV celebrities may ride the bandwagon from Twitter and Ameblo.
This Google+'s move with AKB48 definitely let many ordinal people know and join Google+, but I am not sure how much Google expected this beforehand.
5 languages translation
As reported, their messages on Google+ are being translated into 5 languages. It is done by a Google user AKB48 Translator to translating some (not all) of top AKB48 members' messages into 5 (or 6, as it seems to write both in Simplified and Traditional Chinese) languages like this.
Japan's popular girls idol corps AKB48 announces with Google that all of its members opened Google+ page today December 8. Google Japan cooperates to set up a special page you can browse all, or by AKB48 and its sister-groups.
[Update] Nikkei reports [J] that this is a collaboration project between AKB48 and U.S. Google. According to it, the contents will be translated into 5 languages, English, Chinese, Korean, Thai and Indonesian. Video chat sessions with fans will happen on Google+ Hangout. (though the special page only exists in Japanese, as far as I tried to find.)
AKB48 is one of very few successful music sellers under the current Japanese slump of music business, by selling many of the same CD to one fan in exchange of hand-shaking-rights and other prizes.
Tokyo-based AKB48, Osaka-based NMB48, Nagoya-based SKE48 members belong to sub-categories. There are new HKT48 from Kyushu, JKT48 in Jakarta, Indonesia and TPE48 in Taiwan. Each group also has some trainees and it is not known how many members totally exist in the whole group. Probably a few hundreds. [Update] about 260 girls! [J] (HT to @koyhoge)
The 10 web services joined and asked for their readers to vote are Biglobe, Goo, Ameba, Mobage, Nico Nico Douga, @Peps!&Chip!!, Gadget Tsuushin, JustGiving Japan, iza and Jinriki-kensaku Hatena.
He was known by its unconventional, funky tweets as an local government character, which usually make boring messages. However, when a person behind the Twitter account, someone in the PR company worked for the town started making political, WWII related tweets, it caused severe backlash and the town shut down the Twitter.
Sukasuka Osechi
"Sukasuka" is a Japanese onomatope which describes how things are spacious, spongy. It was the first buzzed news on Japanese web in 2011. Groupon Japan selling very poor traditional new year food set resulted in its US CEO's apology.
Popopopo-n
3/11, Eastern Japan Disasters with earthquakes, tsunami and nuclear power plant problems of course affected Japanese web a lot.
Most of companies wanted to stop its TV commercials for weeks after the quake in a mood of voluntary restraint of commercial activities, non-commercial organization's enlightening videos were aired endlessly. The one annoyed people the most is this,
A line in a Japanese magic girls anime means "Please contract with me and you will be a magic girl!" caught many anime watchers heart this year. The line told by a small animal whose name is QB comes from magic world were used a lot on the web by changing "magic girl" with many other words.
National team of women soccer winning the FIFA World Cup 2011 was the first World Cup win by Japan national team, was of course told a lot on the web.
"Nadeshiko Japan" is an official nickname of the team. Nadeshiko is a Japanese name of a flower pink, which is often described ideal Japanese women in Japanese. (Twitter trouble with one of players only few days after the World Cup)
Buhiru
"Buhiru" is a newly coined Japanese verb which came from pig's calling sound "Buhi Buhi" so "buhiru" means "to sound like a pig". This is used when anime freaks describe themselves loving anime characters in self-deprecatory way. Japanese image for pig is dirty and greedy so it implies that they are accepting well-calculated kawaii character design even though they are aware of being looked down on by creators.
Yashima Sakusen
Yashima Sakusen (Operation Yashima) is an web movement occurred after the big earthquake, which appealed people to save electricity under power shortage around east Japan. It came from an operation in a popular Japanese anime Evangelion.
Anaroguma
Anaroguma(Analog + Kuma=bear) is an web-born anti-official character against Chidejika, which proceeded to replace new digital TV broadcast system.
#edano_nero
Another meme from the earthquake. Yukio Edano, Japanese cabinet's chief secretary at the disaster time, as a government spokesman, was worried by netizens by his too long appearance on official reporting programs. "nero" means imperative form of "to sleep" so Edano Nero means "Sleep Edano".
Japanese train announcements sometimes have strange accent which you never heard in your regular conversation. Some people say that it is intentionally invented and spoken to transfer the information under special noisy situation like on train or in platform, though I do not believe it.
"Daashieriiesu" comes from "Doa ga Shimari masu"(doors are going to be closed) and that is said to be used in Keikyu Railway company which connects Tokyo and Yokohama/Yokosuka. The strangeness was buzzed on the web.
Maru Maru Mori Mori
"Marumo no Okite"(The rule of Marumo) is one of the most popular TV drama in 2011. This "Maru Maru Mori Mori" is a name of its main theme song and a hook-line chant. Two kids singing and dancing with the song became a smash hit, ranked the highest sales as singer who born in 21 century.
Iine!
"Iine!" is a Japanese translated version of Facebook "Like!"
