Having raised $585,000 in angel investments this summer, Tokyo-based human translation start-up myGengo has set aside $45,000 to support third-party developers with their new API Lab. The API Lab is a place for developers to experiment with the myGengo API, build plug-ins for third-party platforms, and win cash prizes. While myGengo has offered crowd-sourced translation through their homepage - the plug-ins developed by the API Lab will allow consumers to translate their content from within their own platforms. myGengo is offering up to $1,400 for the first working plug-ins on over 40 platforms including WordPress, Facebook, Salesforce, and iPhone.

According to myGengo CTO Matt Romaine, "We're excited about the 'API Lab' initiative because it's a fantastic opportunity to reward the developers who are building connections to the myGengo translation API. Developers are working with the API in all kinds of contexts — e-commerce, blogging, Twitter and more — and we want to support these grass-roots efforts. Over the next year, we expect to see hundreds of applications using the API, many of them using the foundations created through the API Lab program."

The API Lab represents an effort by myGengo to scale their service capacity while making it easier for end-consumers to use. As the crowd-sourced translation space is becoming increasingly crowded with competitors like OneHourTranslation.com, or Conyac.cc in Japan, myGengo is trying to tackle some larger issues in a more multi-lingual web, like this API Lab initiative or their String feature which Asiajin has previously covered.

Interested developers can find more detailed information by visiting the API Lab. (English/Japanese).

Tags: Japan by Dominic K. Gallello
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Thursday evening we reported that Facebook released a new application to put your updates on Facebook into its local rival Mixi.

2 hours later, 9:15 p.m. 28th (Japan Time), Nikkei reported [J] the news with a title "US Facebook allied(Teikei, in Japanese) with Mixi, shares information on social sites". Nikkei said that Facebook announced their alliance with Mixi.

On Friday, Tokyo Stock Exchange, Mixi's stock rose 5-6 % and hovered for the full day, likely by the Nikkei's report.

By seeing how the app worked with my own accounts, I thought what the Facebook app do with Mixi are limited, and it gives advantages only for Facebook side. So I concluded (tweeted in Japanese) Facebook Japan makes this on regular Mixi's developers program which is public to anyone. (You need a Japanese cellphone to register the program but it is doable for Facebook.)

At 10:30 a.m. Morningstar Japan reported this "alliance", but also got Mixi side's comment, "(They) participate to use our API (a kind of development technology). The expression of alliance is too exaggerated". Mixi is not planning any release on this.

Most other Japanese media used the word "Renkei"(linkage, interfaced, cooperation, etc.) instead of "Teikei"(ally, affiliate, partnering, cooperation, etc.). "Renkei" means alliance but it can also mean that two things are just connected.

Probably because of Nikkei's strong influence, Mixi's stock hovered high for all Friday, to the weekend market closing. The closing quote was 468,000 yen, 28,000 yen/6.36% up. We will see if this trend continues soon on Monday morning.

If this application's link is not favored by Mixi, Mixi is possible to shut off or interfere the API usage. @agektmr gave me a good tip [J] that Facebook once shut down access to their open API from Google Friend Connect.

Tags: Japan by Akky Akimoto
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The largest mobile social network Gree announced [J] that their new GREE Connect (tentative name) platform starting this April 2010.

Mixi Appli, an OpenSocial specification based API was officially introduced [J] on the biggest social network Mixi in August 2009 after a half year closed beta.

Mobage Town by DeNA, the second mobile social network also started [J] their OpenSocial API and game API opened to third party developers in September 2009. As Mobage Town (Gree as well) is the mobile centric service, they implemented Open Social API on the limited Japanese cellphone browsers well.

After the phrase "Mixi Tsukare"(tiresome on Mixi) was said by some long term users and growth slowed, Mixi's traffic was reported to ride on upstream trend again by their Mixi Appli.

Now, all three competing social network services (none of them has been getting the dominating position if you imagine No.1 is like Facebook in many countries) can tell their developer users that they can make and possibly earn on their platform, instead of learning Facebook platform, which is not predictable to worth supporting in Japanese market at this point. The level of openness and seriousness are different among those big three, but they need to show their fighting pose against Facebook invasion.

Tags: Japan, News by Akky Akimoto
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Mixi holds "mixi Appli Conference 2009" [JP] to promote their new app service on April 23rd in Shinagawa, Tokyo.

Speakers are:

• Kenji Kasahara, CEO of Mixi Inc.
• Akinori Harada, VP, Mixi Division, of Mixi Inc.
• Koichiro Tsujino, President of Google Japan.
• Makoto Asanuma, VP of Namco Bandai Games Inc.
• Minoru Kimura, Head of Media Technology Labs at Recruit Co., Ltd.
• Jia Shen, CTO and Founder of RockYou, Inc.

Mixi has already disclosed their app service API for companies under the NDA from November 2008.

In early April, they will launch a beta version of Mixi Appli. Also they will release the API for personal developers too.

Tags: Company, Japan, News, Service by Shunichi Arai
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Japanese portal site livedoor announced today that they started a new free hosting service EDGE co. Lab.

Developers/entrepreneurs can get hosted servers from livedoor and run their web service without charge. The conditions are;

• "Powered by EDGE" must be shown somewhere on the page
• livedoor OpenID and (if possible) livedoor Auth API need to be supported on the user application

The site running on the EDGE server may get traffic livedoor portal, which is one of the Japanese portal sites chasing the giant Yahoo! Japan. livedoor portal has some competitive web services like Blog, News, Shitaraba(BBS), Cure(Cosplay social network, Engish/Japanese) and Clip(Social bookmark). The accepted websites also get scalability and server management consultation from livedoor staff.

The service could be a developers' version of good old Geocities, or Japanese friendly Google Apps Engine, YAP or Ning, with more flexible programming language choice. Sakura Internet and Agilemedia Network is offering similar service Bloglabs from blog and social media point of view, Mashupedia.jp(vector) tried to provide free web app hostings for API/Mashup fans but failed to end this spring. The portal boasting their datacentre and scalability technology joined this field will attract more individual entrepreneurs/developers who has good ideas/apps but need help on resource and promotion.

The service name "EDGE" is the word used in a company name when livedoor was founded, at that time, it was "On The Edge" and renamed it when they bought free internet provider livedoor.

Tags: Japan, New Service by Akky Akimoto
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