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DeNA Global, 100% subsidiary of DeNA, who runs Mobage Town, the Japan’s biggest mobile social networking site with casual games, started its global service MobaMingle .

DeNA Global is located in California, USA, but the MobaMingle can be accessed from 70 countries, including UK, France, Germany on cellular phone.

Access from Japan is blocked so we cannot see how it is. CNET Japan took some screenshots by finding missed block setting, but now it is mended (inaccessible).

If you can use it at http://mbmgl.com/ from your cellphone, please let us know how it is, and if you think that mobile social gaming network would be welcomed in your country.

See Also:

DeNA Press Release [J]

Tags: Cellular Phone, Japan, New Service by Akky Akimoto
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If people writes novel (ketai shosetsu) and graduation thesis (*1) on cell phone, some people must be really patient with small display and small keypad. This is another new service which was not supposed to do on cell phone, editing movie.

Softbank Creative, DeNA and Ubiquitous Entertainment launched a new service on DeNA’s huge cellular phone social network Mobage Town, named Dekodooga (Decorated Movie).

Like Decomail (Decorated Mail) makes you decorate HTML mail with texts and images, this service provides video authoring on cellular phone. Mobage Town users can cut and mix their uploading movies, photos and music. Subtext can be added, too. The edited video are posted on your diary page.

(*1) news on tabloid paper, not really confirmed

See Also:

DeNA Press Release [J]

Tags: Cellular Phone, Japan, Video by Akky Akimoto
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The Japanese government is planning to legislate regulations of “harmful” Internet content. Now, Liberal Democratic Party’s Sanae Takaichi is preparing to pass an Internet censorship law.

Now several groups are acting against the legislation.

Microsoft, Yahoo, Rakuten, DeNA, and NetStar made an official statement against the legislation. One of the leaders of this action is Masanori Kusunoki (@masanork or mkusunok at hatena, both in JP), a deputy CTO of Microsoft KK.

MiAU (JP) (Movement for the Internet Active Users) is a vocal political NPO acting against the abuse of copyrights and Internet censorship. They are acting against the law too.

WIDE project made a statement in English too. WIDE is a leading Internet research group in Japan.

Tags: Community, Japan by Shunichi Arai
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January 18th, Tokyo - DeNA, a company which runs Mobage town, will establish a subsidiary in the states. “DeNA Global,Inc.” will be located in California, supposedly San Francisco Bayarea. They will launch a US version of their very profitable mobile business there.

Also they revised upward their net profit forecast from 4.5 billion to 6.3 billion. The revenue and operating profit forcased was revised from 25.5 billion to 29.0 billion yen, and 9.0 billion to 12.5 billion yen, respectively.

See Also:

1. Our Mobage Article

Tags: Company, Japan, News by Shunichi Arai
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Mobage town has been started in 2006 by Tomoko Namba, a Mckinsey alumna. “Mobage town” is short for “mobile game town”. So, Mobage provides numerous small games and a social network service for mobile phone users. Essentially users are using Mobage as a social network service.

The service has 7.4 million registered users and 13 billion page views per month. 47% of users are teenagers. 37% of users are in their twenties.

Mobage has a very clever growth/revenue model. Each user has an avatar. Avatar needs to be clothed. Clothings can be bought with a virtual money called ‘Mobagold’. Users can obtain Mobagold by registering to adviterser’s services. Its business model is similar to Korean network game site ‘Han game’.

Namba started a company ‘DeNA’ in 1999 as an Internet auction service company. Soon, Yahoo! Japan became a clear winner in Japanese Internet auction market. Her company experienced a long slump. In 2005, DeNA gained a certain success with mobile commerce services, and successfully IPOed to Tokyo stock market.

Mobage’s huge success boosted the company’s profit. DeNA’s revenue reached 14 billion yen, and a profit is 2.5 billion yen.

See also:

1. Company’s site (in English)
2. Mobage town article with screen shots (in Japanese)

DeNA:

• Type: public (JP:2432)
• Founded: Mar. 1999
• Went public: Feb. 2005
• Sales: 14 billion yen ($129 million)
• Profit: 2.5 billion yen ($23 million)
• Employee: 415
• People: CEO, Tomoko Namba

Tags: Japan, Service by Shunichi Arai
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