Like US Google featuring Lady Gaga and Justin Bieber, Google Japan chose the most popular singer on Japanese web, virtual singing tool Hatsune Miku, a 61 seconds video which praises all involved creators.

The playing count does not move up from 309, which might be from Japanese word-play 3(=Mi) 9(=ku). You may check the stats of the video and see it is played heavily now in Japan.

Unofficial home ground of Hatsune Miku movement Nico Nico Douga, from where most of videos really come, does not appear in the video, probably because YouTube is a competitor of Nico Nico Douga in Japan.

" Hatsune Miku " is a virtual singer who can sing any song that anybody composes.

It has made a massive impact on all creators through the web.
They, inspired by her songs, have published their original works
not only in the field of music, but in illustration, video,
CG, cosplay, live performance and dance.

Besides over 30,000 original tracks, many more works are
still being released over the web.

Feel the possibilities of the web through the social phenomenon caused by million craetors.

"Tell Your World" / livetune feat. Hatsune Miku
Lyrics・Music: kz

　Grasp the phrase I happen to be humming
　Spread secret words of the heart into the sky

　I want to tell you
　I want to give you
　Nodes of feelings forms a link
　Connecting everything. Connecting to everywhere

This film was created with the support of CRYPTON FUTURE MEDIA Inc,
SEGA, and many creators and fans from all around the world.

See Also:

Asiajin » Computer-Synthesized Vocal Album Tops The Japanese Chart First In History

Asiajin » tagged articles with Hatsune Miku

Google Chrome: Lady Gaga for Japan

Google Chrome: Justin Bieber for Japan

Tags: Japan, Marketing by Akky Akimoto
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Minna no Business Online (=business for everyone online) is a newly released web hosting service by Google in Japan, today on September 13 2011.

The site is, very different from typical Google web services, not under google domains but have its own jp domain (minbiz.jp), designed with vivid red, like the color which is used by the nation's largest e-commerce mall Rakuten [J].

Features they post on the top page are:

• Easy for everyone to build
• Free for 1 year
• Specialized designs for many industry categories
• Your own domain

On your registration, you will be asked a new domain name you want to use, from the selection of ".jp", ".com", ".net", ".org", ".biz" and ".info", which covers most top level domains Japanese companies usually choose.

You may choose about 100 different designs from 14 categories of industry. At the end of registration process, you need to receive an automatic phone call to get authenticated (that you are a real shop owner).

Google's motivations for the service seem on 2 points. Firstly, this service will start charging after 1 year, for example with ".jp" domain, 1,470 yen (US$19) per month. The other part is the site guides the new website owners to its advertising platform, AdWords.

Google's commercial film is up on YouTube,

"Free website building in 15 minutes"

The partner page shows that Google Japan is collaborating with some others. KDDI, 2nd largest cellphone carrier, and its subsidiary KDDI Communications who has been running website builder/hosting Jimdo in Japan. Actually, design choosing form on the Minbiz's registration process is on Jimdo site.

Extra-governmental Organization for Small & Medium Enterprises and Regional Innovation and NPO IT Coordinators Association [J] are also on the partners list.

The first case studies are introduced on the site. There Google took a small island Kouzusima, and let some small business owners make their first websites.

via Google Japan Blog

Tags: Japan, New Service by Akky Akimoto
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Google Japan launches a new service "Chrome Music Mixer" [J] to promote Google Chrome browser.

# may only play inside Japan

You may choose four tracks of music video from a lot of prepared sessions, let them play on four YouTube windows.

Step 1: choose the main track from five - telephone talk, steel pans, string quartet, human beatbox and bluesharp

Step 2: choose the rest three tracks from 17 choices from regular instruments like guitar/drums/flute/keyboard/etc. to skateboard, baloons, rice-frying sound.

Step 3: Name it, then play!

Here is my Asiajin mix "Happy Birthday" with human beatbox, baloons, skateboard and fried rice making sound.

Caution: As Google Japan says, it is recommended to play the four-YouTube music with over 20 Mbps bandwidth, Flash Player version 10 on major browsers.

The service is on http://www.morewithgoogle.jp/, which promotes Google services to Japanese users with videos.

Tags: Japan by Akky Akimoto
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Koichiro Tsujino, who served as Google Japan's president, which was an exceptional position in Google, resigned this April, has just begun his new venture, Alex [J].

On the Alex's board member, there is an interesting name, ex-Sony CEO Nobuyuki Idei (cf. Forbes). Tsujino led VAIO and other products in Sony before Google.

On the new company site, Tsujino tells [J],

Alex Corporation is established to provide new value from Japan to the world. There are prominent human resources, ideas, concepts, design, technologies, products, culture and habits in Japan. It is huge loss for all human beings that those excellent things are only available domestically. Our mission is to produce those great Japanese assets as a global business, by fully utilizing benefits coming from the Internet.

It is hard to see what business they are going to do from the site, but they use words like "tangible device", "deliver Japanese great ideas and culture to the world" and "cloud".

The book "Sony Taught Me Everything Needed For Working At Google"

"Gu-guru de Hitsuyou na Koto ha, Min'na Sonny ga Oshie te kure ta" is a new book authored by Tsujino, published last week November 22nd. According to Amazon's description, he retrospects his 22 years in Sony and 3 years in Google on the book.

The book is hitting stores and Tsujino showed [J] that it is ranked at the second most sold business book in a certain bookstore, just after the all-year bestseller “What if the Female Manager of a High-School Baseball Team read Drucker's 'Management'” (see Economist if you feels WTF).

via @digitalbear's tweet

Tags: Japan, News by Akky Akimoto
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Google Japan publicized their "Google Japanese Imput Method (Beta) Comic" online, following to its paper version, which was presented to their developer's event recently.

This 42 pages comic by Yutanpo Shirane features some star developers in Google Japan.

There are 8 chapters and each chapter has the following topic;

1. Why Google developed and released its own Japanese input method system
2. Design concept: multi-platform, speed, security and stability
3. Architecture: zero-based design, modular design, dictionary data compression, seamless software update
4. Security: sandbox process
5. Dictionary: made from their search index
6. Conversion Engine Tuning: rank possible words choice by popularity on the web
7. Suggestion: algorithm and interface for better word suggestion
8. Misc: key bind customization, quality assurance, feedback system

Overall, the comic is for engineers, or at least people who do not dislike technical talk. It often emphasizes that Google Japan does not collect information over the internet to identify which user typed what text.

When Google released a comic to introduce Google Chrome, Google Japan made a different Japanese version with the same cartoonist as this time.

Probably Google Japan thought the original U.S. cartoon would not be accepted well in this comic country, however, this Yutanpo Shirane's tone and the comic going from left-to-right (opposite direction of most Japanese manga) look not a typical Japanese manga but rather close to American comics for me.

Tags: Japan by Akky Akimoto
3 Comments »