Entries Tagged as 'Social Network'

Mixi Closes “Mixi Video” And “Mixi Coworker’s Network”


mixi, Inc. [J] has announced the termination of service for “mixi coworker’s network” and mixi video [J] on the SNS “mixi.”

Service for “Mixi coworker’s network” began in June of 2010, and it allows you to find coworkers who register their place of work at the same company as yourself.  Also, “Mixi video” is Mixi’s own video sharing function which opened in February of 2007, and it allowed users to upload videos and paste them onto their profile or diary entries.  However according to the company, because both services are falling short of their expectations for user numbers, they came to the conclusion that they should focus their attentions on other communication services and bring these to a close.  “Mixi coworker’s network” will close service on May 23rd (Thurs.), and “Mixi video” will halt new video posts from May 23rd and terminate service at the end of July.  Also, from June (planned), they will offer a service that allows download of posted video data.

Translation authorized by VSMedia

Tags: Japan, VSMedia by samueljlilly
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Ameba Pigg In Collaboration With GUCCI! Official Goods Sold



Cyber Agent’s [J] 2D virtual space “Ameba Pigg” has begun a collaboration with fashion brand GUCCI.  Presently within Ameba Pigg’s “Ginza Main Street Area,” GUCCI has opened a virtual shop.

This collaboration’s planned period is limited until GUCCI’s 90th anniversary commemoration on October 17th.  During this period, actual GUCCI items that have been sold until now are sold in the virtual currency “AmeGold”as a motif for virtual items used for avatars.  Presently the items being sold are as follow:

GUCCI hat / 2 colors 1,000 AmeG each
GUCCI T-shirt / wh  250 AmeG
GUCCI craft bag  1,800 AmeG
GUCCI sneakers  700 AmeG
GUCCI shoes  500 AmeG  *Ladies only
In addition, more item types are planned to be added.

GUCCI 90thAnniversary Special Relay Blog!
http://ameblo.jp/guccijp/


Ameba Pigg official guide book [J]


The Apple of Happiness – The True Story of Ameba Pigg [J]

Translation licensed by VSMedia [J]

Tags: Japan, News by Chiho Komoriya
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BREAKING: DeNA Officially Launches Mobage to All English Speaking Countries and China



In a truly global rollout, DeNA has just announced that Mobage social games platform for Android has just been released in English-speaking countries around the world as well as China.

Mobage is immediately available for download on Android in these markets, with more than 100 game titles currently in development for English-speaking markets. DeNA aims to deliver a constant supply of socially enabled games, many debuting on Android for the very first time.

For China, Mobage has introduced two popular Japanese social game apps localized for the Chinese market including Ninja Royale and Aqua Collection, with eight more games to follow by the end of August.

Since the arms race of partnerships and acquisitions by DeNA and Gree of international gaming platforms late last year, we have been eagerly awaiting to see both companies make major advances to align strategy, resources, and technology to push their brands globally forward. It would seem that this announcement by DeNA means the first major step forward into the global market since their acquisition of ngmoco:) in October of last year.

Mobage Android apps are developed using ngmoco’s ngCore game engine, allowing developers to release games across different devices and regions from a single source code.

The full Mobage ecosystem will be supported for these markets, including the social networking capabilities to communicate and meet like-minded players, developer support, and advertising network.

Tags: Japan by Dominic K. Gallello
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Yahoo! Japan To End Social Network Yahoo! Days


Yahoo! Japan announced [J] that they would cease a social networking service Yahoo! Days on October 3, 2011. On July 6, most of activities around messages, photos and community will be disabled.

My page above showed me no recent diaries and messages of friends…

Yahoo! Days, which started in February 2006 as Yahoo! 360°, the same name as U.S. Yahoo!’s social network, was renamed to Yahoo! Days on July 31, 2006.

For current users, Yahoo! Japan will provide two assistance,

Japan’s No.1 Social Network – Gree And Mobage Town Competes


At the beginning of February, two of Japanese social networking giants, Gree and DeNA(Mobage Town company) released quarterly financial reports.

Gree’s 2011-2Q report [J] showed its sales record, 14.32 billion yen(US$175 mil), 83% of which is from virtual items. It is the historic high.

DeNA 2011-3Q [J] also recorded their highest 29.49 billion yen(US$361 mil) sales, 153% increased.

Who is the most popular social network service in Japan?

The major three services have been racing on their number of registered users, and now it is difficult to tell which is the biggest. All three can tell they are the No.1.

Gree: On the report, 23.83 million users is the largest number among all. They keep the top position since they snatched it from long-time champion Mixi in July 2010. From this, you may tell that Gree is No.1.

Mobage Town: DeNA sums up their original, mobile-only network Mobage Town and Yahoo! Mobage, recently launched PC-based new network with Yahoo! Japan. Yahoo! Mobage got 2 million users within half an year and if you count them into Mobage users, the total 24.48 million is 650,000 more than Gree’s number.

Gree’s membership includes their unpopular PC version users (only 1% of traffic comes from PC), but Gree user can access both version by single account. DeNA seems not exclude people who registered both Mobage Town and Yahoo! Mobage.

Mixi: The latest number has not been announced by Mixi so the today’s plot on the graph is an expected number. It was 21.9 milliion in October, seems increasing steadily.

[Update 2011-02-04] Mixi’s 3Q report [J] has come. Their official number of users is 22.39 million, at the end of December. It should be very close to the number of Mobage Town’s mobile users now. Mixi possibly ranked down, or will be down soon at the third place even without Yahoo! Mobage.

If you count on PC, Mixi is still the largest social network service in Japan. The services which can not track Japanese feature phone traffic, like Alexa, ComScore and Google Trends for Websites, are showing Mixi is leading a lot. (That is why I said that The World Map of Social Networks should set Mixi as the top as it is PC based research.)

See Also:

Facebook is sidelined in Japan as social network battle heats up | The Japan Times Online

Social gaming frenzy sees two Godzillas play rough | The Japan Times Online

Tags: Japan, News by Akky Akimoto
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