Month: July 2009

Japan’s Best-known Midnight Radio Program Goes Mobile

Most Japanese, who are younger than 40 years old, would have listened to this program.   “Allnight Nippon[J]“, which is aired live every midnight on Nippon Broadcasting System(NBS)[J] and its affiliate AM radio stations nationwide and has 43-year history, now goes to mobile. One of Japan’s oldest private radio broadcaster NBS and ringtone content provider Reco-choku[J]… Continue reading Japan’s Best-known Midnight Radio Program Goes Mobile

Keitai Shousetsu export: China to get 100 Japanese cell phone novels

A big web trend from Japan that gained traction in China is now poised to become even bigger: Keitai Shousetsu (cell phone novels). These novels, which are not only being read on cell phones but also written on them, are hugely popular in Japan where they are a multi-million dollar industry. Tokyo-based Digi-Book Japan (a… Continue reading Keitai Shousetsu export: China to get 100 Japanese cell phone novels

Startup Showdown: Two Business Contests Announce Finalists

A couple of tech-oriented business contests announced the finalists on Friday. At first, Tokyo-based VC firm ngi Group and online game developer Aeria[J] jointly held the 1st edition of business contest for potential student entrepreneurs, which is titled “I-SHIN” meaning revolution in Japanese. The plan entries were open from last April to last May. The… Continue reading Startup Showdown: Two Business Contests Announce Finalists

Japanese P2P Filesharing Network Being Attacked From Cloud

As same as other fields, for point-to-point(P2P) file sharing, there are Japanese counterpart of Kazaa/Limewire/Torrent. Once it was Winny, but after the developer of Winny was prosecuted for making a file sharing application which possibly leads copyrighted material distribution and the development ceased, the open source successor Share took the position of the most popular… Continue reading Japanese P2P Filesharing Network Being Attacked From Cloud

Search engine Baidu to offer e-commerce support in China for Japanese companies

Another case of Chinese and Japanese web companies shaking hands. Chinese search engine Baidu is a super-power in its home market and has, as the company’s first regular service outside of China, launched a Japanese version (Baidu.jp) back in 2007. Expectedly still struggling to gain market share from established players like Google and Yahoo, Baidu’s… Continue reading Search engine Baidu to offer e-commerce support in China for Japanese companies

Smart.fm Fundraises USD3.37M From NTT

Japanese telecom giant NTT and Cerego Japan, an owner of a UGC-based social learning site Smart.fm(previously known as iKnow!), announced both had reached the agreement of the partnership in boosting online education business.   NTT is now considering to set up a new subsidiary focusing on online education business, and will create a number of mash-up… Continue reading Smart.fm Fundraises USD3.37M From NTT

Japan’s First Android Phone HT-03A By NTT DoCoMo

Last night, before the release of the first Android phone in Japan [J], NTT DoCoMo, Google and HTC Nippon(=Japan) had a “touch and try” event with 70 bloggers at Roppongi Hills. The new phone HT-03A [J] is based on HTC Magic, with some customization for Japanese market. Japanese Input Method Omron’s iWnn is bundled. Wnn… Continue reading Japan’s First Android Phone HT-03A By NTT DoCoMo

Two Ventures Jointly Introduce E-Publishing Business Targeting Android Users

Probably this move must prepare for the market deployment of a brand new Android phone from NTT DoCoMo[J], which is scheduled to start tomorrow, Celsys, a Shinjuku-based developer of e-book online viewer, and Voyager[J], a Shibuya-based e-book and e-magazine publisher, jointly announced today they would release an online publication viewer for Android handsets on the… Continue reading Two Ventures Jointly Introduce E-Publishing Business Targeting Android Users

Ad Agency Giant Lets Publishers Digitize Their Business, Now More Than Ever

Dentsu, the world’s largest ad agency, announced today it would join forces with Yappa, an iPhone/iPod software developer which is strong in developing e-publication online reader, and launch a marketplace dealing with digital periodicals this summer.  Twenty publishers will put their thirty magazines on sale at the marketplace called Magastore[J]. Magastore uses an original DRM… Continue reading Ad Agency Giant Lets Publishers Digitize Their Business, Now More Than Ever