Whilst US Yahoo! dumps their free web hosting service Geocities with huge number of pages painfully, semi-independent and more successful sibling Yahoo! Japan also decides and announces their a bit old-fashioned service, Yahoo! Merumaga next April.
Merumaga is abbreviation of “Mail Magazine”, which means email newsletter in Japan (the word “Nyu-su Reta-“=”newsletter” is also understandable but far less familiar in Japan). So Yahoo! Merumaga is a free e-mail newsletter distribution service (“Merumaga Sutando(stand)” in Japanese).
Yahoo! Japan’s announcement recommends their users to migrate to Magumagu, the biggest player in the field.
Magumagu prepares migration guide page for Yahoo! Merumaga users.
As same as other countries, email newsletter is becoming less popular marketing/publishing tool by emerging blog and social media. But it is still effective, especially for in-mail advertising.
Yahoo! Japan, however, has not told any plan to close Japanese Geocities.
