The Tokyo-based mobile app start-up YouMind[J] launched last Friday the free mobile service called Hitomebo[J], which allows you to record where and when you have seen cute girls or handsome boys and fallen in love, just only with a GPS-compatible mobile phone.
One of the the company’s directors experienced to see a cute girl in his commute, but he was too shy to hit on her in a crowded train. His extreme regret led to the birth of the company’s innovation. CEO Kentaro Takeda emphasizes it is not a dating site, probably for preventing it from being seen as the object to which the dating site regulation act is applied (see this Shunichi Arai’s article for the act). In case that someone reports to have witnessed you as a lover candidate, the system can identify both sides by the time and location attributes reported, and both of you will be notified so and have ways to get in touch each other. When the system detects the second guy beside a girl having the same attribute to yours, it will warn you of a rival’s presence.
The company intends to earn revenue from ads to be placed in the e-mail newsletter to the registered users, as well as derivative services based on the geographical statistics accumulated from the user behaviors collected. It is expected to engage more than 5,000 male and female users in the highly populated Tokyo area.
YouMind is also well known for developing the mobile game app[J] featuring Robert Kiyosaki’s Rich Dad, Poor Dad series. It is headquartered in the fashionably sophisticated town of Daikanyama, which is located near Shibuya and Ebisu where many tech start-up companies are concentrated.
The name of Hitomebo comes from Hitomebore, meaning “falling in love at first sight” in Japanese, which is also used for branding a popular rice cultivar[J] in the country.
Masaru IKEDA