Mixi, one of Japan’s largest social networks and a direct competitor to Facebook, announced [J] a new alliance on January 20 with German company Vznet Netzwerke. Mixi says that both companies will standardize their social application platforms to enable third-party social application providers to run their applications on both networks. Mixi announced the same type… Continue reading Mixi Partners With German Social Network VZ
Month: January 2011
January 2011 Japan IT Links (Part 2)
Continued from (Part 1). Middle part of January news which we did not write as a dedicated article. Continued to (Part 3) Referred pages are all in Japanese, unless otherwise stated. Weekly Diamond To Feature Facebook, Run The Same Icon Campaign As Their Twitter Featuring Issue Last January Piku Issues Their Rule On Flash Coupon… Continue reading January 2011 Japan IT Links (Part 2)
Japan Railway GPS Challenge Requires Users To Visit Bullet Train Stations Nationwide
Railway heavyweight JR (Japan Railway), which was the national railway until privatization in 1987, has begun a new promotion for its high-speed ‘shinkansen’ (bullet train) network using a GPS location game. All six of the JR passengers companies, spread from Hokkaido to Kyushu, are involved in “Nihon Rettou Judan, Challenge Shinkansen” [J] (Bullet Train Challenge… Continue reading Japan Railway GPS Challenge Requires Users To Visit Bullet Train Stations Nationwide
Livlis: Twitter-Based Barter Service
It’s no secret anymore that Japan loves Twitter, and as such, there’s a whole bunch of Twitter-based services coming out of Japan. One of these is a new site called Livlis, which lets users list up stuff they are willing to give away (computers, books, cell phones and other things). Other users can indicate their… Continue reading Livlis: Twitter-Based Barter Service
Say Media To Sell Six Apart Japan And The Brand To Infocom
Six Apart Japan, a 100% subsidiary of Say Media, who bought a blog service company Six Apart (U.S.) in September 2010, announced [J] that the whole stock of the company will be sold from Say Media to a Japanese company Infocom soon. According to the announcement, Six Apart Japan takes the “Six Apart” trademark, keeps… Continue reading Say Media To Sell Six Apart Japan And The Brand To Infocom
Homunculus: The Car Becomes More ‘You’
Yoichi Ochiai and Keisuke Toyoshima from Tsukuba University developed a car with facial expression – convey your driving intentions and emotions over the car, to communicate with other drivers and around. Humans and vehicles can be unified as one unit by Homunculus. It is based on a new concept of interactions between humans and vehicles.… Continue reading Homunculus: The Car Becomes More ‘You’
Listagram And Instastream – Two Instagram Mash-ups From Japan
Listagram is an unofficial Instagram related site by Kotaro Chiba, which lists up Instagram photos by specific user. Giving a single URL of the Instagram photo will show the set of photos by the user. You need to set profile if you want to be searched on it. RSS feed will be generated so you… Continue reading Listagram And Instastream – Two Instagram Mash-ups From Japan
15 New Games: GREE Beefs Up Smartphone Offering
Another day, another GREE-related news item on Asiajin. Today, it’s about GREE’s web site for smartphones for which new games by third-party developers have been added. If you access GREE through an iPhone or Android handset, you’re now able to play a total of 15 games from twelve different companies (full list in Japanese here).… Continue reading 15 New Games: GREE Beefs Up Smartphone Offering
Tokyo Parking Machine As Seen From Onboard Camera
photo © 2005 shibainu | more info (via: Wylio) Roppongi Hills is a central Tokyo landmark, and is well-known as the preferred office location for many top IT companies in Tokyo. Current tenants include Google Japan and Gree, and the likes of Yahoo! Japan, Livedoor, and Rakuten have all had their head offices there in… Continue reading Tokyo Parking Machine As Seen From Onboard Camera
For $26 Million: GREE Acquires Mobile Ad Startup Atlantis
M&A-related news are relatively rare in Japan’s startup scene, but today we can report that mobile social gaming juggernaut GREE has acquired Tokyo-based ad exchange service Atlantis for 2.2 billion yen ($26 million). The company will be turned into a GREE subsidiary. Big G says that the acquisition marks their entry into the mobile/smartphone ad… Continue reading For $26 Million: GREE Acquires Mobile Ad Startup Atlantis