30 Months in Prison for Livedoor Founder Horiemon

The Japanese business world lit abuzz yesterday as it was announced that the former head Livedoor, Takafumi Horie, had his appeal rejected by the Japanese Supreme Court, thereby finalizing his conviction for accounting fraud issued 4 years ago. Takafumi Horie, or Horiemon as he is popularly known for his resemblance to the manga character Doraemon,… Continue reading 30 Months in Prison for Livedoor Founder Horiemon

NCC 2011 Spring: How The Net Behaves When The Earthquake Hit Japan?

Digital Garage, Japan’s Internet conglomerate known for operating price comparison portal Kakaku.com and helping Twitter’s business operation, held a semiyearly conference event last week, which is called the New Context Conference 2011 Spring, where Japanese well-known tech investor Joi Ito and the world’s Internet authorities came together, most of whom have expertise in social media,… Continue reading NCC 2011 Spring: How The Net Behaves When The Earthquake Hit Japan?

5,000 Yen($60) To Enable Twitter On Your Smartphone

A cellphone shop in Yokohama offers a service to set up your smartphone for tweeting by 5,000 yen, @poppo1028 reported. Twitter and other social media has been getting more and more attentions on TV, newspaper and magazines after the Eastern Japan earthquake. Both good side and bad side of social media at disasters were reported,… Continue reading 5,000 Yen($60) To Enable Twitter On Your Smartphone

Gree acquires OpenFeint for $104 million as part of global expansion

Gree, Japan’s social gaming giant, announced today that it has acquired social platform OpenFeint for $104 million USD. OpenFeint ‘s social platform for iPhone and Android allows developers to add social elements to existing games with minimal programming. This low barrier to entry has accelerated its growth since its founding in 2009, now boasting a catalogue of over… Continue reading Gree acquires OpenFeint for $104 million as part of global expansion

Twitter Appoints Japan’s Country Manager

On Japanese official blog, Twitter announced that they have had a country manager of Japan, first corporation manager outside of US. The blog is usually written in Japanese, but this one was both in Japanese and in English. A Welcome to Twitter Japan’s Country Manager I couldn’t be happier to announce that James Kondo (@jameskondo)… Continue reading Twitter Appoints Japan’s Country Manager

enchant.js: New HTML5/JavaScript Game Engine For Smartphones

Tokyo-based Ubiquitous Entertainment (UEI) announced [JP] “enchant.js” yesterday, an HTML5/JavaScript game engine for smartphones (and PCs). The engine is available in beta, it’s open source (dual license MIT or GPL on github), and entirely free to use. UEI says their aim with the release of the engine is to motivate young people in particular to… Continue reading enchant.js: New HTML5/JavaScript Game Engine For Smartphones

Study: Post-Quake Sales Of Japanese Group-Buying Sites Down 36%

What’s the overall size of Japan’s market for online group-buying sites? Tokyo-based Luxa (which runs one of these sites/more info here) regularly issues reports on the domestic industry as a whole. And according to their latest study, the quake and tsunami that hit Japan on March 11 had a rather large negative effect on the… Continue reading Study: Post-Quake Sales Of Japanese Group-Buying Sites Down 36%

Facebook Japan Paused Growth By Earthquake, But Gains Back From… China?

At the beginning of April, I was almost writing up an article about how the Eastern Japan earthquake affected social media battle. Since the end of 2010, Japanese traditional media had been in great favor of Facebook as “the next big thing from US”. Their endless coverage was very similar with what was done with… Continue reading Facebook Japan Paused Growth By Earthquake, But Gains Back From… China?

Rakuten Releases Android App

Rakuten, huge Japanese online shopping mall company, launched a free Android App following to an iPhone app in February. The Android app has a barcode reader function, with which customers can scan any products and get the sellers pages on Rakuten website.

Teclosion 2011 Spring: Wondershake Wins The Grand Prix Among 15 Finalists

Design IT[J], a Tokyo-based UI-focused media consultancy also known for previously maintaining TechCrunch’s Japanese edition (its management was switched to AOL earlier this month[J]), held the first conference in Akihabara on Friday, for discussing the future of Japan tech industry and introducing great start-up stuffs. In the morning session, CEOs from Mixi, GMO Internet Group,… Continue reading Teclosion 2011 Spring: Wondershake Wins The Grand Prix Among 15 Finalists