Japanese Government Opens Social Media(=Twitter) Guide Site For Public Organizations

Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry(METI) opened “Public Organization Social Media Portal” [J] to educate national governmental sections and local governments on how to utilize social media. The portal shows several guidelines for 1. citizens to see social media and 2. government workers to send information via social media. Interesting thing is, on this… Continue reading Japanese Government Opens Social Media(=Twitter) Guide Site For Public Organizations

Public Service AC Commercial Buzz Pulls More Parody Videos

We reported that placeholder public service commercial buzzed crazy a week after the Eastern Japan Disasters. This AC commercial film parodies have been being added more and more. Each of cartoon character on the original ads calling people in society to greet and care each other, now has its own derivative works by mainly users… Continue reading Public Service AC Commercial Buzz Pulls More Parody Videos

Gourmet Innovation Launches Donation Program For Serving Ramen Meals To Disaster Victims

Many years ago, I watched a TV commercial of UK automaker Rover Company, saying there would be nothing to proudly introduce in UK other than Rover and fish & chips.   Similarly, average Japanese are not able to have pleasant days without curry rice nor ramen noodles. Gourmet Innovation[J], a Tokyo-based start-up operating an e-commerce site… Continue reading Gourmet Innovation Launches Donation Program For Serving Ramen Meals To Disaster Victims

9leap: D2C And UEI Launch Program For Young Smartphone Game Creators

Do you know a student in Japan who is under 25 years of age and who can create cool smartphone games? If yes, 9leap, a new program that just launched, might be of interest to you. 9leap is the brain child of Tokyo-based D2 Communications (D2C) – a joint venture between Dentsu and NTT Docomo… Continue reading 9leap: D2C And UEI Launch Program For Young Smartphone Game Creators

Goo To End RSS Reader And Movie Sharing Service

Goo, a Japanese web portal run by NTT Resonant, a group company of NTT, announced to terminate their two sub services. Goo RSS Reader All variations of Goo’s RSS Readers, web reader [J], Windows application version and Japanese cellphone version will be discontinued [J]. PC and mobile web versions will stop on May 31, 2011.… Continue reading Goo To End RSS Reader And Movie Sharing Service

NHK’s Weather Character Haruchan(@nhk_haruchan) Starts Tweeting

Haruchan (Haru=Spring, chan=casual form of san, honorific title) is a popular personified Spring character on public broadcast TV NHK’s prime time weather news program. She was made by anthropomorphizing high pressure system in Spring weather. Here is a sample of the weather report program, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mu6f4CDix7U On April 4, this virtual character girl began Twitter [J]… Continue reading NHK’s Weather Character Haruchan(@nhk_haruchan) Starts Tweeting

Nifty To Shut Off Podcasting Juice, A Podcasting Portal

Nifty [J], a Fujitsu-affiliated internet service provider/web portal, announced that they are going to close their podcast portal. Podcasting Juice [J] by Nifty is one of the popular podcasting portal began in July 2005 in Japan. The service was announced to be terminated on September 30th 2011. Nifty said that it is difficult to keep… Continue reading Nifty To Shut Off Podcasting Juice, A Podcasting Portal

DeNA And CyberAgent To Start Joint Smartphone Ads Network For Mobage/Ameba

DeNA announced that CyberAgent and they are to established a new joint venture company at the end of April. The company will form an ads network for smartphone since May. CyberAgent will own 51%, DeNA 49%. DeNA holds 24.48 million social network users on Mobage and Yahoo! Mobage, Cyber Agent has 13 million users on… Continue reading DeNA And CyberAgent To Start Joint Smartphone Ads Network For Mobage/Ameba

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son Donates $120 million In Quake Aid, Live On Ustream

SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son is known to like to think big, and the announcement he made today is no exception: Son said that he will donate a total of 10 billion yen ($120 million) of his personal money to the victims of the quake and tsunami that hit Japan on March 11. Son made the… Continue reading SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son Donates $120 million In Quake Aid, Live On Ustream

Bukupe: Might A Book Curation Site Be Alternative To Skim-Reading?

City dwellers are busy every day.   They don’t have much time for reading books.   E-books make you possible to enjoy reading without stopping by at bookstores.   Skim reading, speed reading, anything else? Bukupe[J], named after ‘book encyclopedia’, just unveiled a book curation service on Friday, which allows you to write abstracts for books you’ve… Continue reading Bukupe: Might A Book Curation Site Be Alternative To Skim-Reading?