Daum Mobage – DeNA’s Social Game Platform To Be Provided In Korea

DeNA announced today that DeNA’s Korean subsidiary DeNA Seoul and Popular Korean Internet portal Daum [Kr] agreed to provide Korean version of its social game platform Mobage to 38 million Daum users. The release date will be targeted in 2011 4Q for smartphone users. In Japan, DeNA has been cooperating with the nation’s largest portal… Continue reading Daum Mobage – DeNA’s Social Game Platform To Be Provided In Korea

Girl’s Kaomoji Jiten 5000 – Free Massive Japanese Emoticon Dictionary For Android/iOS

Girl’s Kaomoji Jiten 5000 (Facial-expression Words Dictionary 5000) by Pedigree(Android)/ADandD(iOS) is a free smartphone application from which you can copy over 5,000 Japanese-style text drawings Kaomoji to decorate your message. Those 5,000 facial expressions are categorized into 10; Greetings Happiness Sadness Action Talk Anger/Argument Love/Friendship Life Special occasion/Weather Animals/Characters Each category has many sub-categories. Here… Continue reading Girl’s Kaomoji Jiten 5000 – Free Massive Japanese Emoticon Dictionary For Android/iOS

GuruNavi Compromises With Users’ Review, In Competition Against Tabelog

Asahi reported that the popular online restaurant site Gurunabi (Japanre abbrev. of “Groumet Navigator”) opened a new page showing the ranking of restaurants by score of users’ review. Gurunabi is an information site where restaurants pay for their shops listed, and the site had been the champion of restaurant guide sites for years until its… Continue reading GuruNavi Compromises With Users’ Review, In Competition Against Tabelog

NHN Japan, Naver Japan and Livedoor To Be A Single Company, NHN Japan

NHN Japan and its subsidiaries Naver Japan and Livedoor announced [J] today that it would merge three companies into one, new NHN Japan on January 1, 2012. According to ComScore, the whole NHN Japan group is getting 43.08 million unique users’ visit monthly. The group has been enhancing its smartphone support, and the total number… Continue reading NHN Japan, Naver Japan and Livedoor To Be A Single Company, NHN Japan

No. Of Japanese Startup Funds Exceeds Last Year In 9 Months

Japan Venture Research Report said [J] that the venture capital funds for start-ups are established 17 from January to September 2011, which is already more than 2010’s 15. The funds investing IT are 8 in 2011(by September), whilst 4 in 2010. The report tells that in 2011, there have been more small sized funds observed,… Continue reading No. Of Japanese Startup Funds Exceeds Last Year In 9 Months

Japan’s Web News Week 44

This week’s Japanese Web/IT related news which we did not write as a dedicated article. # tried to make this unwritten-links posts be weekly, from three times per month. Referred pages are all in Japanese, unless otherwise stated. Zero Reflextion Glass by Nippon Electric Glass Enterbrain’s Social Game Users Research Tells Japanese Market Grows 4.4… Continue reading Japan’s Web News Week 44

One Man’s Karaoke Box “Hitori Karaoke” Appears In Tokyo

Koshidaka, a company runs 317 karaoke shops all around Japan (and one oversea, in Korea), foretold that it would open a new category business “Hitori Karaoka”(one man’s karaoka) at Kanda, Tokyo around the end of this month, November 2011. Different from many other countries where Karaoke means singing in a bar in front of other… Continue reading One Man’s Karaoke Box “Hitori Karaoke” Appears In Tokyo

Yokohama DeNA Bay Stars – DeNA(Mobage) Agrees To Purchase Pro Baseball Team

DeNA just announced [J] that it had submitted an application on acquisition of pro-baseball team Yokohama Bay Stars from current owner Tokyo Broadcasting System(TBS) group to Nippon Professional Baseball Organization (NPB). DeNA is to pay 6.5 billion yen (US$83.3 million) for 66.92% stock of the team, and will pay 3 billion yen (US$38) to NPB… Continue reading Yokohama DeNA Bay Stars – DeNA(Mobage) Agrees To Purchase Pro Baseball Team

Gree Starts Investment On East/South East Asian Start-ups

Japan’s social game networking service giant Gree announced today November 2 that it had established a new invest subsidiary Gree Ventures. Gree Ventures is going to form GV-I Investment Partnership, which is planned to invest (tantative) 2 billion yen (US$25.6 million) in total. GREE to Begin Investing in Southeast and East Asia – Plans to… Continue reading Gree Starts Investment On East/South East Asian Start-ups

Microsoft Japan Windows DSP Campaign Comes With Its Anime Poster Girl Nanami Madobe

Microsoft Japan’s Winter campaign of Windows Ultimate DSP version [J] comes with Deanne Cheuk design Touch Mouse and its official poster character Nanami Madobe. Nanami Madobe (Madobe Nanami in Japanese name order) was originally an unofficial character appeared from an Akihabara shop, became an official later before Cloud girl and Hyper-V girl. Nanami is from… Continue reading Microsoft Japan Windows DSP Campaign Comes With Its Anime Poster Girl Nanami Madobe