Japan’s Top Search Keywords in 2010 By Yahoo! Japan

It is a year-end buzzword ranking season. Yahoo! Japan, Japan’s most popular search portal, though the backend search engine has been gradually switching to Google’s one (everyday more people report that their search results are the similar with the Google’s results), eventually gets the highest number of search volume in Japanese. Yahoo! Japan just released… Continue reading Japan’s Top Search Keywords in 2010 By Yahoo! Japan

30% Japanese Sends E-Mail First To Ask If They Can Make Phone Call

Internet research company Ishare reported [J] that new phone call “manner” emerging, especially among young women in Japan. 40.7% of female and 19.9% male answered that they ask if they can call others by cellphone e-mail. (n=556) So, those people make an appointment for telephone call by e-mail. The reasons they do that are; to… Continue reading 30% Japanese Sends E-Mail First To Ask If They Can Make Phone Call

Japan’s Prime Ministar Begins Blog

Naoto Kan, Japan’s 94th prime minster who took the position this June, enters into the web by his new blog yesterday, November 18th. The blog, named “Kan-full Blog” [J] after his sirname “Kan” and an English word “full”, which shows his full efforts on communication, also has a pun meaning “camphor” to inject for “revitalizing… Continue reading Japan’s Prime Ministar Begins Blog

Google Japan Makes Comic Of Japanese Input Method Development

Google Japan publicized their “Google Japanese Imput Method (Beta) Comic” online, following to its paper version, which was presented to their developer’s event recently. This 42 pages comic by Yutanpo Shirane features some star developers in Google Japan. There are 8 chapters and each chapter has the following topic; Why Google developed and released its… Continue reading Google Japan Makes Comic Of Japanese Input Method Development

Mixi Unveils SocialPhone For Softbank’s Androids

Mixi, one of Japan’s biggest social networking services, which is the most similar with Facebook among three, announced their new smartphone application plan with the third largest cellphone carrier Softbank Mobile. The trademarked “SocialPhone” is an Android application service which utilizes phone data like phone number data with Mixi’s social graphs. The service is planned… Continue reading Mixi Unveils SocialPhone For Softbank’s Androids

Japanese Social Network Update With Quarterly Reports

The ranking by registered users keeps the same. Or, maybe DeNA is passing Mixi by population as Mixi’s number has October adding included. Gree: 22.46 million (at 2010-09-30, by 1Q report [pdf, J]) Mixi: 21.90 million (at 2010-10-31, mentioned on Socialphone release [J]) DeNA(Mobage Town): 21.67 million (at 2010-09-30, by 2Q report [pdf, J]) See… Continue reading Japanese Social Network Update With Quarterly Reports

“Zombie Japanese” – Chinese Derogatory Term Referring Japan Anthropomorphized

Like as “Jap” in some English countries, there are Chinese words for insulting Japan/Japanese. One of the popular words is Riben Guizi(日本鬼子), which means “Zombie Japanese” in Chinese (“Devil’s Children Japanese” in Japanese, slightly different). The word is often used to talk about Imperial Japan’s army during WWII, but still seen on Chinese web especially… Continue reading “Zombie Japanese” – Chinese Derogatory Term Referring Japan Anthropomorphized

October 2010 Japan IT Links (Part 3)

Continued from (Part 2). Last part of October news which we did not write as a dedicated article. Referred pages are all in Japanese, unless otherwise stated. Tsukiji Fish/Veg Auction Over Ustream Held via ITMedia Gree-DeNA Contention on Nikkei Business CyberAgent To Shut Down PoupeeBoutieuq – Facebook Version Of PoupeeGirl via Markezine Teclosion aims to… Continue reading October 2010 Japan IT Links (Part 3)

Granny’s Maid Cafe Rottenmeier Opens For A Month In Ikebukuro

Not only in the holy land Akihabara, but everywhere in Tokyo you see maid cafe. When market is competitive, some tries to be unique like in the geeky BSD daemon motif [J], dressing up in boys cloths [J], etc. Generally those shops feature youthfulness and cuteness. Ikebukuro Keizai Shimbun reported that a new variation of… Continue reading Granny’s Maid Cafe Rottenmeier Opens For A Month In Ikebukuro