Shunichi Arai

Demae-can – online catering site

Demae-can (JP) is a comprehensive online catering and food delivery service. You can order pizza, sushi, or Joe the Plumber from your web browser. Demae-can has contracts with national chains as well as many small independent restaurants. You can use Demae-can throughout Japan. Orders are sent to the restaurants by fax. So, small restaurant owners… Continue reading Demae-can – online catering site

Oishiku Henkan (yummy converter) makes your food image yummier

Oishiku Henkan (lit. Yummy Converter) is a web service which adjust automatically a color balance of an uploaded JPEG image of food to make the food image look yummier. It’s a very simple service, but the result is quite impressive. I tried with a picture of my own, and it has improved very much. Note:… Continue reading Oishiku Henkan (yummy converter) makes your food image yummier

CiFTR – a work shift management software

CiFTR (JP) (pronounced as shifter) is a software to manage a complicated work shift of part time employees. In Japanese restaurant industry, most waiting staffs are part-time workers with a complicated work shift. So, work shift management could be a real headache for managers. CiFTR enables part-time workers to request their desired work shift by… Continue reading CiFTR – a work shift management software

Register for Open Web Asia ’08!

Open Web Asia ’08 is just two week ahead. Don’t forget to register and attend! Now, our registration form is much improved. If you had any problem to register before, please try again with our new form by Amiando. Open Web Asia is a rare occassion for Asian Web industry people to gather in one… Continue reading Register for Open Web Asia ’08!

A report of ESPer2008 conference

ESPer2008 conference has been held with 100+ attendees in Shinagawa, Tokyo at 14th September 2008. ESPer is a conference held by alumni of the Mitoh software grant (Exploratory Software Project) (in English). The Mitoh is a grant by Japanese government which is given to individual software developers. There are around thousand Mitoh alumni in Japan… Continue reading A report of ESPer2008 conference

Two Japanese startups launch at TechCrunch50

OpenTrace is a service that “Traces items through the supply chain and adds them together to show the impact of products on the environment” (from TechCrunch). OpenTrace is run by Rinen Inc, which is owned by Hirofumi Manganji and Hiroaki Shimachi. Rinen has received a Japanese government grant called Exploratory Software Project which is given… Continue reading Two Japanese startups launch at TechCrunch50

Cookpad – the number one recipe site

Cookpad is the biggest recipe site in Japan, and has 416,000 recipes on the site. Alexa shows that Cookpad has a higher rating than Food Network or AllRecipes (with 40,000 recipes). Cookpad has 4.5 million unique visitors per month, and 280 million page views per month. Ofcourse, recipes are posted by users. Unlike other recipe… Continue reading Cookpad – the number one recipe site

Hatsugen komachi – an anonymous online forum for women

In Japan, 2channel (2ch) is the biggest anonymous online forum, and they are very notorious for its unregulated contents. Hatsugen komachi (Komachi) is another huge anonymous online forum with 100 million page views per month. Komachi is operated by the world’s largest newspaper company Yomiuri-shimbun. Unlike 2ch, it’s moderated by operators. Still words are not… Continue reading Hatsugen komachi – an anonymous online forum for women

Open Web Asia ’08 conference announced

Open Web Asia ’08 conference has been announced to be held on 14th October 2008 in Seoul, Korea. 後ろに日本語の案内があります。 — “The first pan-Asia web technology event bringing together executives, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists from throughout Asia” October 14 2008, Sheraton Grande Walkerhill, Seoul, Korea in association with the 9th World Knowledge Forum Open Web Asia… Continue reading Open Web Asia ’08 conference announced