Japan has quite a few “social drawing services” that let users upload self-drawn images and connect with each other. But Pixiv is the biggest of them all. The eponymous company behind the service has announced that Pixiv hit 3 million members on March 29. The number of users doubled since January last year, when we… Continue reading Social Illustration Service Pixiv Hits 3 Million Members
Author: Serkan Toto
Wiki Covering 11 Countries: Digital Media Across Asia
Here is some recommended reading, probably of value for just about everybody reading Asiajin: in 2007, Students at Singapore Management University have created a wiki called “Digital Media Across Asia”, which now covers a total of eleven countries (in English), namely: Australia China Hong Kong India Indonesia Japan Malaysia Singapore South Korea Taiwan Vietnam On… Continue reading Wiki Covering 11 Countries: Digital Media Across Asia
This me Lets You Create A Social Profile Page In 5 Minutes
Generally speaking, social profile editors are a dime a dozen. In the last few months, for example, about.me, flavors.me or Follr have cropped up in the US, allowing users to pull information from various social networks together to build a single online identity. But none of these services have a Japanese UI or integrate Japanese… Continue reading This me Lets You Create A Social Profile Page In 5 Minutes
EC Navi Establishes “EC Navi Ventures”, Plans To Invest In Japanese And Asian Startups
Things haven’t been looking good for many Japanese VC firms lately, but that didn’t stop Tokyo-based e-commerce company EC Navi, which today announced the establishment of a VC arm called EC Navi Ventures. EC Navi Ventures is set up as a separate company (also based in Tokyo), which is 100% owned by EC Navi. The… Continue reading EC Navi Establishes “EC Navi Ventures”, Plans To Invest In Japanese And Asian Startups
Prime Minister’s Office of Japan Launches Facebook Page
The Prime Minister’s Office of Japan has announced the launch of an official Facebook page today. The first update reads: This is the official Facebook page of Prime Minister’s office of Japan. We will provide information focusing on the quake-related issues for the time being. After about 15 hours, the page now has over 4,500… Continue reading Prime Minister’s Office of Japan Launches Facebook Page
Docomo Merges i-Mode And Smartphone Businesses
There is no reason for i-mode provider NTT Docomo to give up on its highly profitable mobile Internet service for feature phones as long as it makes money, but Japan’s biggest mobile carrier is starting to change things. According to Japanese business daily The Nikkei, Docomo is moving to combine its i-mode and smartphone businesses… Continue reading Docomo Merges i-Mode And Smartphone Businesses
Japan’s Online Music Market Shrank For First Time Ever Last Year
Bad news for the Japanese music industry: the Recording Industry Association of Japan (RIAJ) yesterday released [information in English] the sales figures of digital delivery in 2010 and said that the market for online music shrank for the first time last year. Online music sales contracted by 5% year-on-year to 85.99 billion yen/$1.05 billion from… Continue reading Japan’s Online Music Market Shrank For First Time Ever Last Year
Uncer: Japan Now Has Kind Of A Quora Clone
One of Silicon Valley’s hottest startups, Q&A site Quora (of which I am a big fan), now has a Japanese clone of sorts. Dubbed Uncer (short for “uncertain”), the site is probably Quora’s first clone in Asia (as Zhihu, the inevitable Chinese counterpart, still is in closed beta). Uncer is apparently run by just two… Continue reading Uncer: Japan Now Has Kind Of A Quora Clone
Japan’s Book Publishers Decide To Go With EPUB Standard
Japan’s book market is said to be worth around $24 billion (it’s the world’s biggest and about 4x the size of the local video game industry), which means it’s not a big surprise that e-publishing is currently one of the “hot” trends in the country’s tech sector. And yesterday, Japan’s biggest business daily The Nikkei… Continue reading Japan’s Book Publishers Decide To Go With EPUB Standard
NHN Plans To Flood Japan With Smartphone Games
NHN Japan, the local arm of South Korean web giant NHN and operator of online gaming portal Hangame, is planning to seriously step up game development for smartphones, especially on Android. Japan’s biggest business daily, The Nikkei, is reporting that NHN in Korea has set up a 100-people team that’s supposed to create the titles,… Continue reading NHN Plans To Flood Japan With Smartphone Games