Rakuten, the largest E-Commerce player in Japan, has started a multilingual item search service in Rakuten Ichiba, the biggest Japanese online shopping mall. Rakuten Ichiba top page[J] / Rakuten Ichiba top page[E] The sales of Rakuten’s E-Commerce division for the year ’07 was 75.5 billion yen( about 800 million US dollars). Rakuten launched E-Commerce service… Continue reading Japanese No.1 E-Commerce site “Rakuten” started multilingual item search
Category: Company
Executives of Tokyo startup SUN arrested
Executives of SUN, a Tokyo-based “Second Life”-related startup company, have been arrested under suspicion of facilitating the escape of another man wanted by police. The suspect, a lawyer and ex-member of Osaka’s prefectural assembly, was allegedly involved in tax evasion [1], and has since been captured in Manila. The CEO of the company was prosecuted… Continue reading Executives of Tokyo startup SUN arrested
Branding social networks the Japanese way: Put ’em on juice bottles and noodle cups
After having drawn 15 million members to the site (or approximately 1 in 6 Internet users in Japan), Nippon’s biggest social network Mixi now thinks the time has come for some offline cross-promotion. What you can see above is Mix Fruits & Calpis, a special version of Calpis, a popular Japanese soft drink that normally… Continue reading Branding social networks the Japanese way: Put ’em on juice bottles and noodle cups
Paperboy & co. goes public
18th November 2008, Japanese web hosting company Paperboy (J) (JASDAQ:3633) announced that the company will be listed to JASDAQ stock market on December 19th. Paperboy runs services like Lolipop (J), Heteml (J), and Jugem (J). Kazuma Ieiri started the business in October 2001 in Fukuoka. Paperboy is providing hosting services for consumers with very low… Continue reading Paperboy & co. goes public
Summary of Gree’s financial statements
Yoshikazu Tanaka founded Gree (JP) in 2004. At first, Gree‘s SNS services were aimed at PC users, but Mixi had greater success in the PC market. So, Gree partnered with mobile phone operator KDDI in November 2006, and entered the mobile market. KDDI holds 7.58 percent of Gree’s shares. Now, 99% of Gree’s 8.3 billion monthly page… Continue reading Summary of Gree’s financial statements
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
Daily Portal Z: Social learning platform iKnow! cooperates with nifty
Tokyo-based social learning platform iKnow! and Japanese telecommunications and web powerhouse nifty (most famous in the web space for its portal of the same name) are cooperating. The companies have set up the “Owarai eigo dojo” (Funny English Training Hall), giving Japanese iKnow users the possibility to translate funny stories from nifty’s mega popular “Daily… Continue reading Daily Portal Z: Social learning platform iKnow! cooperates with nifty
Dwango releases 61 minute-ringtone, wants to be listed in the Guiness book of records
Dwango, the Tokyo-based company behind Japan’s uber video portal Nico Nico Douga and the ringtone for dogs, has officially filed an application to get listed in the Guiness Book of Records. Why? The company has developed what they think is the world’s longest ringtone at 61 minutes and 40 seconds. Say what you want, but… Continue reading Dwango releases 61 minute-ringtone, wants to be listed in the Guiness book of records
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
From TechCrunch50 in San Francisco: Japanese company Rinen presents Opentrace
I am at the TechCrunch 50 conference in San Francisco right now (you might know I am a writer for the TechCrunch network). The Wifi was off so my report is a little late, sorry: Yesterday, a start-up from Tokyo called Rinen presented their product, Opentrace, to the 1,700-people crowd. Rinen has neither a company… Continue reading From TechCrunch50 in San Francisco: Japanese company Rinen presents Opentrace