Category: Company

Hangame: Japan’s No. 1 online gaming site

Japan is known as the world’s No. 1 producer of high quality video games. After all, companies such as Nintendo, Sony (Playstation) or Sega are rooted in this country. In the light of this, it seems strange that the leading online game service in Japan comes from Korea: Hangame (only accessible with IE). At certain… Continue reading Hangame: Japan’s No. 1 online gaming site

“Circle” and “Cross”: Two Japanse web services using Japanse style expression

Newsing is a social bookmark service similar to Digg. The big difference is a coloured circle beside the bookmarked news title. It’s a graphed circle with red and gray and “circle” means thumbs up and “cross” means thumbs down. newsing.jp Users can express their attitude to the bookmarked news by clicking either a red circle… Continue reading “Circle” and “Cross”: Two Japanse web services using Japanse style expression

Mobage goes to the US

January 18th, Tokyo – DeNA, a company which runs Mobage town, will establish a subsidiary in the states. “DeNA Global,Inc.” will be located in California, supposedly San Francisco Bayarea. They will launch a US version of their very profitable mobile business there. Also they revised upward their net profit forecast from 4.5 billion to 6.3… Continue reading Mobage goes to the US

Tokyo2point0: HTML 5, ONGMAP, Web Trendmap v3

On Tuesday, the monthly Tokyo2point0 event in Omotesandou/Tokyo was held for the 8th time. The venue was really packed. Andrew Shuttleworth (the organizer) told me he would love to see more people to RSVP before coming. Also, companies can contact Andrew directly for sponsorship to help the volunteers currently running the event. You can sign… Continue reading Tokyo2point0: HTML 5, ONGMAP, Web Trendmap v3

Kizasi: Blog search engine and analyzer

There is an impressive number of search engines specializing in blogs. Internationally speaking, Technorati and Google’s blog search are the most prominent examples. There is also a localized Japanese version of Technorati. Kizasi (pronounced “kizashi”) is a Japanese blog search service which was started in January last year by kizasi Company, Inc. This is kizasi’s… Continue reading Kizasi: Blog search engine and analyzer

Niconico douga

Niconico douga is a rapidly growing video sharing site in Japan. Site’s feature is not very different from Youtube, but one cool difference gained big attraction. The difference is a comment feature which enables users to write timely comments on the video screen itself. The feature allowed users to share ‘experience’ with other users. Niconico… Continue reading Niconico douga

Drecom: next scandal or …?

Drecom is a public company, specialized in making a blog tool. Drecom is viewed as a Web 2.0 company. Because they provide many RSS related services. Also they sponsor ‘Drecom Award on Rails’ which awards good Rails’ applications created by many participated developers. Recently, Drecom’s financial activities are questioned by bloggers. Drecom has IPOed with… Continue reading Drecom: next scandal or …?

Rakuten: online shopping monopoly

Rakuten is a giant. Rakuten group has an Internet shopping mall ‘Rakuten‘, a hotel reservation site ‘Rakuten Travel’, ‘Rakuten Securities’, ‘Rakuten Credit Card’ and so on. Rakuten has $1.72 billion annual sales. The mall and the travel agent has the biggest share of their markets like Amazon did on the book market. Mikitani started his… Continue reading Rakuten: online shopping monopoly