Nico Nico Douga Turns In The Black In Full-year Result And Plans New Office In Harajuku

Dwango[J], the parent of the company running Japan’s largest video sharing site Nico Nico Douga[J], announced its full-year consolidated financial statements (Oct. 2009 thru Sep. 2010) last week, which showed us Nico Nico Douga had turned in the black for the first time in their full-year result.   (In their monthly earnings, it already turned in… Continue reading Nico Nico Douga Turns In The Black In Full-year Result And Plans New Office In Harajuku

Kadokawa To Launch E-Book Distribution Platform; Some Novelists Can’t Wait And Launch Their Own

Kadokawa Shoten Publishing[J] and its subsidiaries, which are known for having published many comic titles and magazines, announced on Friday that they would launch an e-book distribution platform called Book Walker next month. Approximately 100 titles will be available for the iPhone and the iPad users at the launch of the platform, and 20 titles… Continue reading Kadokawa To Launch E-Book Distribution Platform; Some Novelists Can’t Wait And Launch Their Own

Apple Partners With Dentsu To Boost Smartphone Ad Business In Japan

The world’s largest ad agency Dentsu announced it had partnered with Apple for the sales of smartphone ad network iAd in Japan.   Dentsu will start the sales in early 2011, and their subsidiary Cyber Communications Inc. provides ad content production services including media planning. iAd is installed on iOS4, which is the latest edition of… Continue reading Apple Partners With Dentsu To Boost Smartphone Ad Business In Japan

Tokyo’s P2P Lending Service ExCo Fundraises From Dave McClure’s 500 Startups

Tokyo-based P2P(peer-to-peer) lending service company Exchange Corporation (in short, ExCo) announced today that they had fundraised several hundred thousand US dollars – exact number not disclosed – from Silicon Valley-based fund 500 Startups which is known for being led by venture capitalist Dave McClure.   This is the second case for the fund to invest in… Continue reading Tokyo’s P2P Lending Service ExCo Fundraises From Dave McClure’s 500 Startups

Gree To Take Several Percent Stake In Singapore’s SMS/IM-based Social Network Mig33

Japan’s third largest social network GREE[J] announced today they would invest in Mig33 (by Project Goth, Inc.) who is a SMS and IM text messaging-based social network platform in Singapore.   GREE plans to invest several million US dollars in Mig33’s series C round and to acquire several percent stake.   This will be the first ever… Continue reading Gree To Take Several Percent Stake In Singapore’s SMS/IM-based Social Network Mig33

Rakuten Opposes Yahoo Japan-Google Tie-up

As we reported here, Yahoo! Japan is transitioning its search engine platform from what they’ve originally developed to Google’s technology.   In opposition to that move, some news sources reported Japan’s largest e-commerce giant Rakuten had requested Japan’s fair trade commission to investigate a possible violation of the antitrust act over the Yahoo! Japan – Google… Continue reading Rakuten Opposes Yahoo Japan-Google Tie-up

Smartphone Ad-optimizer Nobot Fundraises USD1.3M From JAFCO And Nissay Capital

Tokyo-based smartphone ad-optimizer Nobot announced on Friday they had fundraised approximately USD1.3M from Japan’s largest VC firm JAFCO and Nissay Capital[J] who is an investment arm of Japan’s largest life insurance company. Nobot was founded in April 2009, and has introduced a smartphone ad-optimization service called Ad-Maker.   They’re currently distributing 100 million impressions per month,… Continue reading Smartphone Ad-optimizer Nobot Fundraises USD1.3M From JAFCO And Nissay Capital

Evernote CEO: A Half Of The Third Party Developers Are Japanese

Silicon valley-based tech start-up Evernote, which has introduced services for note-taking and archiving for PCs and smartphone devices, announced new partnerships with seven Japanese companies on Wednesday. Evernote CEO Phil Libin is now visiting Japan, and he says, “Our Japanese users share almost 18% of our total user accounts, which is the second place in… Continue reading Evernote CEO: A Half Of The Third Party Developers Are Japanese

Tokyo’s Social App Provider Pokelabo Fundraises USD12M From DCM And Mobage-Town

On Wednesday, Tokyo-based social app provider Pokelabo[J] announced that they had fundraised USD12M from Silicon Valley-headquartered VC firm DCM and IncubateFund[J], an investment fund by DeNA owning social app and mobile game platform Mobage-Town. Pokelabo was founded three years ago by the company’s CEO and his “Mixi[J]-mates”.  It has developed flash games for feature phones,… Continue reading Tokyo’s Social App Provider Pokelabo Fundraises USD12M From DCM And Mobage-Town

Smartphone Ad-optimizer Nobot Partners With Singapore-based Network BuzzCity

Nobot, a Tokyo-based tech start-up who has introduced a smartphone ad-optimization SDK called AdMaker that enables to display the best set from multiple ad networks for the iPhone/Android users, partnered with Singapore-headquartered smartphone ad network BuzzCity last Thursday.   App developers using Nobot’s SDK will be allowed to distribute BuzzCity’s ads without language barriers and currency… Continue reading Smartphone Ad-optimizer Nobot Partners With Singapore-based Network BuzzCity