Monetize Hacks #3 Report (part 2)

(Following to the part 1) 5. Livedoor (Asiajin articles) Tomo Tsubota, Livedoor Blog [J] Business Department, opened and shared their user demographics and billing method. Livedoor Blog started in 2003 and became black ink in Sep. 2007. 30% of sales come from premium service, which is used by 17% of active users. (60% revenue is… Continue reading Monetize Hacks #3 Report (part 2)

Twitter Events Maelstorm Hitting Tokyo

Although the growth is not high as in English, twitter has been beloved by Japanese users even before its localization, and probably approaching to the critical mas. Many twitter related events (some are with Tumblr) have been and will be held recently in Tokyo. Even though Tokyo is the one of the most dense and… Continue reading Twitter Events Maelstorm Hitting Tokyo

Monetize Hacks #3 Report (part 1)

24th night at Roppongi Hills, the third Monetize Hacks meeting was held by some web directors from Livedoor and Hatena by welcoming 120 web directors and entrepreneurs in and around Tokyo. The first monetize Hacks [J] was called for web directors greeting and exchanging ideas around 15 people, the second one [J] was a group… Continue reading Monetize Hacks #3 Report (part 1)

Report of RubyConf China 2009

May 21st, the father of Ruby, Yukihiro Matsumoto aka Matz, visited Shanghai to attend RubyConf China 2009, the first large Ruby conference in China. The conference was an astonishing success. 450 people attended the event. All talks except keynote were given in Chinese. Matz gave a keynote which reveals design concept and characteristics of the… Continue reading Report of RubyConf China 2009

Manga Mode: DoCoMo brings e-manga to European cell phones

Japan’s biggest cell phone carrier NTT DoCoMo and major publisher Shueisha have teamed up and plan to launch an e-manga delivery service for cell phones in Europe. Dubbed Manga Mode and launched yesterday, the service already lets manga enthusiasts in France choose between about ten different titles. Certainly the manga with the biggest potential is… Continue reading Manga Mode: DoCoMo brings e-manga to European cell phones

Dial Phone Number To Get To Website

NTT Mediacross (NTT-MC)[J], an NTT group company specifically focusing on providing TV broadcasters with several solutions to make their programs more interactive with program viewers, introduced a new service enabling to navigate the viewers easily to a website that a broadcaster would like to present in synchronization with program broadcast.   The service is scheduled… Continue reading Dial Phone Number To Get To Website

GeeksOnaAPlane: Silicon Valley meets the Tokyo tech scene

While it’s not unheard of that entrepreneurs and VCs from Japan go to California for information exchange, fund-raising (sometimes), networking and other purposes, Americans taking the trip to Tokyo are still the exception. This is the main idea of an initiative called GeeksOnAPlane, initiated by Silicon Valley icon Dave McClure (his San Francisco-based venture capital… Continue reading GeeksOnaAPlane: Silicon Valley meets the Tokyo tech scene

Translation Tool: New Option Between Human Profession And Computer’s Imperfectness

Today, in Japan, it seems that there is a boom in launching a new business category called “Social Translation”. Last week a Tokyo-based tech start-up Anydoor[J] launched a web-based new translation service, which is named Conyac, allowing participating members to do translation work. Japanese translation industry has annually USD2B worth of its market volume. Basically,… Continue reading Translation Tool: New Option Between Human Profession And Computer’s Imperfectness

Make Tokyo Meeting 03: Where You Can See Future, Magic And Junk In A Place

Last weekend at Hachioji Campus of Digital Hollywood University in Tokyo’s surburb, “Make” magazine’s readers and gadget inventors came together and held an annual meeting titled “Make: Tokyo Meeting 03[J]“.   For readers who have never heard about Make:, the magazine is a quarterly magazine published by O’reilly Media and it contains articles on hardware hacking… Continue reading Make Tokyo Meeting 03: Where You Can See Future, Magic And Junk In A Place

This Weekend’s Three Tech Events You Must See

On this weekend, here we can get a chance to witness three great tech events in a row. As first of all, a Tokyo-based social entrepreneur Todd Porter, the co-founder of Tokyo International School Patrick Newell and their companions will have the first event of TedxTokyo on this coming Friday at the National Museum of… Continue reading This Weekend’s Three Tech Events You Must See