Category: Japan

Japanese company expands to India, will sell mobile games there

India with its massive population of 1.1 billion people and nearly 300 million mobile phone users (second only to China) should be a natural target for any company that’s in the web or mobile web business. But still, relatively few companies, for example from Japan, are seeing the subcontinent as a lucrative target market, at… Continue reading Japanese company expands to India, will sell mobile games there

Coming soon: Sushi encyclopedia for the iPhone and iPod Touch

This news should be especially interesting for anyone who loves sushi and happens to be an iPhone owner: Major Japanese publishing company Shogakukan is planning to release a virtual sushi guide for the iPhone (J). The sushi encyclopedia will be available for download on both the iPod Touch and the iPhone by the end of… Continue reading Coming soon: Sushi encyclopedia for the iPhone and iPod Touch

When Japanese say Yes, it means No

Well, I am joking. “Yes” means “Yes” here, too, most of the time. However, if you dive deeper into the Japanese web, you may get totally lost in the conversations because of new expressions that continue to emerge. One phrase which has become very popular since early 2008, is this: “(subject) desune, wakarimasu.” (～ですね、わかります) which… Continue reading When Japanese say Yes, it means No

Nintendo ties up with Hatena, opens door for user-generated content

Nintendo, a company that’s usually not really famous for embracing the web, now lets users publish content they create through Moving Notepad (“Ugoku Memo Chou”) online. Moving Notepad is a free notepad application for Nintendo portable gaming machine DSi. Users can write memos, record sounds and create animations with the downloadable program (that’s made by… Continue reading Nintendo ties up with Hatena, opens door for user-generated content

Gree and Paperboy stocks trade much above IPO prices

Gree (TSE:3632) and Paperboy (JASDAQ:3633) went public on December 17th and 19th respectively as we reported before. Gree’s IPO price is 3,300yen ($33) per share. On 17th, Gree stock opened with 5,000yen ($50), and closed with 4,800yen ($48). Its market capitalization, 107 billion yen ($1B), is larger than Mixi (TSE:2121). Gree issued 1.2 million new… Continue reading Gree and Paperboy stocks trade much above IPO prices

So-net M3 – a community site for doctors

So-net M3 (TSE:2413) is a very profitable and unique company which is providing a community site ‘m3.com’ exclusively for medical doctors. Doctors are restricted by confidentiality, so they cannot use typical community sites to share information about their professional life or skills. M3 provides them with a bulletin board service. M3 has 390,000 registered medical… Continue reading So-net M3 – a community site for doctors

Yahoo! Japan launches English version of their auction site

Yahoo! Japan introduced an English version of Yahoo! Japan Auctions on October 10th, 2008. Its target audience is foreign residents in Japan who can communicate in basic Japanese but prefer to use an English interface. Yahoo! Japan Auctions is the biggest Internet auction site in Japan. The major drawback of the English site is that… Continue reading Yahoo! Japan launches English version of their auction site

Japanese No.1 E-Commerce site “Rakuten” started multilingual item search

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

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