Category: Japan

Dole Japan Offers Special Bananas Listened AKB48 For Ripening At Tokyo Marathon 2012

2012 version of annual Tokyo Marathon will be held on February 26, with 36,000 runners who luckily win the lottery from 283,988 applicants. At the marathon, one of the official supplier Dole Japan is going to provide 96,000 “lucky” bananas, named “Goku Sen”(Extremely Selected) [J], which will be chosen from its over 100 kind of… Continue reading Dole Japan Offers Special Bananas Listened AKB48 For Ripening At Tokyo Marathon 2012

Takeo-city To Force All Employees To Register And Work On Facebook

Takeo city, in Saga prefecture in Kyushu island, has been known by its net-savvy mayor Keisuke Hiwatashi. As a mayor, he switched the city website onto Facebook page, which gets 50 times more page views according to Asahi [J], and let the Facebook page sell the local products on Facebook. he also called for Japan… Continue reading Takeo-city To Force All Employees To Register And Work On Facebook

DeNA Sues Back To Gree And Its CEO Yoshikazu Tanaka

DeNA, who runs Mobage, announced today [J] that it instituted legal action to demand Gree and its CEO Yoshikazu Tanaka an apology and compensation for the loss caused by Gree’s press release and Tanaka’s comments, which stated that DeNA did illegal business activities. As we reported in December, DeNA expressed [J] the possibility of counter… Continue reading DeNA Sues Back To Gree And Its CEO Yoshikazu Tanaka

Video: Girl Band JKT48 (AKB48’s Sister Band) Promoting Rakuten In Indonesia

JKT48, the Indonesian sister band of ultra-popular Japanese girl group AKB48 (Asiajin), is promoting Rakuten Belanja Online, Rakuten’s joint venture with Jakarta-based media powerhouse PT Global Mediacom, on Indonesian TV. In the 30-second commercial, various members of the group can be seen wearing different clothes and accessories and using gadgets – and apparently all items can… Continue reading Video: Girl Band JKT48 (AKB48’s Sister Band) Promoting Rakuten In Indonesia

Social Illustration Service Pixiv Hits 4 Million Members

Pixiv, the most popular of Japan’s many social drawing services, announced [ENG] it hit an amazing four million registered users last Saturday (January 28). It took the site, which launched on September 10 in 2007, exactly 1,602 days to reach that milestone. That’s about 2,500 users per day – not bad at all, especially for… Continue reading Social Illustration Service Pixiv Hits 4 Million Members

Motto TV: Japan Gets New Video-On-Demand Service

Hulu Japan, actvila, and other existing video content providers are getting competition soon: a total of seven Japanese companies are currently preparing a video-on-demand service for connected TVs that’s scheduled to launch on April 2 this year. Dubbed “Motto TV” [JP, PDF], the service is backed by: advertising agency Dentsu Nippon Television Network TV Asahi… Continue reading Motto TV: Japan Gets New Video-On-Demand Service

Japan Patent Office Gives Up New Patent System Which Already Spent 5.5 Billion Yen

Asahi reported [J] that Japan’s Patent Office(JPO) decided to terminate their patent management system renewal project which began in 2006. They already spent 5.5 billion yen(US$70 million) and specially formed inspection committee in the organization recommended to stop the project. The project term was set from December 2006 to January 2014, development by Toshiba Solution… Continue reading Japan Patent Office Gives Up New Patent System Which Already Spent 5.5 Billion Yen

Mixi And DeNA Allies In Social Commerce

January 25, two of Japan’s largest social networking service companies, DeNA(who runs Mobage) and Mixi announced their new alliance on social commerce. On the release, it is said that “Mixi, who holds networks of close friends” and “DeNA, who has plenty of knowledge on e-commerce and has been running Bidders (mobile shopping service)” are going… Continue reading Mixi And DeNA Allies In Social Commerce

Hatsune Miku’s Song Used For Google Chrome Commercial Tops At iTunes Japan Chart

“Tell Your World “, the song which is used for Google Chrome Promotional campaign of livetune feat. Hatsune Mike (初音ミク) tops at iTunes Japan among all categories. iTunes Japan chart at 19th January was following. The song was released in 18th January on iTunes Japan and right after the release, ranked top 10. On next day, it… Continue reading Hatsune Miku’s Song Used For Google Chrome Commercial Tops At iTunes Japan Chart