Nico Nico Douga, Japan’s answer to YouTube, is still growing nicely, five years after launch. Dwango, the Tokyo-based company behind the popular service, released its financial report [PDF] for the last nine months (ending in June 2012). And according to the report, Nico Nico (the company’s most important asset) reached 28.08 million users in June.… Continue reading Nico Nico Douga Hits 28 Million Users, Generates US$46 Million In Sales Last Quarter
Category: News
SoftBank Starts Using The 900MHz “Platinum Band”
There can be no doubt that SoftBank is the mobile carrier with the weakest network among Japan’s big three telcos, following that of NTT Docomo and KDDI. But now there is hope that things will finally change for the better. Back in March this year, the Japanese government decided to allocate the 900-megahertz band (also… Continue reading SoftBank Starts Using The 900MHz “Platinum Band”
Rakuten Starts Featuring Pinterest On Its Japanese Marketplace And Other Properties
Japan’s biggest e-commerce company Rakuten (US$15 billion market cap, about 80 million user accounts in Japan) has started featuring Pinterest on some of its biggest websites yesterday. Big R caused a major splash in back in May when it led a massive US$100 million investment in the American startup. Rakuten CEO Mikitani was quoted as… Continue reading Rakuten Starts Featuring Pinterest On Its Japanese Marketplace And Other Properties
KDDI’s Subsidiary Wire And Wireless To Offer Free WiFi At Starbucks, Starting From Tokyo
Wire and Wireless (wi2), a subsidiary of Japan’s second largest cellphone carrier KDDI, announced [J] its new free WiFi program at Starbucks Coffee chain-store in Japan. Free WiFi at cafe? If you have ever tried to find free WiFi in Japan, you know this is a news. The free WiFi program, “at_STARBUCKS_Wi2”, is sponsored by… Continue reading KDDI’s Subsidiary Wire And Wireless To Offer Free WiFi At Starbucks, Starting From Tokyo
Amazon Japan Preannounces Kindle Coming “Soon”
Amazon Japan’s top page is showing a new text banner that says its e-book reader Kindle will be sold in Japan soon, today on June 26. The time it was displayed seemed around 15:15, 30 minutes ago, by Twitter tweets. Amazon periodically expressed their putting Kindle to Japan market. There have been also several leaked… Continue reading Amazon Japan Preannounces Kindle Coming “Soon”
Yahoo! Japan’s Hosting Company First Server Suffering Massive Down – Possible Data Lost?
First Server, a subsidiary of Yahoo! Japan, has been having service troubles since around 17:30 June 20. There are several web services observed to be down, who explained on temporary error pages that their services are down because of the hosting service’s glitch. According to RBB Today [J], on the servers on 5 services, the… Continue reading Yahoo! Japan’s Hosting Company First Server Suffering Massive Down – Possible Data Lost?
Rakuten CEO Hiroshi Mikitani Publishes A Book “Englishnization”
Hiroshi Mikitani, CEO of Japan’s largest online e-commerce mall Rakuten, announced [J] on his twitter account that his new book on how he is letting his company and employees adapt to English. 英語化の話しを本に書きました。ビジネスマンだけでなく、様々な人に読んでもらえたらと思っております。前二冊と同様印税についてはすべて寄付させて頂きます。 [楽天]http://t.co/1YJcbdJv [本] #rbooks pic.twitter.com/ugJ5lAYU — 三木谷浩史 H. Mikitani (@hmikitani) June 7, 2012 “I have written up on how to make things into… Continue reading Rakuten CEO Hiroshi Mikitani Publishes A Book “Englishnization”
Yahoo Japan Teams Up With Recipe Portal Cookpad
Yahoo Japan, the country’s biggest website with 1.6 billion page views per day, will enter a partnership with Cookpad, a popular recipe site, according to a report by business daily The Nikkei. Much like Yahoo in the US, Yahoo Japan runs a number of vertical services under its portal: one of them, Yahoo Recipe, will… Continue reading Yahoo Japan Teams Up With Recipe Portal Cookpad
Anti-Cyber Attack Alert System “DAEDALUS” Looks Very “Ghost In The Shell”-ish
Japan’s National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT) announced “DAEDALUS” (Direct Alert Environment for Darknet And Livenet Unified Security) system on June 6. The system has nationwide distributed surveillance network to watch so-called darknet, a part of the Internet which IP address are not supposed to be used. There are non-ignorable amount of digital… Continue reading Anti-Cyber Attack Alert System “DAEDALUS” Looks Very “Ghost In The Shell”-ish
2nd Part Of Romance Sims Series “My Forged Wedding” Released
Voltage [J] has released “My Forged Wedding,” an English version of “Chikai No Kisu Wa Totsuzen Ni♪” (Suddenly Kiss of Vow) as the second part of the North American romance simulation game “Romance Sims” series, for iPhone and Android. “My Forged Wedding” is an English Version of “Chikai No Kisu Wa Totsuzen Ni,” the number… Continue reading 2nd Part Of Romance Sims Series “My Forged Wedding” Released