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

Granny’s Maid Cafe Rottenmeier Opens For A Month In Ikebukuro

Not only in the holy land Akihabara, but everywhere in Tokyo you see maid cafe. When market is competitive, some tries to be unique like in the geeky BSD daemon motif [J], dressing up in boys cloths [J], etc. Generally those shops feature youthfulness and cuteness. Ikebukuro Keizai Shimbun reported that a new variation of… Continue reading Granny’s Maid Cafe Rottenmeier Opens For A Month In Ikebukuro

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

How Google Shopping Impacts On Kakaku.com’s Pricing Business?

Google launched its price comparison service intended to Japanese market today, that collects product description and price updates from an enormous number of e-commerce retailers and allows you to find the cheapest price at a glance. Google’s new service launch influenced the stock price of Japan’s largest e-commerce price comparison site Kakaku.com[J], it dropped slightly… Continue reading How Google Shopping Impacts On Kakaku.com’s Pricing Business?

Twitter CRM Service CoTweet To Enter Japan Assisted By NTT Communications

On October 27th, NTT Communications announced [J] that they would cooperate with Indiana-based ExactTarget to promote their enterprise Twitter client for customer service CoTweet for Japan. They agreed to proceed developments of Japanese language localization and customization for Japanese companies. NTT Communications will provide technical assist, Japanese marketing, sales and Japanese support for paid Japanese… Continue reading Twitter CRM Service CoTweet To Enter Japan Assisted By NTT Communications

Cybozu Aims At Business-oriented Social Network, And Something Different From Facebook

Cybozu Inc., a Tokyo-based package vendor having developed a web-based groupware intended to Japanese SMEs for more than a decade, introduced their brand new SaaS edition of the groupware last November, which is called Cybozu Live[J]. This week, Mr. Yoshihisa Aono, the CEO of Cybozu Inc., unveiled the plan on how the service goes from… Continue reading Cybozu Aims At Business-oriented Social Network, And Something Different From Facebook

IncubateFund To Hold A Boot Camp For Encouraging Entrepreneurs In Their 20s

IncubateFund[J], an investment team backed by DeNA and it’s known for having invested in Pokelabo and Istpika (both are social app providers), will have a two-day camp for encouraging potential entrepreneurs to develop and launch their Internet businesses. Those who want to join the camp have the following requirements: He/she was born in 1980s. He/she… Continue reading IncubateFund To Hold A Boot Camp For Encouraging Entrepreneurs In Their 20s

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