Ngi Group, one of the most active venture capital firm in Japanese web industry, also known as their successful early investment to the Japan’s largest social network Mixi, declared their downsizing plan in February. When the rationalization plan [J, pdf] was reported at first by Nikkei Net, it was said that they were asking solicit… Continue reading Ngi Group Cuts Off Over 50% Employees
Category: News
Web-Kare is bought by AQ Interactive
LinkThink, a company known by its blog widgets and niche virtual boys dating social network Web-Kare, is bought by a game company AQ Interactive (Tokyo Stock Exchange 2nd section). AQ Interactive bought 66.8% of LinkThink’s stock from its founder by 51,500,000 yen (510,000 USD). See Also: AQ Interactive’s Release [J, pdf]
Uniqlo Starts Online Sales in Mainland China
Japan-based casual clothing retailer First Retailing(its brandname, Uniqlo) started its online sales in Mainland China[C], in tie-up with Taobao[C]. Taobao is China’s largest online shopping mall by the e-commerce giant Alibaba, and it engages more than 100 million frantic shoppers in the country. This is the first independent entry by a Japanese large retailer to China’s… Continue reading Uniqlo Starts Online Sales in Mainland China
Sony Transfers Their Video Sharing Site Eyevio To A Startup
Sony will transfer their video sharing site ‘eyeVio‘ [JP] to a Tokyo-based startup company called Sprasia on May 29th. Eyevio is a video sharing site which can connect to Sony hardware products. Eyevio has 1 million unique visitors and 10 million page views per month. The site was started in April 2007. Sony stated that… Continue reading Sony Transfers Their Video Sharing Site Eyevio To A Startup
Ex-school Sites Are On Sale For The First Time In Japan’s Internet Auction History
A rural town located on the south coast of Hokkaido Island, Niikappu, put four of the town’s unused municipal elementary school sites on sale on Yahoo Auction[J]. The sites consist of school buildings, swimming pools and teachers’ dormitories. The bid started in the USD21M to USD67M price range. Because of the declining number of applicants for schools… Continue reading Ex-school Sites Are On Sale For The First Time In Japan’s Internet Auction History
S. Korea’s YouTube Disabled Video Uploading Due To The New Act For Preventing Cybercrimes
In South Korea, where many crimes and suicide cases have been caused by slanderous messages posted on social websites, the country’s telecommunication authority has deployed an act which obligates the Internet user to publish his/her real name when uploading a video or leaving a comment on large social networking sites. The authority expanded its scope of application on April… Continue reading S. Korea’s YouTube Disabled Video Uploading Due To The New Act For Preventing Cybercrimes
Google Search Gibberishes to Some Users in Japan
Google Japan announced their apology on their search results for some users were showed garbled texts from 9th evening to 11:30 p.m. for around 6-7 hours on their official blog [J]. The bug affected some Japanese users and some other language users, as they wrote. It also said that it was caused by engineering human… Continue reading Google Search Gibberishes to Some Users in Japan
Two Broadband Video Streaming Sites To Be Merged To Survive
Yahoo Japan[J] announced Tuesday it would buy 51% stake in Gyao[J] which is the free broadband video streaming service and has been wholly owned by Japan’s largest cable music broadcaster USEN. Yahoo Japan will buy Gyao’s 4,998 shares for USD5.3M, and merge Gyao and Yahoo Douga (Yahoo Japan’s free video streaming service) together this… Continue reading Two Broadband Video Streaming Sites To Be Merged To Survive
NTT DoCoMo Buys 51% Stake in Japan’s 4th Largest Informercial Company
Japan’s largest cellphone career, NTT DoCoMo announced it has agreed to buy 51% stake for approx. USD310M in the country’s 4th largest TV infomercial company based in Nagoya, Oak Lawn Marketing(OLM). OLM was co-founded by a Chicagoese and university graduate who visited Nagoya in 1989. The company is best known for selling a German stain remover… Continue reading NTT DoCoMo Buys 51% Stake in Japan’s 4th Largest Informercial Company
Agile Media Network raises $1M
Agile Media Network raised a $1M investment from Ant Capital Partners on March 31st. They use the investment to develop new software systems. Agile Media Network is a Japanese ad-network / blog marketing company for blogs and social media which was established in February 2007. They sell ads of many Japanese top blogs such as… Continue reading Agile Media Network raises $1M