Niwango[J], the owner of Japan’s most popular video sharing site “Nico Nico Douga[J]“, released its iPhone/iPod appon Monday. The app is for free and available only at Japanese AppStore. With 3G or WiFi connectivity, the app allows you to search/play videos and leave your comment on Nico Nico Douga, however it does not cover the… Continue reading Nico Nico Douga Introduces Its iPhone/iPod App
Category: Service
Major Publishers Co-launch Non-UGC Encyclopedia Site
Asahi Newspaper, the Internet portal company EC Navi[J] and major publishers like Kodansha and Shogakukan jointly launched Thursday an online encyclopedia containing 430,000 words, which is called “Kotobank[J]“. The service is provided for free, and the joint venture expects to earn USD1M in FY2009 from Overture[J] ads appeared on the result pages of Kotobank. The… Continue reading Major Publishers Co-launch Non-UGC Encyclopedia Site
Mixi Appli Conference 2009
Mixi [JP] (TSE:2121) held a conference to introduce their new service “Mixi Appli”. Mixi Appli provides an OpenSocial-based application platform for developers. Mixi Appli is one of the three services provided on “Mixi Platform”. Mixi Platform provides Mixi Appli, Mixi Connect (OAuth) and Mixi OpenID. CEO, Kenji Kasahara briefly introduced Mixi and Mixi Appli. And… Continue reading Mixi Appli Conference 2009
Another Way To Have Mobile Broadband, It’s Neither WiMax Nor HSDPA
Japan’s only PHS operator Willcom announced today it would start trial of new high-speed mobile data service next week, which is called XGP and enables logically 20Mbps Internet access not only in downstream but also in upstream. Starting on April 27th, the trial will be in operation until the end of coming September, and the… Continue reading Another Way To Have Mobile Broadband, It’s Neither WiMax Nor HSDPA
My Time for Sale: Ex-web Designer Girl Exposes Her 24/7 On The Web
Rie Tomimoto(冨本梨恵) is Jibunya 24[J], where she sells her time, does anything her clients ask excluding some exceptions, and blog what she does mostly everyday. She is a 33-year-old ex-web designer, and lives in the west suburban city of Tokyo. Unlike Chen Xiao(陈潇)[C] who does the similar things in Beijing, Rie runs the website not… Continue reading My Time for Sale: Ex-web Designer Girl Exposes Her 24/7 On The Web
NHK Broadcasts Lunch Time TV Program For Cellphone
1-seg (one-seg) is a mobile terrestrial digital audio/video and data broadcasting service in Japan. Usually it airs the same programs simultaneously with the land-based TV channels do. In March, Japan’s state-run TV/radio broadcaster NHK started broadcasting the 1-seg programs in weekday’s lunch time, specifically designed for office workers having their lunch break. The programming is… Continue reading NHK Broadcasts Lunch Time TV Program For Cellphone
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
Pu-pe Girl/Poupeegirl – Online Dress-up-doll Community
Pu-pe Girl is a fast-rising Japanese social community site targeting females, currently 99% of its users are women. The social network is for a certain speciality, having barbie-like dress-up avatar of your own. Pu-pe Girl is a 100% subsidiary of CyberAgent, one of the biggest Japanese web conglomerates. Luckily, and exceptional for a web service… Continue reading Pu-pe Girl/Poupeegirl – Online Dress-up-doll Community
Tezuka Manga Works Come To Your Palm Every Week
Tokyo-based mobile app developer Yappa started distributing the manga works of Tezuka Osamu, with a content distribution technology that the company also used to develop the Sankei Newspaper’s iPhone/iPod app also uses (I mentioned the app a bit in this article). The company publishes a new issue online every week, and each issue takes a… Continue reading Tezuka Manga Works Come To Your Palm Every Week