Japan’s venture capital industry is in a very difficult situation. That’s, in a nutshell, the result of a recent Nikkei survey. According to the paper, investments from the nation’s top 20 VC firms dropped a whopping 40% in fiscal 2009 to $711 million. Compared to 2007, that’s even 50% less. To be more concrete, the… Continue reading Japanese Venture Capital Investments Take Nosedive in 2009
Join The Open Web Asia Conference In Malaysia On July 13-14 (Discount For Asiajin Readers)
It’s about time that South East Asia, home to 600 million people, gets its own web industry event. The Open Web Asia conference, which is going to be held in Kuala Lumpur on July 13-14, is the region’s first of its size: no less than 350 attendees are expected – I myself will be at… Continue reading Join The Open Web Asia Conference In Malaysia On July 13-14 (Discount For Asiajin Readers)
The 2010 Most Popular Company For Japanese Job Seekers Is Google
Japanese outplacement firm Intelligence [J] released their research of what companies people want to join next [J], done on 5,000 of office workers between age 25 to 34. On the ranking, Google jumped up from 2009’s third position because of good feeling to their “innovation” and “potential”. 2010 Rank in 2009 Company 1 3 Google… Continue reading The 2010 Most Popular Company For Japanese Job Seekers Is Google
Learn Javascript In Manga
Manga de wakaru JavaScript Programming Kouza(The manga guide to JavaScript Programming Course) is an online web manga (Japanese style comic) for novice programmers to study JavaScript programming language by themselves. In a story, three high-school students learn JavaScript from a teacher in a year. 4 Chapters, 23 sections, 153 pages this manga covers the basics… Continue reading Learn Javascript In Manga
May 2010 Japan IT Links (Part 2)
Continued from (Part 1) Referred pages are all in Japanese, unless otherwise stated. ClapClap Clock – Handclap Triggered Sound Clock iPhone App A Blogger Accuses The Ruling Party DPJ To Censor Twitter, Without Knowing Twitter Search In Japanese Is Kind Of Broken Domino Pizza Campaign In Japan, Taiwan, China, Malaysia and Singapore Seesmic CEO Loic… Continue reading May 2010 Japan IT Links (Part 2)
Rakuten Subsidizes French No.1 E-Commerce Company PriceMinister
Rakuten has just announced [J, pdf] that they bought 100% of French E-commerce company PriceMinister S.A. The purchase is planned to done in July 2010 for 200 million Euro (22.5 billion yen). Rakuten established their European branch S.a.r.l. in Luxembourg in 2008. That company will handle this acquisition. Rakuten has been actively adding its oversea… Continue reading Rakuten Subsidizes French No.1 E-Commerce Company PriceMinister
Dot War – Command Your Twitter Icon Battalion
Dot War is a Flash-based strategy game with thousands of generated units from your, your friends’ or random Twitter icons. On the start menu, you may choose “single scenario”, “manual match-up” or “automatic VS mode”. You may manipulate your troops by mouse, or in the automatic mode, your setting two icons fight in auto-play. And… Continue reading Dot War – Command Your Twitter Icon Battalion
Meet-up Call: Startup Dating Preliminary Edition To Be Held Next Tuesday
Usually Asiajin covers what people are doing and have achieved in Japanese and Asian tech communities, but today I’m writing something about what I and my friends will do for accelerating the communities here in Tokyo. Takeshi Hirano[J] from TechCrunch Japan[J], Hiro Maeda from NetPrice.com and I will jointly organize a networking event titled “Startup… Continue reading Meet-up Call: Startup Dating Preliminary Edition To Be Held Next Tuesday
CNBC Pranked By Japanese Photoshopper
Bloomberg reported that Japanese Ministry of Finance posted a silly ad to solicit young Japanese guys to buy government bonds on popular free magazine R25, which is a true story. To Japanese’ credit, many people here were amazed by silliness of the ad project, and got angry against who spent tax for this. The magazine… Continue reading CNBC Pranked By Japanese Photoshopper
Uniqlo’s Twitter Mashup Sportweet
Uniqlo, Japan based apparel chainstore, who has been releasing your tweets visualization actively, just released another one with sports as its theme, Sportweet. As usual, your Twitter account name is required. (Last time on Lucky Line, they demanded unnecessary Twitter password and was critisized) Your tweets are visually designed with some athletes, such like a… Continue reading Uniqlo’s Twitter Mashup Sportweet