DMM Coming Out With Social Games, Including Some 18+

DMM.com [J], who offer mail order and DVD rentals as well as video distribution, are currently testing out offering social games for cell phones.  The service page is here.  [J] At the moment, titles offered by DMM.com are their own titles plus third party titles, 9 in all.  Two of DMM’s distinctive  titles, “Planet Girlfriend”… Continue reading DMM Coming Out With Social Games, Including Some 18+

Nobu-nyaga’s Ambition Steps Into Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau

Koei Tecmo [J] has made a contract with Taiwan’s Cayenne Entertainment Tchnology and have announced that they will develop their currently offered social game “Nobu-nyaga’s Ambition” for Yahoo! Mobage and Mobage in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macao. Koei Tecmo has also until now been developing joint service under management license contract for “Age of Discovery… Continue reading Nobu-nyaga’s Ambition Steps Into Taiwan, Hong Kong, Macau

Dole Japan Offers Special Bananas Listened AKB48 For Ripening At Tokyo Marathon 2012

2012 version of annual Tokyo Marathon will be held on February 26, with 36,000 runners who luckily win the lottery from 283,988 applicants. At the marathon, one of the official supplier Dole Japan is going to provide 96,000 “lucky” bananas, named “Goku Sen”(Extremely Selected) [J], which will be chosen from its over 100 kind of… Continue reading Dole Japan Offers Special Bananas Listened AKB48 For Ripening At Tokyo Marathon 2012

CyberAgent’s “Ameba” Tops 20 Million Users

CyberAgent [J] announced on December 30th of 2011 that the number of users of their “Ameba” [J] community has topped 20 million.  To commemorate this momentous development of the “Ameba” service, they held the 20 Million Member Breakthrough! Thank You Campaign [J] between January 10th and 23rd. Since the Ameba service opened in September of… Continue reading CyberAgent’s “Ameba” Tops 20 Million Users

Takeo-city To Force All Employees To Register And Work On Facebook

Takeo city, in Saga prefecture in Kyushu island, has been known by its net-savvy mayor Keisuke Hiwatashi. As a mayor, he switched the city website onto Facebook page, which gets 50 times more page views according to Asahi [J], and let the Facebook page sell the local products on Facebook. he also called for Japan… Continue reading Takeo-city To Force All Employees To Register And Work On Facebook

DeNA Sues Back To Gree And Its CEO Yoshikazu Tanaka

DeNA, who runs Mobage, announced today [J] that it instituted legal action to demand Gree and its CEO Yoshikazu Tanaka an apology and compensation for the loss caused by Gree’s press release and Tanaka’s comments, which stated that DeNA did illegal business activities. As we reported in December, DeNA expressed [J] the possibility of counter… Continue reading DeNA Sues Back To Gree And Its CEO Yoshikazu Tanaka

Video: Girl Band JKT48 (AKB48’s Sister Band) Promoting Rakuten In Indonesia

JKT48, the Indonesian sister band of ultra-popular Japanese girl group AKB48 (Asiajin), is promoting Rakuten Belanja Online, Rakuten’s joint venture with Jakarta-based media powerhouse PT Global Mediacom, on Indonesian TV. In the 30-second commercial, various members of the group can be seen wearing different clothes and accessories and using gadgets – and apparently all items can… Continue reading Video: Girl Band JKT48 (AKB48’s Sister Band) Promoting Rakuten In Indonesia

Social Illustration Service Pixiv Hits 4 Million Members

Pixiv, the most popular of Japan’s many social drawing services, announced [ENG] it hit an amazing four million registered users last Saturday (January 28). It took the site, which launched on September 10 in 2007, exactly 1,602 days to reach that milestone. That’s about 2,500 users per day – not bad at all, especially for… Continue reading Social Illustration Service Pixiv Hits 4 Million Members

Japan’s Web News Week 4

This week’s Japanese Web/IT related news which we did not write as a dedicated article. Referred pages are all in Japanese, unless otherwise stated. Navit Allegedly Manipulates Reviews On @Cosme By Using Trial Samples And Reward – Navit counter-release said that it is not manipulation but request. KDDI au Offers Opt-Out From Targeted Ads, But… Continue reading Japan’s Web News Week 4