NTT Docomo And DeNA To Launch Joint Mobile UGC Site

Japan’s largest cellphone carrier NTT Docomo and The 3rd biggest social network Mobage-Town’s DeNA announced a joint venture worth 1.6 billion yen (17.7 million USD), which will run an User Generated Content site on cellphone since the first half of 2010. DeNA’s mobile social network Mobage-Town has a user posting sections for novels, music and… Continue reading NTT Docomo And DeNA To Launch Joint Mobile UGC Site

Japanese Social Network Wars: GREE Overtakes Mobage-town, Is Now Japan’s No. 2

Mobile social gaming platform GREE‘s CEO Yoshikazu Tanaka repeatedly said in the last weeks he wants every Japanese to use GREE eventually (yeah, right). He also said he wants to beat direct rival Mobage-town in terms of user base in six months, and Mixi in twelve months. That was in September. And today, at the… Continue reading Japanese Social Network Wars: GREE Overtakes Mobage-town, Is Now Japan’s No. 2

YAPC::Asia 2009 A Massive Perl Community Event

Following to the LLTV(annual Lightweight Language Conference in Tokyo) and PHP Conference Japan 2009 (Asiajin’s cover), another sub-1000 attendees class web developer conference YAPC::Asia 2009 is being held at Tokyo Institute of Technology. In 2008, LL(Lightweight Languages, which mean scripting languages for web development such like Perl/PHP/Python/Ruby), Ruby, PHP, Perl events were held monthly pace… Continue reading YAPC::Asia 2009 A Massive Perl Community Event

IVP Fund Invests In China’s Largest Mobile SNS

Infinity Ventures LLP[J], a Tokyo-based independent venture capital unit investing in tech start-up companies, announced today it had invested approximately USD2.1M (JPY200M) in WAPTX (registered in Cayman Islands) running China’s largest mobile SNS called tx.com.cn(天下网)[C] (pronounced as tiān-xià-wǎng). The service owns 9 million users as of July 2009, and Tokyo-based mobile SNS company DeNA announced… Continue reading IVP Fund Invests In China’s Largest Mobile SNS

Japan’s DeNA brings its mobile social gaming platform MobaMingle to India

Tokyo-based mobile social gaming giant DeNA takes the international version of its super-successful gaming platform Mobage-town [JP, PC version], Mobamingle, to India (find some detailed background info on MobaMingle here and here). According to a report in the Nikkei, the service will be made available to Indian users in English as early as at the… Continue reading Japan’s DeNA brings its mobile social gaming platform MobaMingle to India

GREE’s market cap soars past $1.6 billion, now higher than DeNA’s and nearly twice as high as Mixi’s

It seems that GREE‘s [JP] success story won’t come to an end too anytime soon. The performance of the 99% mobile social network/gaming platform is becoming scary, as in bubble-type scary. Stocks are rising and rising since the company went IPO in December last year and the financial situation keeps on improving, too. And as… Continue reading GREE’s market cap soars past $1.6 billion, now higher than DeNA’s and nearly twice as high as Mixi’s

IVP Launches New Fund Raised By Web2.0 Celebrities In Japan & China

On Wednesday, Infinity Venture LLP[J] announced it would launch a new fund targeting investment on mobile start-ups in Japan and Mainland China. The Fundraisers for this are founders and presidents from tech-startups including DeNA (Mobile SNS) , Mixi[J] (SNS), Opt (web advertising agency) and P&A (investment firm founded by Rakuten‘s former CTO), who have made… Continue reading IVP Launches New Fund Raised By Web2.0 Celebrities In Japan & China

Cyber Agent Investments Organizes Business Plan Competition

Investment arm of a Tokyo-based Internet venture Cyber Agent Group, Cyber Agent Investment LTD.[J] announced to organize a business plan competition called “START”, for the purpose of discovering innovative and potential tech start-up, in cooperation with  Cyber Agent, Mixi[J], Yahoo Japan[J], EC Navi[J], CA Mobile, netprice.com, DeNA and Microsoft Bizspark. Award winning plan may get funding… Continue reading Cyber Agent Investments Organizes Business Plan Competition

E-mail-only friend delivery springs up in Japan

Mixi Nengajou (new year greeting card) is not the only emerging service tries to turn online friendship into real items delivery. This is too much of a coincidence that Mixi, Softbank (owns 40% of Yahoo! Japan) and au(KDDI)-DeNA(runs Mobage Town) launched virtual to real shipping services in last 2 months. Softbank Puchi Gift November 4th,… Continue reading E-mail-only friend delivery springs up in Japan