Yahoo! Messenger [J] To Shut Down

Yahoo! Japan announced [J] that it would terminate its messenger service “Yahoo! Messenger” at 3 p.m. on March 26, 2014. Yahoo! Messenger was one of the most popular messenger services for Japanese Internet users, competed against Skype and MSN Messenger. (MSN Messenger, aka Windows Live Messenger, was also stopped after Microsoft got Skype) Yahoo! Japan… Continue reading Yahoo! Messenger [J] To Shut Down

Rakuten To Dissolve Lekutian In China, Joint-Mall With Baidu

Japan’s largest e-mall company Rakuten today announced [J] that they would shut down its Chinese e-mall Lekutian(rakuten.cn) planned in May, 2012. Rakuten jointly established Lekutian with China’s search engine giant Baidu in January 2010, and began the mall in October 2010. The reason is explained as Lekutian did not show the growth they had expected,… Continue reading Rakuten To Dissolve Lekutian In China, Joint-Mall With Baidu

Rakuten To Shut Down 6 Million Users Zenryaku Profile

Nikkei reports [J] that Rakuten has decided to close its Zenryaku Profile, a social networking site having 6.4 million users and runs for about decade, even before the word “social networking service” established. The site was originally run by other company, moved under Rakuten when it purchased a company who owned the service. Different from… Continue reading Rakuten To Shut Down 6 Million Users Zenryaku Profile

See You, CU

Even Japan’s Web Colossus Yahoo! Japan can easily fail if trying to force real name to Japanese users. The social business networking service Yahoo! CU, which launched November 2008 is announced to cease on October 19th, before its first anniversary. CU encourages users to register their real name and organization name which they belong, to… Continue reading See You, CU