January 2010 Japan-IT Links (part 2)

News on the latter half of January 2010 which we did not write as a dedicated article. Part 1 is here. Referred pages are all in Japanese, unless otherwise stated. METI Lottery In Exchange For Used Cellphone Campaign Collaborates Hatsune Miku Chinese Guy In Saitama Arrested By Providing Proxy Servers For Chinese Gamers To Play… Continue reading January 2010 Japan-IT Links (part 2)

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

Facebook To Have The First Oversea Development Base In Tokyo

Facebook, which I think I do not need any explanation what it is to English web users, announced that they would open their Japanese arm in Tokyo early in 2010, ITMedia reports [J]. The branch, which is planned to be formed with developers from US and locally hired Japanese engineers and managers, will make a… Continue reading Facebook To Have The First Oversea Development Base In Tokyo

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

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

Shake-up in Japan’s mobile web: Mixi, MySpace, Mobage, Yahoo, Dwango and SoftBank Mobile collaborate

The mobile web is huge in Japan, meaning the alliance between Japanese Internet powerhouses Dwango, Mixi, MySpace Japan, Mobage-town, Yahoo and telecommunications company SoftBank Mobile announced on Thursday has to be taken very seriously. Details are rather scarce at this point but SoftBank, for example, says [J] Dwango will provide content from its super-successful video… Continue reading Shake-up in Japan’s mobile web: Mixi, MySpace, Mobage, Yahoo, Dwango and SoftBank Mobile collaborate

Mobage Town launched World-wide English Service MobaMingle

DeNA Global, 100% subsidiary of DeNA, who runs Mobage Town, the Japan’s biggest mobile social networking site with casual games, started its global service MobaMingle . DeNA Global is located in California, USA, but the MobaMingle can be accessed from 70 countries, including UK, France, Germany on cellular phone. Access from Japan is blocked so… Continue reading Mobage Town launched World-wide English Service MobaMingle

Mobage Town forays into PC web from mobile

Mobage Town, the Japan’s largest mobile social networking service(SNS) launched their “PC version” website on July 24th 2008. Mobage Town has made a totally new field “Cellularphone Social Network based on free games” and that success called many followers like GREE mobile, Puchige(Petit Game) Friends, Daishugou NEO, etc. PC SNS leader Mixi, has been providing… Continue reading Mobage Town forays into PC web from mobile