Nico Nico Douga Turns In The Black In Full-year Result And Plans New Office In Harajuku

Dwango[J], the parent of the company running Japan’s largest video sharing site Nico Nico Douga[J], announced its full-year consolidated financial statements (Oct. 2009 thru Sep. 2010) last week, which showed us Nico Nico Douga had turned in the black for the first time in their full-year result.   (In their monthly earnings, it already turned in… Continue reading Nico Nico Douga Turns In The Black In Full-year Result And Plans New Office In Harajuku

New Singer Debuts From Video Sharing Site, Then Performs In Real Space At Record Shop

New male singer “Clear” introduced his first album last Wednesday, its sales surpassed 13,000 copies by the end of last week.  It’s ranked in the 9th place for Japan’s Billboard-like company Oricon’s weekly album sales chart[J]. He started his ‘singer’ career by posting his performance videos into the “I just tried singing out” section of… Continue reading New Singer Debuts From Video Sharing Site, Then Performs In Real Space At Record Shop

New Digital Telopper Realizes Social TV Commenting

Nico Nico Douga is a popular video sharing service in Japan. Their traffic is second to YouTube, boasts over 18 million registered users, and known by its flowing comments over the movie. Nico Nico Jikkyo(Jikkyo=live), which we covered a year ago, is a derived service which itself if just a transparent application displays user-generated comments,… Continue reading New Digital Telopper Realizes Social TV Commenting

Dwango Enters Engineer Hiring Race With OSS Community Grant

Following to the 20 million users social gaming networks Gree and DeNA’s hiring competition with over $20,000 rewards for engineers beginning 4 days ago, Dwango [J] (Asiajin), who has much longer history on Japanese cellphone game, also known by their Japanese YouTube counter movie community Nico Nico Douga [J] (Asiajin), announced their new rewards plan… Continue reading Dwango Enters Engineer Hiring Race With OSS Community Grant

iPhone App To Scrub Down Gal’s Make-Up “The Suppin.”

On July 3rd, CA Mobile, Cyber Agent’s mobile contents subsidiary, released an iPhone/iPod app “The Suppin.”(Face without makeup). On the app, which features either Japanese gals or kyabajo-es(cabaret-club hostess. see Neo Japonisme’s excellent article if you are interested in), you can scrub down their special makeup – “mori make” explained that high-stacked make-up on the… Continue reading iPhone App To Scrub Down Gal’s Make-Up “The Suppin.”

In Japan, Freemium Works. Nico Nico Douga paid member user base passes 500k

One of the big differences between the web in Japan versus America or Europe is the way sites are being monetized. Generally speaking, the level of acceptance for the freemium model seems to be higher among Japanese users. As a ballpark number, it’s safe to say that usually between five and 15 percent of users… Continue reading In Japan, Freemium Works. Nico Nico Douga paid member user base passes 500k

Virtual Singer Application Vocaloid Played Her First “Live” for 25,000 Fans

One of Japan’s most popular video sharing Nico Nico Douga‘s driving force in its early stage, Miku Hatsune, a virtual girl character attached to a PC application Vocaloid performed her first “live” concert in front of an audience of 25,000 people at an anime event in Saitama prefecture, Japan. (Someone’s upload this on Youtube, the… Continue reading Virtual Singer Application Vocaloid Played Her First “Live” for 25,000 Fans

UGC Song Parody: Freedom Of Expression Or Libeling Her?

Noriko Sakai, who used to be a popular J-pop idol in late 1980s and is now an actress starring on several TV commercial films, was arrested on a suspicion of possessing illegal stimulants last weekend.   She has an enormous number of her fans in Asian nations, especially Mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, and several… Continue reading UGC Song Parody: Freedom Of Expression Or Libeling Her?

Nico Nico Jikkyo, Long Awaited Chat Over TV Programme

Nico Nico Jikkyo (Jikkyo originally means “live state” in Japanese, but in this case, abbreviated form of Jikkyo-Chukei, “play-by-play broadcasting”) is a newly introduced service by Dwango, who runs Japan’s most popular online video service Nico Nico Douga. Nico Nico Jikkyo introduced a client application for Windows, which shows the similar layout with Nico Nico… Continue reading Nico Nico Jikkyo, Long Awaited Chat Over TV Programme

NicoNico Douga-like Twitter Widget NiTwPress

NiTwPress, NicoNico Douga flavoured Twitter client widget for WordPress, is made and released by (self-claimed) 17 years old girl sakuratan (Sakura Yamamoto) [J]. Different from twitter’s official blog widget, this widget display your tweets in flowing overlay texts, like Japanese favourite online video site NicoNico Douga. There are many mashup services/tools which take this style… Continue reading NicoNico Douga-like Twitter Widget NiTwPress