Update: Concept of KDDI's DVD Downloading and Burning Service

Well, KDDI's DVD service is now online.

Users outside Japan are blocked out. I registered for the service but as a movie and DVD fan, I will probably never need it.

Downloading DVDs might be interesting for Japanese customers in rural areas with no rental shops though.

Anyway, let me show you how the service works in 3 steps.

Step 1:
Check out the following screenshot of the starting page.


The flash-based center of the starting page features the "Tsunagari Mappu" which means "connection map". If you click on one of the covers, you reach step 2.

Step 2:
In the next page, you can see alternative movies similar to the one chosen in step 1. If you are still happy with the title chosen, you can click on the button in orange under the DVD's cover on the right.


Step 3:
The final page features movie details like length, staff, cast etc. The usual stuff.


Full Metal Jacket costs 1,029 Yen (9 USD/6,30 Euros) to download. The normal retail price of this particular title is 3-4 times higher. However, depending on how long you rent the movie, rental fees are about half the price.

In addition, you have to download the KDDI DVD Burning software. It is free but a hassle nonetheless.

It will be interesting to see if Japanese customers like this concept especially in the light of KDDI being the first company in Japan to come up with this idea.

New service makes use of the fastet Internet structure in the world

In terms of speed, Japan clearly boasts the best Internet structure in the world. The median download speed over here is 61 mbps per second. Even Web wunderkind South Korea is trailing with 46 mbps. The number for the USA is staggering: 2 mbps (!), according to a recent report in the Washington Post.

The newspaper even fears that in the future Americans will have a very hard time catching up with broadband service in this country which is backed by strong political support.

Japanese IT and telecommunications giant KDDI now makes use of Japan's web infrastructure. The company announced Tuesday it will introduce a new service allowing customers to burn DVD contents which are downloadable from the Internet.

KDDI calls this concept "DVD Burning Service" (*cough*). The tentative starting page will change tomorrow. As of now, it only features a video explaining the new service in Japanese (click the big button on the bottom).

Contents include movies, Anime and TV drama shows. Prices will vary and start from just 500 Yen (4,36 USD/3,08 Euro).

KDDI will start the service tomorrow with 1,000 foreign and Japanese titles. The company said they plan to offer 5,000 titles by the end of March 2008.

To promote their new service, KDDI teamed up with Warner Bros. Japan (Japanese only) amongst others. Customers can download WB movies for a special discount price until the end of October 2007.

This might work not only because of the fast Internet connections in Japan. DVD prices in this country are obscene. Compared to the USA or Germany, you pay at least double the money.

Quote: Beware of the dark side of Japan's Mobile Internet World

"Being able to get on the Net via a cell phone encourages delinquency and deviation. Even when children don't have wayward intentions, they are easily lured to harmful sites through devious methods."

This advice was given by a professor in the Graduate School of Social and Information Studies at Gunma University in an article for Shukan Bunshun (a weekly Japanese magazine, web site in Japanese only).

The professor is very skeptical if Japanese parents are able to "control" their kids' surfing behavior on the mobile Internet.

Review: Japanese Fashion Social Network "Stylewalker"

As in many countries around the world, a lot of girls in this country are obsessed with shopping and particularly brand shopping ( I hope I am not being too sexist here). People in Japan especially love Italian and French brands like Louis Vuitton, Gucci, Dolce and Gabbana and so forth.

In March this year, Square Enix (a large videogame company known for the hit RPG series "Final Fantasy) and Xavel Media Group partnered to form "Stylewalker Inc." (Japanese only). All companies are located in Tokyo and try to benefit from that Japanese "brand craziness".

Stylewalker is also the name of the joint venture's main product which is essentially a mashup of a social network, fashion portal and social commerce site.

The main target of Stylewalker are Japanese girls in their Twenties. Registration to the site is free. The company makes money in various ways I explain below.

The main site looks like this (for a larger view, please click):


The header is almost self-explanatory. It is as fixed as the left column (the links in that column lead to pages explaining the site).

Let me explain the links on the header from left to right:
I) Shopping
II) Doll Store
III) Style
IV) Group
V) Blog

I)
After clicking "Shopping" you get to the online shop segment of the site which looks like this:

The column on the right features different categories like Outerware (625 items), One-pieces (1135 items) and so forth.

Actually the items are sold directly on Stylewalker. That means they do not use any affiliate links. There is a shopping cart and a check out. This is one way they generate revenue.

II)
The "Doll Store" is quite a unique feature. On Stylewalker, users are able to create avatars which are called dolls. This sounds cuter and more appealing to Japanese women. Anyway, Square Enix programmed the avatar engine which must have been a piece of cake for them.

The dolls can be dressed in various ways and shown to other Stylewalker members for discussion. For dressing the avatars, members can use actual fashion items sold on the store so it becomes easier for them to decide what fits or not.

That is not free however.

Check the screenshot below:


On the right column, you can again choose items from various categories (just as in the Shopping section explained above). However, these are only virtual. The black dress on the left for example costs 320 stm. "stm" is the site's virtual currency. 10 stm cost 100 Yen (87 US cent) - you get 1000 stm free for registering. So here is the second way Stylewalker makes money.

III)
In the "Style" section pictured below), users can present their avatars. Again, the column on the right changes. Here, dolls are categorized into various styles like feminine (826 dolls), natural (1,112 dolls) and so forth.



If you click on an avatar, you can rate or comment on it in the next screen pictured below.


IV)
The "Group" section pictured below features various, well, groups in which users can discuss topics like manga, fashion (of course) etc. There is even a group for "Paris Hilton and Nicole Ritchie" (only 1 member is registered here though!).



V)
Blogging is huge in Japan. All kinds of people blog on all kinds of machines about all kinds of topics. Around the clock. Seriously, it is that big. So no wonder, there is a separate blog section on Stylewalker (see the pic below).


On the right column, you can see that diaries (3,481 postings) are most popular, followed by fashion.

A typical Stylewalker blog looks like this:



Opinion
All in all, I think the site is quite OK but nothing sensational. Design is too bland while usability is acceptable. To my knowledge, there is no site like this in the US or Europe. Especially the "doll idea" is unique for a site targeting grown ups. That feature reminds me of Mattel's enormously popular Barbie web site.

At least, we can see a sensible business model here. Stylewalker can make money with its shop and selling of virtual items. Moreover, it makes sense for fashion companies to advertise on this site as it easy for them to pinpoint their target group.

And companies do advertise their brands, products, events etc. (as you can see on the right column on the starting page). So here we have the third way the site can generate revenue. Here is the list of brands featured on Stylewalker. The site only features products from these companies!

Also, Xavel is running the hugely popular fashion portals Girlswalker and Fashionwalker amongst others (both sites are Japanese only). It is not hard to predict they will attract at least a portion of Stylewalker users to those sites and vice versa.

Business-wise Stylewalker is developed well but as indicated above, it might not be flashy enough to attract Japanese girls. Will dressing up avatars really help them evaluating if a certain piece of clothing fits them? Why not go directly to a shop (OK, not everyone lives in Tokyo)?

Success so far is so-so. Square Enix and Xavel announced they expect 50,000 users to register by the end of this year. There are no official numbers but judging from the current activity on the site this might be hard to achieve.

Major retailer Ito Yokado "copies" Amazon Japan with new web site

In absolute numbers but also in proportion, Amazon Japan is not as successful as it is in the US or Germany (my home country). However, it is doing surprisingly good. Wal Mart Japan tanked in the offline world, as you may know, even though they are not dead yet.

In a rather bold move by Japanese standards, major merchandising store Ito Yokado tries to attack Amazon with a relaunched shopping site. The new home page (Japanese only) features a total of 100,000 items.

The product range features foodstuffs, fashion, kids and baby items, furniture, toys, cosmetics and gifts (from left to right, as highlighted in red on the picture below).

Pictures (click for bigger versions):
Start page of Ito Yokado's new shopping site vs. Amazon Japan




Is it me or is the Ito Yokado site kind of "similar"?
Anyway, as a USP users at least can order special groceries from local farmers and factories. However, Ito Yokado plans to widen the product range in the near future.

Very important for online success in Japan: The company also announced it will launch a mobile version in October this year.

Additional Info
In Japan, Rakuten (楽天) with its thousands of "malls" and millions of available items is the king of the online shopping ring.

The Tokyo based company has almost 4,000 employees and boasts $1.7 billion+ annual revenue for fiscal 2006!

New device to limit web access for Japanese children

Japanese toy and entertainment giant Bandai released a new product past Friday.

With this gadget -which is basically just a special kind of USB stick- parents can make sure their kids do not surf "dangerous" web sites anymore. The stick is 9 centimeters long and is called "Pasokon Kids Key" (Pasokon is the Japanese abbrevation of the term "Personal Computer"). It costs 3,480 Yen (30 USD).

Pictures of the device can be found here (descriptions in Japanese only). Its design features Disney characters like Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh. Disney is very popular in Japan, too.

After inserting the key, the PC will change into a "kids mode". Children then can access the Internet only through a specially designed portal. Actually the whole OS is simplified, i.e. less and bigger buttons are displayed.

The so-called "i-Filter" makes sure kids only access sites viewed suitable for them. It is free for use for the first 90 days after which a small monthly fee is charged.

Japanese online friends charged with murder

It is truly a bizarre and terrible incident about which the Japanese media reported at length this weekend.

According to police, three men (between 32 and 40 years old) killed a 31-year-old woman in Nagoya on August 24th. They are accused of kidnapping the woman and robbing her of about 60,000 Yen (520 USD). The victim was killed later in a parking lot.

Believe it or not, the police says all three people are members of a mobile Internet "crime community" and did not know each other before! The men met online to find partners to commit a crime to get money. Luckily they were caught and indicted this Friday.

There is certainly a dark side to the Japanese Internet world. The country has a long history of Internet related suicides. Total strangers become acquainted online and then meet in the real world to commit suicide together.

Cybercrime is a big issue in this otherwise very safe country. In the past, the Japanese police has been heavily criticized in the public for being too slow in responding to Internet-related crime.

Casio releases new digicam optimized for Youtube

The Japanese love Youtube, especially since the company fully localized its site a couple of weeks ago.

Casio recently introduced a new digital camera of its Exilim series (EX-S880) which lets you upload videos automatically to the video sharing site. It is already available in the west as well (namely in the US and Europe).

Casio calls the special function "Youtube Capture video mode" (640x480 pixels, 30fps, MPEG-4 video). It enables users to circumvent Youtube's uploading procedure through an application delivered with the camera.

PC World tested the digicam this Wednesday and came up with a mixed review. Apparently, it is a must-get for Youtube maniacs only.

But I don't think it is a bad idea since development of the software sure wasn't that complicated. I wouldn't be surprised to this feature in future releases of other makers as well.

Here you can see the Ex-S880 in action:


If you can't see the video, please click here.

Super Joint Venture from Japan to introduce interactive ad system

Sony, Matsushita, Hitachi, Toshiba and Sharp have agreed upon broadcasting interactive ads for TVs with Internet access.

The companies plan to set up a joint venture. Japanese viewers will be able to see the commercials from autumn this year. The companies will produce online content like news, weather and so on that users can access via their TVs.

In addition, a selection of banner ads will be displayed. If the viewers click on them with their remote control, a full-length ad (or CM as they are called over here). It is yet unknown how the users will be incentivized to just do that!

However, in Japan commercials have a different appeal than in the west. News shows sometimes even feature "Making of"s of TV CMs. In many cases, actors or actresses are introduced to the public through ads, followed by a career.

Some CMs have a huge online following as well, fueled by a number of CM otaku (yes, there are people like that living here).

I hope to get some screenshots of the ads and how they are displayed on this blog soon. The experiment (let me call it that) is Japan-only.

Info
Japan will switch its analog TV system completely to digital in 2011. The industry predicts 100 million TVs will be sold in the country until then (Japan has a population of 127 million). Of these 100 million TV sets, approximately 70% will be ready to access the Internet.

New Japanese Web 2.0 Site for gourmets and health-conscious people

The Nikkei Business Daily, Japan’s most famous business paper, reported in a recent issue that Kenko-plus Inc. (Japanese only) plans to set up a new kind of restaurant research site later this year.

Kenko-plus is a relatively small entity based in Osaka and calls itself a “IT & Bio-Informatics Total Solution Company”. Hmmm, okay.

As of now, the website (www.kenko-station.com) only displays a logo but soon restaurants, confectioneries etc. should be able to submit various information about their menus online. This includes ingredients, size of the portions served, cooking style and so on.

Based on the data received from participating restaurants, the site calculates calories and presents additional nutritional information for each menu chosen by the user.

Kenko-plus is trying to benefit from three factors:

1)
Japanese people are obsessed with food and especially eating out.

2)
Recently, the trend to keeping a health-conscious lifestyle and diet is rising in the country.

3)
Japanese people love the concept of “anshin” (安心) which can rougly be translated as "safety" or "security". The web site provides (hopefully) exact information about what you will eat when you order a specific menu at a specific place. There have been a number of scandals in the Japanese food industry in the last 2-3 years so consumer awareness is growing.

In that light, this might work concept-wise.

IMHO the participation fees ranging from 2,000 to 5,000 Yen per month (17.60 USD-44 USD!) are quite high though. Nevertheless, Kenko-plus is hoping 2,000 restaurants will join their project in the first year, according to Nikkei.

The site will also be available in a mobile version so people outside can access information about a restaurant and then decide whether to go for it or not.

Info

If you can read Japanese, you can download a PDF with details about the web site here.

Club Penguin-Scale Acquisition in Japan

Livedoor (Japanese only), THE Internet company in Japan, is set to sell its shares of its software sales subsidiary Yayoi (Japanese only) later this month to MBK, a quite famous private equity fund active in Japan, China and South Korea.

MBK is pumping a whopping 71 billion Yen into the deal. That is 624 million USD! MBK will borrow a portion of the sum from Swiss financial powerhouse UBS.

Livedoor bought Yayoi in 2004 for 20 billion Yen (158 million USD) - not a bad deal, indeed. Previously, Yayoi was a Japanese subsidiary of American accounting software giant Intuit (known particularly for Quicken). Insiders think it is likely Yayoi will go public in the near future.

Virtual world Club Penguin was sold to Disney last month for an estimated 700 million USD, creating a huge buzz not only in the Internet business world.

With Livedoor receiving roughly 90% of this huge sum, you can see a) the Japanese web business is not about peanuts at all and b) outside this country almost no one notices deals even of this size.

Japan plans to reinvent the Internet

This first blog entry already deals with a hot topic, Japan eyeing a post-Internet network.

Two weeks ago, the Japanese communications ministry (総務省: Soumusho) said the new technology is a must regarding current security issues and quality problems on the web. The new Internet architecture is planned to be brought into commercial use in 2020.

According to communications minister Yoshihide Suga cooperation between various academic, governmental and business organizations will begin as early as this fall. The budget for the project is not yet fixed. The Japanese fiscal year begins on April 1st, 2008.

Hmmm, what can we expect from this? Although Japan used to be No. 1 in the mobile Internet field (I used NTT Docomo’s excellent imode service for the first time in early 2000!), the country never was never really able to penetrate and set standards in foreign markets.

Maybe all this will change especially since Japan is open this time to cooperate with other countries including the US. The new network is planned to cope better with breakdowns, viruses and spamming. Moreover, the Japanese would like to ensure faster data transmission. Sounds good to me.

The political and economic intention behind the project is clear: Japan stands out as a pioneer in internet architecture and related hardware and software businesses here can enjoy a much-needed improvement in global competitiveness (more on this at a later time).

The media here (TV, online, print) reported in-depth about the planned post-Internet network. I will keep you up-to-date.