Japaaan: New SNS to uncover Japan's hidden must-go spots

As many people know, it is true that Japan is a big and beautiful country with a rich cultural heritage. Even a metropolis Tokyo has its nice places. I am kind of affiliated with the German embassy here in Tokyo and from what I hear Japan doesn't do a really good of promoting the country in Europe. Well, I can't say from here.

Now, a new social network called "Japaaan" was just recently established to do something very interesting: Unearthing Japan's nicest places which are yet unknown particularly to foreign visitors! So if you are an individualistic traveler who is interested in seeing Japan's hidden touristic treasures you should join the network. Families are welcome as well.

Signing up is free and done in 30 seconds. I am a member already ;).

Picture: New SNS "Japaaan"


My friend Yuki Naotori (CEO of web startup 7ns) created "Japaaan" in liaison with www.japan-hopper.com.

In detail, the network is a platform for people who are interested in travel destinations which are not accounted for in printed guides like "Lonely Planet" or on the usual travel web sites. This can include i.e. "hidden" onsen (Japanese hot springs), ryokans (Japanese inns), temples, remote villages, unknown sightseeing spots etc.

Gaijin and Japanese people are equally welcome to share their insider tips online.

Online AND offline plans
The activity is not only reduced to online discussions though. It is planned to actually travel to certain places together and document the experience. Later videos, pictures etc. of the trips would be posted on the web site.

I think this non-profit project is a cool idea. If you are interested, please join "Japaaan" here or through www.japaan.org.

There will be a first offline kickstart-meeting in a restaurant in Tokyo on January 9th. Everyone interested is cordially invited. Please visit the web site for details and make sure to let the webmaster know of you attendance as fast as possible so seats can be reserved.

Kanji-Fandom converts your name into Chinese characters

Did you ever wonder how your name is spelled in Chinese characters (called Kanji)? Writing it in Katakana (the Japanese alphabet) was yesterday. Now you can "Kanji it" very easily with Kanji-Fandom (website is completely in English).

This nifty and fun new web site (very minimalistic/Google-like) was just released and is still in beta. One of my readers pointed me to this service.


Just type in your name in the text box and the system automatically retrieves multiple Kanji characters which are connected to your gaijin name;).

For the default name "Michael Jordan" the result page looks like that:


You can choose from a list of Kanji and compose your own combination. The Kanji name can then be altered in various ways, commented on, rated etc.

For "Michael Jordan", the automatic recommendation looks like this:


It also explained what the Kanji means. In Jordan's case: Dance, Kick, Length and Group. Aptly named indeed ;).

Company Info
Kanji-Fandom is offered by B3United, a Tokyo based web company actually specialized in mobile solutions. For example, they provide the search engine for Chaku-Uta. Chaku-Uta is the wildly successful music download service from KDDI (Japan's No.2 mobile phone carrier serving over 25 million customers!).

Review: 8 reasons why Yahoo rules Japan

My posting about the Top 50 web sites in Japan featured a winner: Yahoo Japan.

The company not only dominates Internet search in Japan (approx. 65% market share) but the Internet as a whole, offering a wide range of services. Corporate business figures are not too shabby either. From April to September this year for example, Yahoo Japan's profits equaled 29,27 billion Yen (254 million USD/178 million Euros)!



Here are 8 reasons for Yahoo Japan's success so far:

1) Head Start
Yahoo started Internet operations in Japan in 1996 when Google didn't even exist.

2) Tie-up with Japanese communications powerhouse Softbank
Yahoo Japan didn't just translate its service but localized it in cooperation with a strong Japanese joint venture partner (telecommunications giant Softbank). Actually, Softbank owns 41% of Yahoo Japan while Yahoo Inc. only owns 33% of shares. In my view, Yahoo Japan is in fact a very, very Japanese company...

3) Adoption to Japanese tastes
Yahoo Japan's top page is cluttered (see the screen shot below for a translated version). Google Japan's top page is as minimalistic as its non-Japanese versions which is a good thing in my view. But Yahoo's design is appealing to Japanese people. Users here are used to see a lot of links and text boxes on a top page. In a way, they expect it to be like that!

4) Wildly successful auction site
"Ebay? What's that?" would be the answer the average Japanese Joe would give if asked if they knew a company of that name. There is actually no Ebay Japan (here is why they failed 5 years ago). Yahoo's auction service is absolutely dominant in Japan and makes a LOT of money. There are over 15 million items on sale! They have a popular mobile version, too.

5) Comprehensive online service lineup
While more or less buried in the West, Yahoo Japan is living proof the "Internet portal idea" is very much alive, at least here in Japan. I personally regularly use Yahoo to look up the TV program, weather, news, train information and much more. See the picture below for a translation of the Yahoo Japan top page.

Picture: Top page Yahoo Japan (click to enlarge). This is the brushed-up version which is available after January 1st, 2008.


Let me break down the particularly important "CATEGORIES" column on the right (from top to bottom).

The first part is entitled "Yahoo!サービス" (Yahoo services) and covers 17 items:
Shopping, auctions, travel, news, weather, sports, map, traffic info, real estate, eating out, cars, BBS, blogging, beauty and dating.

The second part (お気に入り, meaning bookmarks) consists of five items:
Movies, music, games, astrology and videos.

The third part is named "ピックアップ" (Pick up) and currently features selected music only.

6) Investments in Japan
Yahoo Japan has a history of investing in the Japanese market signaling serious commitment to the domestic market. The company employs nearly 2.700 people in this country. Its HQ is located in Tokyo's poshest office complex, Roppongi Midtown in Tokyo.

Yahoo is also Japan's biggest broadband operator (Yahoo BB)!

7) Cooperations with Japanese companies
I already blogged about Yahoo Japan's plans to bring the web to HD-TVs (in cooperation with Sharp). The investment in Japanese web company GMO Internet (13.5 million USD two weeks ago) is a second and more recent example for Yahoo's integration in this country's economy.

8) Innovations
One recent example for a new service from Yahoo Japan is "Yahoo Videocast" which is not available in other countries. This subsite makes it possible for users to upload and watch videos from their mobile phones and on the web. Yahoo claims videos can be displayed on any handset. Not a huge thing but it shows they put some resources into fighting Youtube and Nico Nico Doga, at least here in Japan.

Moreover, Yahoo Japan and Ebay America are cooperating now so that Japanese people and Ebay users can trade internationally (background). This new service is called Sekaimon ("door to the world").

Did I forget anything?

Google aims at conquering Japan through the backdoor

Google is the world's No. 1 search engine but here in Japan, Yahoo is the undisputed king - not only for Internet search but also as a very comprehensive portal.



Today it came to light Google Japan will cooperate with Japan's leading telecommunications company and cell phone carrier NTT Docomo. In fact, NTT Docomo is the world's biggest mobile communications company. In Japan, the wireless market is clearly dominated by DoCoMo. The company served more customers in 2006 (51.1 million) than KDDI (25.4 million) and Softbank Mobile (15.2 million) combined!



So Google Japan's choice is not too bad and the Shibuya-based subsidiary surely has the pocket money to get a deal like that financed. The Tokyo Stock Exchange liked Docomo's idea. Docomo shares rose to a five-months high today!

In detail, Docomo plans to integrate Google's search engine, scheduling service, Gmail and other Google functions into its i-mode mobile Internet services.

That's not all. NTT Docomo is part of the Open Hand Set Alliance of Google's Android open source platform for the development of software for handsets. While the integration of Google services into i-mode is scheduled for this spring, Docomo aims at introducing a mobile phone based on Android in the second half of 2008. For example, joint development in the area of localized store information and navigation on mobile phones is planned.

Yahoo Japan is dominant also on handsets
i-mode users can already access Google search with their handsets. My guess is that Google will be featured more prominently on and in Docomo's handsets. For example, my Japanese handset features a "Y!" button with "Y" standing for Yahoo. After pressing it, I am connected to the Internet: The starting page is Yahoo Japan...

So maybe one day there will be a "G" button on Japanese phones and Google can finally conquer this difficult market here ;)

Japan's Top 50 web sites

I recently wondered which the most frequently visited web sites in Japan are. There are a number of services which track popularity of Internet services, i. e. Alexa, Nielsen or Comscore.

I am aware that measuring the popularity of web sites is a highly complicated issue and the results are not reliable to say the least. It is not even clear what popularity means: visits, page views, time spent on a particular site or...? Moreover, there is no agreement on a uniform tracking methodology yet. But this discussion is too technical here.

Alexa is said to be more accurate in territories in which English is the first language. For that reason, I chose Nielsen/Netrating Japan's ranking in the following list. The company released this information in July this year (Japanese only). The Top 50 is based on the time surfers from Japan spend on the site.

To compare and to some extent cross-check the data with more recent information, you can see the rank of the corresponding web site in the Alexa in brackets (accessed yesterday Japanese time). Alexa's traffic measurement method is a combination of page views and visits.

So here are the Top 50 of Japan's most popular web sites:

1. yahoo.co.jp (Alexa ranking: 1, my review)

2. mixi.jp (4, social network: my review)

3. rakuten.co.jp (5, online mall with English site, my review)

4. youtube.com (-)

5. fc2.com (2, online services)

6. 2ch.net (12, online forum)

7. goo.ne.jp (9, search/portal)

8. wikipedia.org (-)

9. biglobe.ne.jp (18, search/portal)

10. infoseek.co.jp (10, search/portal)

11. nifty.com (14, search/portal)

12. google.co.jp (3)

13. amazon.co.jp (11)

14. etrade.ne.jp (-, finance services)

15. msn.com (msn.co.jp is 48th)

16. nicovideo.jp (6, video sharing: my review)

17. jra.go.jp (-, horse racing with English site)

18. geocities.jp (63)

19. sakura.ne.jp (15, Internet provider)

20. qweb.ne.jp (-, currently inaccessible)

21. gyao.jp (49, video site)

22. so-net.ne.jp (40, search/portal)

23. livedoor.jp (-, online services)

24. hangame.co.jp (32, gaming, my review at Asiajin)

25. benesse.ne.jp (-, service corporation with English site)

26. ocn.ne.jp (25, search/portal)

27. google.com (-)

28. microsoft.com (-)

29. teacup.com (42, online services)

30. 2chan.net (-, aka Futaba, Internet Forum)

31. daiwa.co.jp (-, securities brokerage)

32. kakaku.com (44, social shopping/price comparison: my review)

33. ameblo.jp (16, blogging services)

34. fm-p.jp (53, home page maker)

35. livedoor.com (7, online services)

36. cgiboy.com (39, online/graphics services)

37. macromill.com (-, research company)

38. excite.co.jp (35)

39. dion.ne.jp (41, now auone.jp, mobile phone company)

40. ecnavi.jp (-, shopping portal)

41. kabu.co.jp (-, finance services)

42. yomiuri.co.jp (62, online newspaper with English site)

43. home.ne.jp (66, currently inaccessible)

44. monex.co.jp (-, online bank with English site)

45. exblog.jp (33, blogging services)

46. asahi.com (77, online newspaper with English site)

47. jal.co.jp (-, airline)

48. matsui.co.jp (-, securities brokerage with English site)

49. xmbs.jp (19, currently inaccessible)

50. nikkei.co.jp (57, online business newspaper with English site)


It is obvious that the Alexa ranking can't really match with the Nielsen results due to different tracking approaches and times of my accessing the information. It is striking that some popular sites in the Nielsen ranking, i. e. Youtube (!), don't appear in the Alexa hit list at all. However, Alexa says dell.com is 8th but the Dell address is missing in Nielsen's list.

The Top 50 should at least be a good estimate of the most popular web sites in Japan nevertheless!

Event report: Firefox Video Awards in Tokyo

Yesterday I attended the Get Firefox Video Award Show (Japanese only) in Azabu, Tokyo. The aim of the event was to promote Firefox in Japan. So far, my favorite browser conquered a 16% share of the market in this country.



(all pictures in this posting courtesy of my friend Thor Asmund)

Mozilla received over 100 video clips from artists from all over Japan. I am not an artist but I would say the overall quality was very good!

This video called "The Night" (done by an artists group called Pantograph from Kanagawa Prefecture) won the Grand Prix (direct link):


The 3 gentlemen on the right are the proud winners:



The videos which won in other categories (like CG/Anime) can be viewed here.

Very artsy atmosphere
The event itself and the venue (Club SuperDeluxe) were really cool but unfortunately, not too many people from the IT industry were there. As expected, Joi Ito was absent. I would have liked to talk to him.

Gen Kanai who is Director of Marketing at Mozilla Japan was the MC and did a great job:



By the way, Gen mentioned that Mozilla organized a similar event last year in the USA. Although entries were accepted from all over the world not one single video reached American shores from Japan or Asia! After seeing the quality of the works yesterday I can say this is a real shame.

PS
Thor uploaded some more photos of the award show here.

Technical trouble in my "Japan's IT industry vs the world" posting: My apologies

I am very sorry to hear that some of my readers had trouble with my posting "Japan's IT industry vs the world".

Apparently Blogger messed up some links and formatting within the posting. I apologize for the inconvenience. After publishing the posting I checked it as usual and it was fine.

Sorry for the trouble. Please check out the posting again. Everything should be in order now.

Japan's IT industry vs the world

I regularly speak with a lot of Japanese IT experts and insiders personally: software developers, programmers, IT company owners, web designers, bloggers etc.

Regardless of the size of the companies they are working for (some are self-employed) I am constantly impressed about their openness when they talk to me. Usually, they have very critical views on the Japanese IT (software) industry as a whole.

The bottom line is usually this:
From a global perspective, Japan's software industry is weaker than it has to be. For example, there is no web service coming from Japan which people worldwide use.

Basically I agree with this diagnosis. Especially the second statement is true.

You could probably multiple dissertations about this topic. However, a couple of very interesting articles about the current status quo of the Japanese IT industry I stumbled upon sum up major critical points I have heard over the last months.

I believe these articles are worth a read for my Japanese readership as well. The emphasis lies on the factor that counts the most: the professionals working in the IT industry.

1) Newsweek (December 10, 2007 issue)
"Why Apple Isn’t Japanese" is the title of an article in a recent issue of Newsweek International edition. Worth a read although the author puts emphasis on the hardware side.

Essentially the author argues that Japan is falling behind in the global technology race because of out-dated corporate administration systems, lack of innovation, political incompetence and a disconnect of universities and the industry.

He cites Docomo's failure to globally launch its proprietary mobile Internet technology i-mode as an example.

2) JapanInc (Spring 2007 issue)
James Mok, a graduate of Stanford University, is writing an interesting piece on why the Japanese enterprise IT sector can be regarded as relatively weak in his eyes: "My struggle at the Frontline of Japanese Enterprise IT".

Mok's main question:
"Why have Japan’s strengths and its competitiveness in manufacturing not been extended to the Enterprise IT industry?"

His analysis is very deep and deserves special attention because of his working in this very industry in Japan himself.

3) JapanInc (November/December 2007 issue)
In his second article for JapanInc, James Mok asks "How the Japanese IT Industry Destroys Talent".

This is a huge problem for Japan's IT industry. Mok cites a Nikkei Computer survey according to which 70% of all IT people in this country think negatively about their working conditions.

Again, Mok delivers a thought-provoking analysis of the industry and points out why in the current situation even the most skilled Japanese IT engineers can't fully put their potential to good use.

4) Various articles written in Japanese
A reader of my blog (an IT industry insider) pointed me to a couple of articles written by Japanese IT engineers working in this country (sorry, Japanese only).

In these articles/survey results (1,2) and blog postings (1,2) which are (relatively) new some harsh criticism comes to light. The blog postings and surveys are partly connected and refer to each other content-wise.

The surveys reveal that (web) software developers are getting significantly lower salaries than other professional categories. They also have lower chances of getting into highly-paid positions.

One of the bloggers begins his article by writing "日本のIT業界は救いようがない。: Nihon no IT gyoukai wa sukui you ga nai." which translates to "The Japanese IT industry cannot be saved." However, the writer stresses he specifically refers to the system integrator industry (system integrators or "SIer" as an abbreviation in Japanese-English).

Multi-layered topic

Indeed, there is not only ONE software industry but many layers and sub sectors existing within that field. The situation in Japan's game industry is vastly different from the one producing enterprise software, for example.

And there is a high number of talented and powerful programmers in Japan as well of course. For example, the programming language Ruby (on which Ruby on Rails is based) was invented in Japan by Yukihiro "Matz" Matsumoto.

Moreover, some star entrepreneurs do exist in Japan, most notably the members of the 76ers generation (nanaroku sedai: ナナロク世代). All of them are born in or around 1976. These IT-savvy turned company owners include "celebrities" like
- Kasahara Kenji (31, billionaire and President of Japan's No. 1 SNS Mixi)
- Naito Yuki (29, President of web service company Drecom)
- Tanaka Yoshikazu (30, President of SNS GREE)
- Kondo Junya (31, President of web service company and geek heaven Hatena)
and a few others.

As said above, I could write on and on about this very complicated topic. Please keep in mind within the scope of this posting I can only provide my readers with a very rough (and surely incomplete) overview of selected mega trends in the Japanese IT industry.

New blog "Asiajin" launched - definitely recommended reading

Japan is the second biggest economy in the world, has a population of 128 million and can be proud of its vibrant and innovative Internet market.

However, there is not even a handful of blogs in English covering the Japanese Internet scene.

Just a couple of days before I set up Tokyotronic, Blognation Japan started with my friend Robert Sanzalone as editor. Also, there is Chris Salzberg who together with Hanako Tokita takes care of the "Japan section" at Global Voices, regularly covering the VERY active blogosphere in this country. Robert Cawte's NextWeb Japan and venture capitalist Shin Fukushige's from the inside, looking in are other recommended blogs.

New blog "Asiajin"
However now, Asiajin joined the mission of bringing the latest developments on the Japanese Internet to the public. Asiajin means "Asian people" in Japanese. This blog actually follows a broader approach by covering Asia as a whole and not only Japan - a very good idea!

Asiajin is run by Japanese star programmers Shunichi Arai of Mellowtone (his impressive CV in English can be found here) and Akky Akimoto who is active over at Cyboze. Information on Akky (in English) can be found here. More editors are expected to join in the near future.

Although the blog is officially launched today there is a lot of information to be found already. So please make sure to check it out.

Web 2.0 event in Tokyo: Learn about Zooomr, Artistsweb and FF3

Yesterday I attended a Tokyo2point0 event in Omotesandou/Tokyo for the first time. Tokyo2point0 is a social network set up by Tokyo-based Englishman and IT fanatic Andrew Shuttleworth. However, members of this community also meet in real life on a regular basis.

You can sign up directly on the site itself, go to Tokyo2point0's Facebook group or get some information on Mixi.

The event yesterday focused on networking and three presentations two of which were hold mainly in English. I really hope all Japanese people in the room understood everything (I couldn't talk to all of them to "check" their language skills).

1) Zooomr.com
Zooomr.com is the name of a rather famous web service which is regularly featured on sites like Techcrunch or Mashable. In its simplest form, Zooomr is a photosharing site. After the event,I talked with Kristopher (the founder and CTO) on Skype and he told me they are not competing with companies like Flickr.

Why? Zooomr in my opinion heavily focuses on social network aspects. Moreover, the site seems to offer more functions than Flickr or other similar products (i.e. Zipline which is kind of an Instant Messenger!), is translated into 16 languages and designed very mobile Internet-friendly (VERY important in Japan).

Also, Zooomr is essentially a JAPANESE web service. The HQ is located in Shibuya, Tokyo and all key people (including Kristopher himself) are based in Japan!

Kristopher also talked about "OpenTransit" which is essentially an open source routing navigation engine for Web Developers. Very cool idea. I hope we can see some great products coming out of that!

Here is the video of Kristopher's presentation (direct link):


2) TheArtistsWeb
Chris Kirkland gave an interesting presentation about his e-commerce platform "The Artists Web". On the site artists from all backgrounds can sign up for a certain yearly fee, set up their own web site (gallery) and then are able to sell their works online to buyers from all over the world. What is sold is not a tangible product but electronic files that can be printed out later.

Chris told me prints are selling particularly well. There are over 27,000 works of art online at the moment!

The company is run from England and Japan with Chris being the owner and based here in Japan.

He also shared his experiences with Facebook and the way they handle developers of FB applications. Bittersweet stories;). Chris is a pretty busy guy: He also runs a gaming network called "The Sentence Game" which almost 30,000 users subscribed to. Wow!

For more information, check out his video (direct link):


3) Firefox 3
The launch of Firefox 3 is not exactly Web 2.0-related but Gen Kanai's presentation and demo was very interesting nonetheless.

Gen is director of Marketing at Mozilla Japan and passionate about pushing Firefox in the Japanese market. Actually he also was responsible for setting up the new Mozilla China (Chinese only) office in Beijing (more on that here).

You can see his cool presentation here (direct link):


Also, please check out Gen's personal site. His blog (written in English) is excellent!

Friendster will never make it in Japan

I was surprised to hear today that social network Friendster has released a Japanese version of its site. They also launched Friendster in Korean (the site is already available in Chinese).

I have to admit this move leaves me a little staggered. Friendster makes two "mistakes" here:
1)
They are way, way too late. There is Mixi, GREE, MySpace Japan, Yahoo 360 etc. etc. Who needs Friendster now?

2)
The launch of the Japanese version is barely backed by any Marketing or PR in this country. Moreover, Friendster just translated its service instead of localizing it. This is a hopeless approach in most country markets but especially in Japan.

Surely people at Friendster know all of this themselves.

Why did they translate their site anyway? My guess is Friendster just wanted to round off its service. They cover English, Chinese, Spanish, Korean and Japanese now. However, only very, very few Japanese users will be inclined to join Friendster through this move.

PS
My mother tongue German is still missing on Friendster ;).

Japan develops software against pirated movies

We all know how it works: Somebody smuggles a video camera into a movie theater, tapes it off the screen and uploads it on a torrent site, Emule, Winny (a Japanese P2P system) or wherever and anybody can download the file later.

In my opinion, Japanese people tend to refrain from illegal downloading. That doesn't mean it isn't happening but I feel the problem is bigger in the US and Europe.

Yesterday, Japanese TV network and relentless innovator NHK and Mitsubishi Electric presented a new system to prevent distribution of counterfeit video material over the Internet. The companies hope their jointly developed watermark technology will enable movie producers to trace illegal copies of their products on the Internet.

If someone copies moving pictures, the camera will tape watermarks embedded in the source material at the same time. Those signals are invisible to the human eye but allow copyright holders to identify their stolen works online by using specially designed software.

NHK and Mitsubishi said stolen material can even be traced even if a part of an image is put on the web! Moreover the system makes it even possible to trace at which cinema and at which time the illegal copy was made. Not bad!

This is not the first time some company claims it has the ultimate weapon to combat online piracy.

However, especially NHK is a power not to be underestimated. NHK is not only Japan's public TV station but also a pioneer in broadcasting technology.

For example, NHK is currently developing "Super-Hi-Vision" which is supposed to succeed HD-TV in 2025. The Super-Hi-Vision format with a resolution of 7,680 × 4,320 pixels is four times as wide and four times as high (!) as HD-TV...

So one can expect this new technology to work in one way or the other.

How to use and register for KakikoTV

Following the review, here is some more information about KakikoTV. I will break down this posting into two parts:

I) How to register
II) How to use KakikoTV

Let's begin by
I) How to register
The sign-up process is very easy as displayed in the JPEGs below.



After confirmation, you are logged in (your name is displayed on the top right of the screen). You will also get a "Thank you"-email (without an activation link by the way).

II) How to use KakikoTV
You can choose between two ways to get videos from Youtube as seen in the following image.


After choosing a video the following screen appears:


Confirm and you get to the following page:


Confirm again and now you can start modifying the video:


The container on the right displays a list of all effects added to the video so far (in the JPEG above, there are two).

The main menu consists of the following functions/effects you can add (left to right):
- text
- subtitles
- speech balloons
- shapes (arrows, squares etc.)
- insert an image
- insert an animation (from a list: smiley, glowing light bulb etc.)
- insert a link to a Yahoo auction (!)
- insert a sound effect (from a list)
- insert sound freely
- show a list of all effects added (also to be seen in the container to the right of the video)

I could write on and on about each of these functions but that would lead too far. I suggest you try it out. It's very easy to use!

Here is an example for the options you can choose from after selecting the text function. You can alter text size, color, font, position on the video etc. etc.!


Confirm every effect by clicking on the floppy disk icon on the small menu appearing above the main menu (see JPEG above). It will be then added as a new effect to the list just like the text box in the example:


At the end, KakikoTV saves the video with all effects included automatically. You can access your "work" later, edit/delete each effect, put modified videos on display for other people and mail them to friends (see JPEG).

I think this information is enough to make good use of KakikoTV for Non-Japanese speakers ;).

Review: KakikoTV lets you modifiy videos and photos online

KakikoTV is the name of a relatively new service which has so far been exclusively marketed in Japan. I listened to the interesting presentation of the maker during the Web 2.0 Expo in Tokyo recently (my short article about the expo is here).

Essentially KakikoTV enables users to modify videos and photos online by integrating a range of visual and sound effects, comments or subtitles.

This is the official KakikoTV demo video (direct link).


There is no information in English about KakikoTV anywhere on the Internet so I decided it is time for a write-up from my side ;). Learn how to use and register for KakikoTV as a non-Japanese speaker in a separate post. Please notice I focus on modifying videos in this review (not pictures).

I will review KakikoTV in the following order:

I) General Info
II) Starting Page
III) Functions and Features
IV) Business Modell
V) Opinion


I) General Info
The site is a product of Eviry Inc. (this and most of the following links are in Japanese only) which was founded October 2006. The company is located in Tokyo.

KakikoTV is Eviry's main service and was introduced in March this year. The presentation at the Web 2.0 expo Tokyo promoted Intra Kakiko however, the company's new product which was released just last month. While KakikoTV is B2C, Intra Kakiko is aimed at the B2B market only. In this review, I focus on KakikoTV since this is more of interest to most of the readers of this blog.

II) Starting Page
Please click on the JPEG below in which I translated the main contents of the starting page into English.


The starting page is very clear and almost self-explanatory. The page's third row features a box in which users can type in a Youtube URL to get the video they want to modify. Alternatively, a search term can be entered. KakikoTV then accesses Youtube's data base and presents related videos in grid format (on their own site).

III) Functions and Features

There are a lot of options to modify videos via Kakiko. Please look at my tuturial for details.

This is the page where you can work on the video you chose:


Mainly, users can integrate sounds, pictures, icons, text and animations into videos. You can use the effects given by the site but also add your own!

Effects can be changed in size, appearance (i.e. angle) and color. Users are free to integrate these elements at any given time into any given Youtube video.

More on this in my tutorial on KakikoTV.

IV) Business Modell
There are no advertisements on the site. Also, there are no premium memberships. The company makes money solely with sales of its B2B solution Intra Kakiko.

Youtube could use a service like this and let users pay for it. I am sure that this would be an idea worth trying out.

V) Opinion
A comparison with Youtube's own editing feature "Remixer" (made by Adobe Premiere Expresss) is impossible since at the time of writing I couldn't get it to work on my PC. It is still in Youtube's "Test Tube" section anyway meaning it's not an official service yet.

Pros:
1)
The whole site is very clear in layout and style

2)
The service is easy to use

3)
No need to download and install software of any kind

4)
Clear focus on a selected service (modification and amplification of online videos and pictures)

5)
As a whole, KakikoTV "makes sense", is fun and a useful tool

Cons:
1)
An English version would be good

2)
More functions/effects are always welcome

I think two things about the Internet are true: Firstly, the game for videos is big already and will grow in the future. Secondly, uploading and viewing videos and pictures online for fun or professional purposes is here to stay. This means potential for services as KakikoTV or IntraKakiko is huge.

What I like best about KakikoTV is its usability. Japanese people love the Kantan-principle (kantan (簡単) means easy). And KakikoTV delivers in this respect. Everything is thought through from the users' point of view.

Make sure to read my 2nd posting about KakikoTV in which I analyze the functions and explain how to register (in English).

Overall: Well done!