Techcrunch 50 competition: Call for Japanese web companies

My friend Umihiko Namekawa from Techcrunch Japan just posted an article in his blog about the upcoming Techcrunch 50 competition (organized by Techcrunch USA and to be held in September in San Francisco).



Following the abscence of Japanese web companies in last year's Techcrunch 40 event, potential participants from this country are encouraged to take part this year.

The time schedule is pretty tight but professional support will be provided by the organizers.

More information (in Japanese) can be found here on the official site.

I joined the Techcrunch empire (+other news)

As the title of this post suggests, I am now a member of the almighty Techcrunch empire. To be exact, I am actually the only blogger from the Techcrunch (USA) network who is based in Japan.



I started writing for Crunchgear a couple of days ago. Crunchgear is the sister blog of Techcrunch, covering gadgets, computer hardware and technology news in general. They needed someone to take care of the Japanese side of things (it was about time) and thankfully chose me!

Crunchgear has nearly 40.000 RSS readers while Techcrunch even boasts 920.000 RSS readers.

My list of articles on Crunchgear can be found here. So far it's great fun and I will continue giving my best to expose the power of Japanese technology to the world!

Also, I hope to contribute to Techcrunch itself sometime to let their readers know the web industry over here offers cool stuff, too.

However, I will continue blogging for Asiajin (my list of Asiajin articles is here).

Some more news
This shameless self-PR spree doesn't stop here:

If you want to hear me speaking about various stuff (mainly about the Japanese Tech scene and myself), please check out the podcast interview I gave for my friend Robert Sanzalone the other day.

PS
Also, in case you are interested on the shrinking gap between television and the web in Japan, please check out a recent article on that topic here or here (also to be found in the printed versions of Australian newspapers The Sun and The Sydney Morning Herald).

It's an interesting piece my Aussie friend Justin Norrie wrote and yours truly is quoted.

PPS
I removed the Google ads from this blog quite some time ago. Tokyotronic is now completely non-profit ;).

Also, I put a Zooomr Zipline widget on my blog (see the sidebar). You can do the same here.

Facebook is now available in Japanese, CEO Zuckerberg says in Tokyo

Facebook's CEO Marc Zuckerberg personally traveled to Tokyo to announce the launch of the Japanese version of his super-successful social network. Actually he came for just a day (on May 20th), gave a few interviews telling why Japanese people should join Facebook and left.



It goes without saying this is not the way to go in this country. Just translating Facebook into Japanese (by over 1,300 native speakers) will not help much as well.

Difficult environment for Facebook
I have put together some reasons Facebook will have a hard time gaining a siginificant market share in Japan here. Fellow blogger Takuya Homma adds a few thoughts, most importantly the need of a kick-ass mobile version of a Facebook Japan. This is totally correct, given the fact that the number of users of Japan's largest SNS Mixi accessing the site via their cell phones exceeds 50%. Moreover, a lot of their members use the site as a blogging platform.

Zuckerberg also said in one statement Facebook is known for its safety since people are using their real names. Well, first of all this is not necessarily true. Everybody and his brother can set up a Facebook profile using any name. Secondly, the majority of Japanese users of social networks would HATE to reveal their identity and post photos of themselves online. Just look at Mixi: How many members demonstrate this behavior there? Almost no one...

So in my view Facebook faces a very, very hard time on the Japanese market. At least Zuckerberg came the long way from the USA to show his face - he didn't travel to my home country Germany when Facebook launched the German version a few weeks ago...

Update:
Lisa Katayama (a US-based writer and journalist) wrote an excellent article on Facebook Japan, which can be found here.

Softbank brings Alibaba.com to Japan

Japanese web and telecom giant Softbank and China-based B2B platform Alibaba are collaborating. 65 percent of Alibaba Japan will be owned by Softbank, the rest by Alibaba's parent company. The companies are investing 20 million USD into the joint venture.

There are over 1 million products registered on Alibaba Japan at the moment. The site boasts 75,000 Japanese members.

The new company will be lead by CEO Makoto Koyama. Japan's richest and Softbank's big man Masayoshi Son is going to be a director.

The official press release in which the joint venture was announced the day before yesterday can be found here (Japanese).

In my view, it is about time something happened in the B2B web space in Japan. After all, this is the country of companies: According to the Japanese Ministry of Trade, Economy and Industry 4.7 million SME are registered in Japan!

RECRUIT-sponsored Javascript User Interface conference in Tokyo

The YAPC Asia in Tokyo ended yesterday. Unfortunately, I couldn't attend (and try to understand as a Non-Techie) all presentations: I was simply too busy.
Next year, I will be there again (here is my former post on the event).

On Monday, I will be attending the JUI 2008 conference in Tokyo (Javascript User Interface). My friend Yusuke Kawasaki and his employer, Japanese powerhouse RECRUIT, are the main drivers. behind the event.

Yusuke told me the number of registrants already exceeded the 100 mark even though the JUI 2008 was brought to life in a hurry and is the first conference of its kind. It will take place in the RECRUIT office building in Ginza.

These are the main speakers. Some high-profile engineers will be there:

- Paul Bakaus - http://ui.jquery.com/
- "amachang" - http://d.hatena.ne.jp/amachang/
- "inucara" - http://inucara.net/
- "iandeth" - http://iandeth.dyndns.org/mt/ian/

For registration and more info, please visit Yusuke's blog (in English). The JUI 2008 Facebook group is here.

My report on the event can be found on Asiajin.

YAPC Tokyo 2008: A great event

Following the tokyo2point0 event the day before yesterday, I took part in the Yet another Perl conference (aka YAPC Asia) in Tokyo today. The event which will go on for one more day is taking place on the Tokyo Institute of Technology campus in Ookayama.

The YAPC Asia is a HUGE conference: A gathering of 500 Perl enthusiasts (and people like myself), with dozens of presentations and various side events.

Just have a look at this picture I took to get an impression of the size of the YAPC. This is one of several halls on the campus the organizers secured for holding the presentations.


By the way: Today at the conference dinner, Akky Akimoto introduced me to his buddy Dan Kogai, a Japanese uber-geek considered to be this country's god of programming. That was really cool!

For more information on the event, please read the article my friend Shunichi Arai (another famous engineer) wrote for Asiajin. Shunichi-san promised to follow-up with pictures tomorrow (my pathetic photograph above doesn't do the event justice).

What I particularly liked about the event is its VERY high level of internationalization. A large portion of the presentations were held in English, there is an official blog in English and at least all essential info material is also not Japanese only. This is a very unusual and commendable decision.

The high number of gaijin taking part in the conference was really striking. In my view, Japan needs even more high-profile events like this to get itself on the map of global IT!

I will also attend the second day of the conference tomorrow. Let's have a chat if you see/recognize me.

Coming very soon: Common Web TV standard in Japan

I guess there is no doubt that in a couple of years, the link between Television and the web will be much stronger than it is now.

Here in Japan, TV sets featuring direct Internet access are expected to be sold as early as next year. In preparation of this move, manufacturers and web TV providers are currently trying to agree on a common technical standard. Their obvious aims are to avoid making end customers decide between different solutions and getting into a format "war".

Makers like Sony and Matsushita are on the forefront of the hardware side whereas the Internet service providers include companies like acTVila (some info from me about acTVila and web TV in Japan can be found in an earlier post).

It is remarkable (at least in my view) that
a) this development is almost not covered in Non-Japanese language
b) the Japanese companies involved are trying to come to an agreement as early as next month
and
c) they are likely to call on the International Telecommunications Union to make the "Japanese way" the global standard.

Let's see if this will happen!