Tag: Japan

Twitter To Hit Japanese Cell Phones This Summer

Japan’s third-largest mobile communications company is poised to help Twitter become significantly more popular outside America. SoftBank has decided to ship a total of 13 different cell phone models with Twitter applications and/or widgets preinstalled.

This will put Twitter in front of a whole lot of people, considering that SoftBank claimed to have 22,092,600 subscribers in April. Short of a deal with Japan’s first- or third-largest mobile communications company, that seems pretty hard to beat.

SoftBank isn’t going to wait very long to follow through on its promise, either, stating that the Twitter applications and widgets will be preinstalled starting this summer. SoftBank’s even launching a "Twitter Omatome Site" that’ll be bookmarked by default, as well.

Twitter fans might just want to take note of one small detail before getting overly excited: Twitter is already rather popular in Japan. It’s unlikely that there will be an explosion of new users, then. We’ll perhaps see some new users and more activity from established users, instead.

Anyway, the apps and widgets will of course be free, and if you’re the type of person who likes to drool over phones that never make it to the U.S., the 13 models on which they’ll be preinstalled are the 944SH, 945SH, 945SH G, 942P, 941SC, 841SH, 841SH s, 842SH, 843SH, 842P, 840N, 841N, and 840SC.

May 18, 2010
Taobao And Yahoo Japan Partner On Ecommerce

China’s top ecommerce website Taobao and Yahoo Japan have partnered to launch two online platforms to cross sell in each other’s markets.

The partnership will allow Yahoo Japan merchants to list some eight million items in a Chinese-language TaoJapan section.

Taobao, a subsidiary of ecommerce firm Alibaba group, will offer 50 million products from China to Japanese consumers on Yahoo Japan’s China Mall. The two platforms will launch on June 1.

"We are pleased to help Japanese small businesses sell their products to China on our Taobao platform as we believe more choice is a good thing. As a result of this initiative, our respective customers will eventually be able to choose from millions of products from China and Japan," said Jack Ma, chairman and CEO of Alibaba Group.

"In addition to providing our respective consumers with broader choices, both Alibaba Group and SoftBank also understand the power of e-commerce to change the fortunes of small businesses for the better and that’s why we have decided to create a solution that brings about benefits for both the small businesses and the consumers in China and Japan, and around the world."

Taobao and Yahoo Japan expect the new offerings will create jobs by helping to increase small business growth through ecommerce and by opening markets for goods and services for domestic merchants by creating access to overseas sales.

Taobao and Alibaba Japan will jointly operate TaoJapan. Taobao will operate the website and Alibaba.com Japan will act as a fulfillment service provider for Yahoo Japan China Mall.

Alibaba.com Japan is a joint venture between Alibaba.co and SoftBank Corp.

"We expect that the Asian economy will continue to grow further led mainly by China and Japan, and that the Internet business and e-commerce business will be the core of that growth," said Masayoshi Son, chairman and CEO, SoftBank Corp, and chairman of the Board, Yahoo! Japan Corp. SoftBank is the largest shareholder in Yahoo! Japan with a nearly 41 percent interest.

May 10, 2010
Google Plans Office Tower Move In Japan

Google’s poised for another quantifiable growth spurt, this time in Japan. Officials have confirmed that the search giant will be moving into a larger office space this year, joining Yahoo Japan, Ferrari Japan, and a number of other interesting companies in Mori Tower.

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

A Google representative and a Mori Building representative both confirmed the impending change to Tomoko Yamazaki and Yoshinori Eki. The Google rep also indicated that this move will help Google accommodate additional employees.

Unfortunately, that’s about all the information the spokespeople shared; no further details regarding square footage, prices, or specific dates are available.

Still, more background info is out there. For example: other Mori Tower tenants include Barclays Capital, Goldman Sachs, the Grand Hyatt Tokyo, Konami, and Salesforce.com, signaling that Google will be sharing a roof with a number of successful and well-regarded companies.

This means the relocation can’t be the start of another Googleplex, though, with the American organization building its own little city.

Then here’s one last idea: this development may relate to an undersea fiber optic cable that Google (along with several other corporations) paid to establish between the U.S. and Japan.

March 29, 2010