Manga Get

I have written about the mobile novel phenomenon in Japan and how it is not a birth of new genre of novels but is a birth of a new form of communication.
Authors write stories using cell phones, upload them onto novel sites. As soon as a new story or a chapter is uploaded, readers read it and leave comments. The authors read comments and fine-tunes the story lines. Thus, mobile novels are written through this collaboration between authors and readers. This is why I say that it is a new form of communication. It's a form of communication centered around contents called mobile novels.
Manga Get is a service which promotes a new form of communication, this time, centered around cartoons.
The service provides a PC based Web site for uploading cartoons, and a mobile site for viewing the cartoons.
The authors draw cartoons on a piece of paper, scan the paper, and upload the data to the Manga Get PC site. The site automatically cuts up the cartoons into indivisual frames which then are optimized for the cell phones' small screens.
Once all this is done, readers can view the cartoons using their cell phones. Readers can become fans of particular authors, leave comments, or communicate with other fans using bulletin board systems(BBS). In effect, it is a social-networking-service(SNN) type community which centers around cartoons.
Mang Get is run by a Japanese start-up called Spicysoft.
Like other online communities, advertisement is the base of their business model. They also sell members virtual goods such as clothes and accessories for the members avatars.
Spicysoft said they plan to share the revenue with popular authors. With magazine market in Japan is shrinking fast, Spicysoft hope to create a new marketplace to mach authors and readers.

Next book is on mobile and Asia

I have started collecting information on the Internet business in Asia. Especially I am interested in mobile space. I can collect information on Japanese mobile business without a problem, but I think it will be a bit harder to collect Korean and Chinese information. Any help on collecting Korean and Chinese information would be greatly appreciated.
This time I am going to write a book in English, and English only. I don't plan to write a book on this topic in Japanese.

mobile p2p framework "Spear"

Yoshidakamagasako Inc.'s mobile p2p framework "Spear" would make cell phones to communicate data without going through the cell phone operators' central servers.
Data from one cell phone is routed to the other at the local router level instead, therefore it takes much less time to communicate data between two phone sets.
While the response time of going through the central server is around a few seconds, by routing at the local level data travels almost real time to the other phone.
Yoshidakamagasako Inc also developed multi-cast framework called "Spear Multi." With Spear Multi, time lag doesn't increase as much even the number of the cell phone increases. With other typical P2P framework, it takes four times longer to finish sending data as the number of cell phone increases.

This near real time data communication enables quick response multi-player games such as table tennis.
Although you can do the similar games using blue tooth technology, with Spear p2p framework you can play with way beyond the blue tooth signal range which said to be around 10 meters.
First applications of this technology are games, of course. P2P games are already available to the general public in Japan through NTT docomo, au and other cell phone operators. Square-Enix just released a game called "Demon Chain" using Spear.
Other application may be real time handwritten chat on touch screen smart phones. After display the same map on two smart phones touch screens, one users' handwritten messages and images such as arrows on the map would show up on the other users screen. Sharp started a handwritten chat software called "Tegaki Chat" on smart phones using the Spear technology.
Demonstration video can be downloaded here.

Infinity Ventures Summit Fall 2008 and Jason Calacanis

I am attending Infinity Ventures Summit Fall 2008 in Miyazaki. This is my second IVS to attend. This time more than 300 start-up entrepreneurs from Japan, Asia, the US, and Autralia.
Before IVS, I was honored to have a chance to interview Jason Calacanis of Mahalo.
Here are videos of the interviews.

JasonTrust
by tsuruaki

jasoncloud
by tsuruaki

riff-off
by tsuruaki

story on Nico Nico Douga

Wired runs an interesting story on Nico Nico Douga and Hiroyuki.
Meet Hiroyuki Nishimura, the Bad Boy of the Japanese Internet

Infinity Ventures Summit Spring 2008 in Sapporo, Japan

I am attending Infinity Ventures Summit Spring 2008 in Sapporo, Japan. It is an invitation-only technology conference for technology start-ups. This year, about 320 CEOs and COOs of Japanese technology start-ups are attending. According to Mr. Masashi Kobayashi, a well-known venture capitalist who organizes this event, attendants from overseas more than doubled to 35 this year. US web 2.0 companies such as meebo, seasmic, admobs and others are here, and established tech companies from Taiwan, mainland Chine, and Korea are giving speeches. I spoke with a couple of Chinese entrepreneurs; they are SOOO interesting! One of them told me that the US companies will not be able to "rule the Chinese markets." According to him, a Chinese search company is way ahead of Google China in terms of search market share, and some top management in Google China left the company already. One Korean attendee told me that the US companies don't understand the local markets. "They hire English speaking local people who have had no experience in local tech industries, just because their English speaking ability. So most of them fail miserably." One Taiwanese company said Apple's iTunes have no significant presence in Chinese market. What matters in online businesses is community, and in order to establish self-sufficient communities in local markets, you have to understand the local culture, he said.

DoubleClick Interview

[ダブルクリック]
ダブルクリック
by tsuruaki

The interview took place last year in Tokyo. The above video is a digest version. You can listen to the entire interview by clicking the download botton below.

「DoubeleClick interview MP3」