On the very same date (June 7) after Nintendo announced Wii U at E3, new controller seemed to inspire potential Japanese buyers.
Click to see the original by @nemuke (NSFW).
Japanese Answer To Wii U Controller
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Friday, June 10, 2011
Evernote for i-mode Released For Docomo Feature Phone
Evernote, a popular note-taking service, who has achieved a big, maybe bigger success in Japan than elsewhere, launched a new app to cover majority of Japanese cellphone users on Docomo i-mode, which is a mobile internet service subscribed by over 48 million people.
"Evernote for i-mode" [J, Docomo Market] is an i-mode Appli version of Evernote.
via Evernote Japan release [J]
Evernote for i-mode Released For Docomo Feature Phone
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Ultra High-speed Japanese Typing On iPhone
It is known that Japanese high school girls type Japanese so fast on feature phone 10 digits key, but this person on iPhone could be faster than they.
On Japanese flick input training app, he writes up 45 letters/5 phrases in 6.99 seconds, which is 386 letters per minute.
[Update] Another high-speed iPhone Japanese type video. This person types a real message. (Thanks @StingRaySlapper )
Japanese input is not just typing letters but involves Hiragana->Kanji conversion with selecting the adequate one. These videos show people's good adaptability.
Ultra High-speed Japanese Typing On iPhone
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The UnPluggd Communication Channel For Pre-Event Networking, Chatter
At the last UnPluggd event, we had quite a few attendees from outside the city and they all wanted to know “who else” is coming from the same place. In fact, of all the tickets sold for the upcoming edition, around 40% are from outside Bangalore (Chennai/Pune and Hyderabad rule!).
We’d obviously like you to network with each other before the event, do a ‘group buying’ for tickets/hotel rooms etc (we can facilitate these transactions on your behalf, if there is a general interest).
Moreover, there is a general interest in networking before the event and we also need your suggestions on some of the crazy ideas that we are currently working on – hence this group.
To cut the long story short, for all major communication/update regarding UnPluggd event, do join the UnPluggd Google group (we prefer email based Google group over Facebook chatter).
» Group Link: http://groups.google.com/group/unpluggd
| Subscribe to UnPluggd Google Group |
|
Email: |
| Visit this group |
*Please refrain from posting jobs/ads etc (you will be banned forever).
UnPluggd Event Details
Date: July 9th, 2011
Venue: Jain College, J.P.Nagar.
Quick Links: Buy UnPluggd Tickets | Apply/Nominate Your Startup For UnPluggd’s Demo Slot.
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“Don’t Settle”–An Inspirational Video For Entrepreneurs
“No matter how talented you are, your talent is going to fail you if you aren’t skilled”.
“You don’t build a wall, you lay bricks – as perfectly as a brick can be laid. Do that every single day and soon, you will have a wall”.
“I don’t know what my calling is, but I want to be here for a bigger reason. I strive to be like the greatest people who have ever lived.”
“There’s no reason to have a Plan B because it distracts from Plan A.”
“Be something. Represent an idea. Represent a possibility.”
“Being realistic is the most commonly travelled road to mediocrity”.
These are inspirational quotes from Will Smith, the actor, film producer and pop rapper.
Watch this amazing video:
Also read: “People Do Not Buy For What You Do, But For Why You Do It” [Video]
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Memo leak suggests blocking of file-sharing sites in Malaysia
While the Malaysian government has ensured that there would be no censorship of the Internet in the country, an alleged leaked memo requesting Malaysian ISPs to block file-hosting sites suggests that the term “censorship” can be interpreted in many ways.
The memo in question appears to be issued by Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) on May 30, and was leaked on Facebook, Malaysia-based Lowyat.Net forum, and blogs on June 9.
The MCMC, which is the country’s industry regulator, has yet to deny or confirm the memo’s authenticity.
In the two-page document (you can see here), the MCMC requested that Malaysian ISPs block access to ten file-hosting and sharing URLs, including Megaupload, Fileserve, and The Pirate Bay. It cited Section 268 of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998, which states that ISPs (licensees) must try their best to prevent its network from being used for activities that contravenes with Malaysian law.
It states that ISPs are obliged to help the MCMC “in preventing the commission or attempted commission of an offence under any written law of Malaysia” for “the protection of the public revenue and preservation of national security”.
When it comes to censorship, the Malaysian government has issued mixed messages. In August 2010, news portal The Malaysian Insider broke the story that the MCMC commissioned a feasibility study for an Internet filter to block “undesirable websites”, not unlike China’s Green Dam. This was quashed a few days later by the country’s Information Minister Rais Yatim, but the censorship spectre still lingers on with incidents like these, and constant reminders by the country’s Prime Minister that there would be no censorship of the Internet.
Erna Mahyuni, editor for Goreng.my and columnist for The Malaysian Insider, however cautioned the public from making the MCMC the bad guys in this matter, as they just take orders from “higher ups”.
“I suspect they had little choice in the matter. When I was with another Internet news portal, the MCMC had also visited after a ‘complaint’ that had been filed about a video involving not very nice things being done to a cow head.
“MCMC has, in fact, very few enforcement officials… It was also obvious that they didn’t want to be there but were there only because of directives sent from “higher ups.” It all smacked of political interference,” she wrote.
According to blogger Lim YH from GreyReview, this is not the first time the MCMC is making such a request, but “this is ‘probably the most comprehensive’ directive yet, according to (his) source. This is a rather disturbing trend,” he wrote.
At the time of writing, the sites listed were still accessible to the Malaysian public, but according to the blog Wirawan, which first broke the story, “It seems that Streamyx did block Megaupload, Fileserve and etc, for a short while and they unblock them after.”
Regardless of who’s to blame, this proposed move, if true, to block legitimate and commercial file-sharing and hosting sites does not sit well with the country’s drive towards a knowledge-rich economy.
Link to full article
Tale Of The Falling SNS: 51.com
Chinese SNS 51.com is reportedly seeking to go public amid the IPO heat. 51 is the fourth largest SNS (market share: 10.1%) in China, next to Renren(#1, 25.1%) Kaixin(#2, 19.4%), and Pengyou(#3, 18.1%), a report by Beijing-based market research firm Analysys International shows.
“We’re Going Public in 2010”
Founded by Pang Dongsheng in 2005, 51.com is popular amongst 2nd-tier and 3rd tier cities. The site to date claims over 200 million users. Chinese online game vendor Juren invested US$ 51 million in 51.com for 25% shares. Afterwards both Juren CEO Shi Yuzhu and 51.com CEO Pang Dongsheng indicated that 51.com will get listed in 2010. And now it’s 2011.
Along with the seeking IPO rumor came the site’s newly revamp. As you can see from the picture below, 51.com now features three major functions including Games, 51 Profile and 51 Friends Hunting. It seems to industrial experts that the renovation means 51.com is sorting out its business for a potential listing.
51.com is focusing on social games business for this year, the 6 years old Chinese SNS is said to launch its own game platform some time.
According to a Nielsen research in 2008, 51.com was then the biggest social networking site in China, with Xiaonei(later changed into Renren and went IPO in early May this year) second to it. But since then, a series of missteps left the website in turmoil.
‘A Series of Unfortunate Steps’
Starting 2008, 51.com raised more than US$ 76 million from various venture capitals including Sequoia, SIG, Intel Capital and Redpoint Ventures. With large capital in hand and under pressure as investors expecting an IPO, 51.com was then on a hiring spree to lure large amounts of executives and managements from competitors such as Tencent, Baidu; and started expanding business into multi territories, some of which includes game and IM.
However, Tencent has an ‘insurmountable’ lead in IM markets, while game market is crowded with tough and brutal rivals which dedicated to game designing and developing for years, amongst those are big names such as Shanda, NetEase, Tencent, Perfect World and 9You. Although 51.com’s Game Unit which founded in 2009 was powered by over 100 headcounts hiring away from companies like Tencent and so on, misjudging the market had taken a heavy toll on 51.com
Back in 2008, browser-based games won over Chinese customers for its convenience and client-free features, late comers such as 9Wee made a mint. However, lavishly equipped 51 decided to develop client-based game, and according to a 51 executive, their social games also not that popular either, “as a platform with huge users, our game revenue is actually very bad.”
Blind expansion and vague strategy resulted in rising costs and unsuccessful forays, which eventually leads to contractions in headcounts, costs and offers. Lots of staffs left downhearted.
Good Timing for Exit?
You can’t jump to conclusions that whether it’s the misjudging of market and blind expansion or the greedy nature of capitalists send the promising (according to Nelsen’s research) SNS into dreariness. It has been silent for nearly 3 years, till the recent IPO heat.
According to some observers, the reason 51 is so eager to get listed is that investors want to exit. Although Chinese concepts stocks are still welcomed by Nasdaq, Chinese network companies flocking into Nasdaq has made capital market questioning the justification of so many unprofitable concept companies receiving too many interests. This could be the reason why a dozen of latest addition to Nadsaq have begun trading below IPO price, including Dangdang(ticker: DANG), Renren(RENN), 21Vianet(VNET), Jiayuan(DATE), Netqin(NQ), Mecox Lane(MCOX) and Taomi(TAOM).
For 51’s investors, exiting-now-or-never seems true story.
Related posts:
- Shanda In Talks With Tencent About Social Games On Weibo
- Tencent invested US$350 million into US game company, Riot
- Interview with Rekoo CEO Liu Yong
Link to full article
Groupon and Gang : Why Hyperlocal Still Needs Solving [Perspective From A SMB Owner]
[Editorial Notes: Groupon IPO has opened up realities of deal business and we believe that its important to bring perspective from the industry. This is a guest article by Sameer Shisodia (ex-writer at Pluggd.in) who now runs a hospitality business and also runs a site called dealrater.in. ]
While on the numbers front, one might see healthy growth in Groupon’s S1 filing, from the fundamental business model view it looks very very dicey.
I run a small business and have been approached by SnapDeal, Taggle and the likes. Somehow it never made any sense to me.
We’re attracting folks on a certain value proposition, and that is not based on discounting and “cheap”. On the contrary, its about a certain kind of experience and discounting as deep as these deal sites would like you to do would actually harm the brand! It tends to portray some sort of desperation, and calls into question the pricing vs value offered otherwise. We’ve also not had a very great experience with deal-hunters, and would rather stick to customers who value the whole experience instead. So we’ve completely avoided it.
I’m guessing this is true, as the second assessment above points out, for a lot of businesses. The deal sites are probably not batting at all for the merchants, and have a suck-them-dry approach. In the medium term, that won’t work well for consumers either (I’ve seen some restaurants create a ‘special offering’ for the deal, specifically, and am very very suspicious of what they’ll serve. I do not want my dinners and experiences ‘discounted’ along with the price.)
Let’s look at what a ‘good deal’ is. (I started http://dealrater.in as a follow up to this thought process a while ago).
Its something thats a very good Value-for-Money proposition. It doesn’t have to be cheap, or at a discount, for it to be so. Its usually goods or services of good to great quality (remember the low end Chinese bike manufacturers trying to dump cheap bikes in India ? Never took off.) And at a fair price that keeps the VFM high. Alternatively, it could be a low impact (don’t know or care much about quality…) and dirt cheap (…but at this price, who cares) offering.
What merchants need from deal sites is probably one of the following
- Announcement and price discovery (for a new business/products). Just want a lot of people to know about it. Don’t want to discount much – and in fact would like to discover price.
- Tryouts (for new businesses or offerings). The messaging is about “hey you like this category, so we thought we’d invite you to try this out”. Its almost like a select/invited/focus group the site needs to manage. Haven’t heard anything like this at all.
- Stock Clearance. Have a lot of stuff thats last season/end of line/want to get rid of. Straightforward. Let the consumers know transparently that this is the case. And very very clearly price below real street prices.
- Last Minute Inventory. Similar to Stock Clearance, but very different in how it’ll be done, who it targets etc. The need is to connect those who’re potentially looking for that inventory, or may hop on at the 11th hour if the price is right, and the unsold, perishable inventory. at Linger, we sometimes have this need.
None of the deal sites seem to be thinking in terms of what they’re solving, really. Everyone seems to be addressing the same set of lowest common denominators, and throwing a lot of money/sales effort at it.
There will be a shakeout and a deals-2.0 pretty soon!
What’s your take?
[Reproduced from Sameer’s blog. If you are running a deal site/or you are a SMB who has offered deals to these sites and want to share your insights/experience, do connect with us]
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Events For The Week – 11-18 Jun
For a one-stop to all events related to or concerning entrepreneurship, certain industry-meets-business forums and seminars in Singapore, check out our Calendar. If not, you can also follow our bite-size updated posts for upcoming events for the week.
Events range from simple get-togethers to full-blown conferences. Get to meet fellow developers, entrepreneurs, startup CEOs & founders, and meet & learn from CEOs of established companies who have seen it all.
Our aim here at SGE is to make it easy for you to pick & choose from the event buffet. Enjoy.
Here are the events for this week. Events are mostly in Singapore (generally 30 minutes drive from anywhere), but we also include key events from around Southeast Asia and beyond.
Tue 14th June:
(1) The Future Of The Internet, Beyond Social Media
Wed 15th June:
(1) Ad Trading Summit Singapore
(2) Cracking the UX Code User eXperience Workshop
Thu 16th June-Fri 17th June:
(1) Ad Tech Singapore
(2) Echelon 2011
Image courtesy of joyosity.
Link to full article
Japanese Social Marketplace FlutterScape Raises USD750K In Second Seed Funding
FlutterScape, a social marketplace specializing in introducing "Japan-only" or "Japan-made" products for online shoppers outside the country, recently fundraised JPY60M (approx. USD750K) in their second seed-round from three VC firms, which are Japan Venture Capital (NVCC)[J], ngi group and Innovation Engine. In their first seed round, the company fundraised JPY25M (approx. USD310K) from Digital Garage, NetPrice.com and Aucfan[J] last August.
The service has engaged more than 1,500 buyers and 7,000 sellers since its launch in January 2010, and has more than 230,000 fans on Facebook as of this writing. Takehiro Kakiyama, the CEO of FlutterScape, expects to enhance the service and allow users to share a list of their favorite products with navigation links to a shopping cart, which will be available very soon.
See Also:
- Japanese Social Marketplace Flutterscape Gets $300,000 Seed Money
- Social Commerce Platform Flutterscape Cooperates With Human Translation Startup myGengo
Japanese Social Marketplace FlutterScape Raises USD750K In Second Seed Funding
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China: The New Assertiveness
A new "we own the world" mentality" can be spotted in the can-do, pushy attitude of street-smart whiz kids who are defining a new era of entrepreneurship in China.
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Go Ahead! Block Your Seat For UnPluggd Now! [+ Early Bird Discount]
Preparation for next edition of UnPluGGd (scheduled for July 9th, Bangalore) is in full swing and while we are ensuring that we recreate that magic, I am glad to announce that we have now opened up
the event for attendee registration.
This time, we have limited seats (if you have ever been to UnPluggd, you’ll appreciate our focus on targeted crowd) and the early bird discount ends June 20th.
Normal ticket costs Rs. 650/ and early birds get to grab it for Rs. 500/.
- Here is the link to book your seat right away.
- Early bird discount code is “PI” (without quotes).
- If you are on Twitter, do not forget to enter your Twitter handle in the ‘Attendee Detail’ section. We have something really cool planned for UnPluGGd3.
And for the startups who want to demo their product at the event, apply now! [link to the application form].
[FYI: Last year, we had 250 nominations out of which only 10 were selected to demo at the event. ]
And just like with other UnPluggd editions, expect amazing content + a rock solid visibility platform for startups, which Pluggd.in anyways provides (and with UnPluggd, we take that to the next level).
What about Agenda/Speakers?
Like the last editions, we want to deliver great quality experience to you and we will share the agenda/speaker detail by June end.
Broadly speaking, here is how the day will progress:
a. 9 AM – 1 PM: Inspirational talks by selected entrepreneurs who will share their startup journey/experience with the audience. These are purely UnPluggd talks and are delivered straight from the heart (stuff like how valuation dropped, how they handled VC rejection etc, which otherwise is never shared in a public forum).
b. 2 PM – 6 PM: An intense session where 10 startups will demo their product in front of the audience. You will be exposed to some of the most inspiring and emerging startups from India.
- For more details, visit UnPluggd official site.
Got questions/comments? Ask now!
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