Mixi Changes Friends-List To Display Your Friends’ Full-Names

On June 29, one of Japan's largest social network service Mixi introduced a change on a view of your My Mixi(also called Maimiku, = friends on Mixi). My Mixi list page [J, login required] now shows you your friends' full names in parenthesis under their nick names.

Number of their friends were displayed in the parenthesis before the change.

The full name is not necessarily real name, which Facebook requires. That full name is what the user set on their registration of Mixi. It has been always visible if your friends visit your profile page. (Whether it was displayed to non-friends or friends-of-friends depend on how the profile owner limited its visibility) So it is not something Mixi tried to change the rule around registered name visibility. You could set pseudo name there, which could be same as their nickname.

However, by seeing their friends full names on the friends-list page, Mixi users who did not know that their "full name" was visible to their friends. Some might set there their real name, expecting only the nickname is shown to others. Those users got shocked and are blaming Mixi now.

Mixi turned off footprint function last month, and now made people more conscious of friends' full name instead of nickname. Both changes make Mixi steps closer to its global rival Facebook.

See Also:

Mixi's release [J]

Mixi Changes Friends-List To Display Your Friends’ Full-Names

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App Annie Got Series A investment from IDG Capital Partners

Launched in March 2010, App Annie is the global leading provider of app store analytics and marketing intelligence for the Apple App Store.  The company is incorporated in Hong Kong but the team is based in Beijing.

App Annie was, in fact, founded as a subsidiary of  Exoweb, a Beijing based outsourcing company with about 60 people.  When iPhone become popular in 2008, Exoweb’s founder Bjorn Stabell, started a game studio, called Happylatte, to develop iPhone games. ”We have been doing outsourcing work for mobile phone makers, such as Motorola, for a long time.  When iPhone launched in 2008, it is completely different from the old mobile phone environment and we decided to give it a try with our own games,” said Bjorn.

Happylatte launched a very successful iPhone game called, Highnoon, which is popular around the world, in particular in Hong Kong and Singapore.  It has lots of fans in U.K, France, etc, too.  (See our earlier post on Happylatte.http://technode.com/2011/02/26/happylatte-mobile-social-game-company/)

In order to better track and analyze Highnoon’s traffic and user pattern, Bjorn started another division, App Annie.  It makes app publishers easy to track their sales, downloads, rankings, and reviews, and enabling anyone to research the market performance of any app.  It has more than 13,000 registered users such as executives, marketers, and developers — including more than 50% of the top 100 Apple App Store publishers.

Currently, Bertrand Schmitt is App Annie’s CEO.  He said that the investment will be used to expand the scope of the App Annie services to other App Stores, develop new features, and help build additional premium services.

“We are very excited to have IDG Capital Partners sharing our vision: all content will move from retail to digital downloads on digital superstores like iTunes, Google Android Market, Amazon, and this will create dramatic changes in the analytics and market data landscape” said Bertrand.

Xiaojun Li, Partner, IDG Capital Partners has joined App Annie’s board of directors. Xiaojun says he “is excited to support a company that has generated such momentum with an audience of international mobile app developers ranging from major game publishers to Fortune 500 companies”. He continues that “App Annie’s vision is supported by tectonic changes in the software and content industry, a time when business leaders and marketing teams need more market guidance than ever.”

 

Related posts:

1. App Annie: Beijing-based App A-Yi Goes Global
2. Happylatte – mobile social game company
3. Infinity Venture Partners Akio Tanaka Talks About Investment Strategy From Japan to China

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June 2011 Japan IT Links (Part 3)

Continued from (Part 2). Last part of June news which we did not write as a dedicated article.

Referred pages are all in Japanese, unless otherwise stated.

• Grasses-free 360 Degree 3D Display With 100 Projectors [En] via Hatsune Miku Miku
• 

  Glico Launches Virtual AKB48 Girl Generator Oshimen Maker

• iOS Photo App Developer Explains How Much He Earned From Half A Million Free Downloads
• Japanese Super Computer Is Ranked Most Powerful - NYTimes.com [En]
• Hakatte Geiger - Crowd-Measuring Nuclear Radiation Site
• A Guy Dropped Down From Ferry Saved By Using Waterproof Cellphone
• iPhone Blurring Camera App
• Joi Ito Told To TechCrunch Japan About LinkedIn Localization
• ex-Google Japan President Koichiro Tsuji Appointed As An External Board Member By Klab
• Docomo Offers McAfee Security App For Their Smartphone For Free
• MTI (music.jp, Luna Luna) Launches Its Own Android Market - will they bring their generous users from feature phone to smartphone?
• Facebook Japan Kodama's Talk Memo
• Hyogo Prefecture Police Recruiting College Student Informers To Find Internet Crimes
• Google Japan Testing Google Place With NFC In Roppongi
• turntable.fm shuts off access from outside of USA. Japanese users complain as well
• Rakuten's Coupon Service Starts Super Rakupon With Over 50% Discount via @hmikitani
• 

  A Livestream Girl Saying Her Life Would Be Only 2 Weeks By Cancer, Turned Out Lying.

• DeNA Seoul Branch Established
• Docomo To Start C2C Cellphone Payment For Oversea - Philippines, Brazil, Korea and China Initially
• PayPal Japan Allies With Mitsui Sumitomo Credit Card
• Osaka Hair Salon To Sue Groupon Japan For Insufficient Risk Explanation. They also say that Groupon Japan had told them that 20% of coupon purchasers would not show up (so that will be extra income)
• 

  2 Channel Samejima Incident To Be A Movie. Movie info [En] Official site

• Over 30% Of PC Internet User Using Social Network, Facebook users growth to 7-8%, same level as Gree users. 14.8% owns smartphone, more than doubled of last year's 6.5%. Impress R&D research
• Kawaii Kensaku(=search) Recommends Blogs With Cuteness Of Your Flavor by Goo Lab
• KDDI and Rakuten Announces Their Alliance Around Edy, E-Money
• PSP Hack Tool Author Absconds With A Blog Post Implying Suicide
• Chivas's Foursquare And Layar Promotion Aroma Of Tokyo via mif design
• Baidu Adds Photo Personalization On Japanese Input Method
• 

  Google+ LovePlus+ Logo

• ComScore Japan Reports Androids Takes The Top On Japanese Smartphone Market

If you want to know any specific news more, but unable to find them in other English blog/media, please let us know.

June 2011 Japan IT Links (Part 3)

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Giveaway: Free Tickets To UnPluggd

Alright ladies and gentlemen,

Here is your chance to win free ticket to UnPluggd. All you need to do is

• Follow Pluggd.in on Twitter (@pluggdin).
• Tweet : “Attending #UnPluggd because <fill in the blanks>”.
• The contest ends today (July 6th, 11:59 PM). We will announce the winners (5 in number) by tomorrow (will DM you).

UnPluggd Date: July 9th, 2011.

UnPluggd Venue: MATS Institute of Management and Entrepreneurship. J.P. Nagar, 6th Phase, Bangalore – 560078 [Venue Map/more details here.]

Navigate here for event agenda, venue map etc.

Those who want to block your seat, take your pick:

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India's Largest Startup Event, UnPluggd Is Back (Mindblowing Content + Exiciting Startup Demos » July 9th, Bangalore)

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» Giveaway: Free Tickets To UnPluggd @Pluggd.in.

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Meituan Obtains Eight-digit USD Second Round Funding

Chinese group buying site Meituan, has announced that it recently obtained tens of millions USD sum in its second-round funding, from Chinese B2C e-commerce giant Alibaba Group, Northern Light Venture Capital and its first round investor Sequoia Capital. The site targets sales of RMB 1.6 billion this year, according to the source.

Meituan said that it will release further details about this second- round funding sometime this week.

Meituan CEO Wang Xing claims that, the general depressed state of China’s capital markets has lasted for nearly two months now, which makes investors start to be more cautious. It’s much more difficult at this stage to start financing talks than before.

Wang indicates that the current round of financing has been received in full. He also predictes that group buying sites will see a slump in growth in the second half of this year. “Every group buying site, no matter doing well or bad, can receive fundings right now, and most of them squandered it. VCs will be more careful to spot the best from now on. Group buying sites are going to see the survival of the fittest.”according to Wang Xing.

Since last year, a number of Chinese leading group buying sites received huge sum financing, such as Lashou (www.Lashou.com) (160 million USD) and Da Zhong Dian Ping(www.dianping.com) (100 million USD). At this moment, group buying business is under fierce competition. Companies are all busy absorbing funds to gain customers and seize the market. While this situation may gradually changes in the near future as the market turns more stable and mature.

Related posts:

1. Chinese Groupon, Lashou and Meituan both Confirm They Raised Venture Capital
2. Vancl Raised Its 5th Round of Funding at $100millions
3. Fanfou Will Be Back Soon, Great but Hold on…

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Deals For Startups: Free Book On Cloud Computing, Free Live Chat Service [Expiring Soon]

A quick roundup of deals that are expiring very soon:

Rs. 549/ worth Free Cloud Computing Book For Free

Help us understand cloud better: Take this survey : http://bit.ly/pluggdin-CC

The survey, ideally should not take more than 8-9 minutes of yours time and as a gesture of thanks, we are we are sending to every respondent who completes the survey a book (paperback edition) titled Cloud Computing Bible by Barrie Sosinsky. The book shipping wil start in the second week of July.

» The deal expires on July 8th.

USD 294 worth of Live Chat Service for Free

Sign-up to ClickDesk here and get 6 month usage of Plus plan absolutely FREE. Give the power of live chat support to your website with 5 agents, unlimited chats, plug-ins, and 99% up-time SLA. All at no cost!.

» The deal expires on July 12th

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Also see: Save Rs 15,000. Get a full SME package with free company Incorporation.

Subscribe to deals alert service (hop here) and get access to the deals for startups/entrepreneurs. If you are a service provider that caters to startup ecosystem, do connect with us (deals@pluggd.in).

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India's Largest Startup Event, UnPluggd Is Back (Mindblowing Content + Exiciting Startup Demos » July 9th, Bangalore)

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» Deals For Startups: Free Book On Cloud Computing, Free Live Chat Service [Expiring Soon] @Pluggd.in.

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Indian Government Announces National Awards For Commercial Patent Holders

Indian government in order to enable IP economy has launched TREMAP (Technology Refinement and Marketing Programme) to recognize the innovative potential of Indian nationals and to encourage the innovator community for making their innovations more practical and relevant to the industrial and societal needs. The objective of the award is to help commercialization of patented technologies. The award will carry a sum of Rs. 5.00 Lakhs and a certificate. In addition, selected innovations may be provided a commercialization incentive of Rs. 5.00 Lakhs on commercialization of the awarded patents. Selected innovations may also use TIFAC-TCF network for commercialization / transfer / licensing of patented technologies.

Criteria

The applications for “National Awards to Commercializable Patents” are invited from Indian nationals, who have patented {Indian patent granted in the name of the individual(s)} technological innovation(s) having high commercial potential and have developed at least a working prototype of the technology/product/process etc. of the innovative technology.

Eligibility Conditions

• Applicant (s) must be an Indian National.
• Indian patent must have been granted for the technology/product / process in the name of individual(s), who is / are applying for the award and the applicant(s) should be the absolute owner(s) of the patented technology/product/process till the date of submission of the application. The patent should not be in the name of the institution / organization / association / company etc.
• The year of grant of patent should not be before the year 2005.
• The technology /product/process etc. should have good commercial application / value in the present scenario.
• The working model / prototype of the technology / product / process etc. should be ready and in fine working condition.
• The innovative technology / product / process etc. for which patent is granted should not have already been transferred / licensed / commercialized in any manner.

The award will carry a sum of Rs. 5.00 Lakhs and a certificate. In addition, selected innovations may be provided a commercialization incentive of Rs. 5.00 Lakhs on commercialization of the awarded patents.

[more details here]

[Thanks Meenakshi for the tip.]

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India's Largest Startup Event, UnPluggd Is Back (Mindblowing Content + Exiciting Startup Demos » July 9th, Bangalore)

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» Indian Government Announces National Awards For Commercial Patent Holders @Pluggd.in.

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WebKlipper Launches A Survey Tool [And It Solves A Serious Pain]

Webklipper, the Mumbai based startup that started with a web annotation idea and later pivoted into a feedback service has launched an awesome survey tool that solves a serious pain for small-to-medium sized publishers.

First of all, let me share a bit of observation with site visitors – i.e. not all site visitors are same.

There are a few Pluggd.in readers who visit the site more than 8 times/day and a few who reach us via search engine or social media mentions – and they aren’t same. They have a different intent (and relationship with the site) and when we ask them for feedback/or for survey, we need to be very sure on the segment that’s giving us the feedback/answering our survey. In fact, we shouldn’t be asking same questions to visitors who come from search engine (i.e. navigators) vs. those who are regular readers.

This is precisely what Webklipper’s survey tool is targeting – i.e. enabling publishers to create surveys based on visitor’s profile. These service doesn’t allow long surveys , but 1 question surveys with a precise rule-based targeting capability.

• Target a question at visitors coming from certain geography(ies): We let you target based on country, city, region etc of a visitor on your website. E.g this survey will only be visible to visitors from anywhere in the US or Delhi (India) or Mumbai (India).
• You can ask a very specific question to a visitor from search engines (all major ones supported). E.g. This survey will only be visible to visitors who come via Google search.
• Target a question at visitors for a particular page(s) on your website: You can create a different survey for your product page and a separate one for your pricing page.
• Target a question at visitors spending x amount of time on your site. [official blog]

An important feature for WebKlipper to enable rule based notifications that will help publishers to create site alerts based on a certain rules (this is precisely why a lot of bloggers/publishers use Wibiya which I believe is quite bloated now).

Overall, very impressive service and in order to test this, we have enabled a quick survey (will be live only for today). Do take the survey and in the process, give WebKlipper a spin.

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India's Largest Startup Event, UnPluggd Is Back (Mindblowing Content + Exiciting Startup Demos » July 9th, Bangalore)

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» WebKlipper Launches A Survey Tool [And It Solves A Serious Pain] @Pluggd.in.

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