By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry

GREE TV: GREE To Start Social TV Service For Smartphones [Social Games]

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GREE is actively exploring new fields of business as of late: just a few days after announcing a new subsidiary for merchandise based on GREE IP, the company today says it’s planning to expand to TV content, too.

As you’d might expect, TV in this case means mobile TV, or mobile social TV.

Dubbed “GREE TV” (tentative), the service will be offered in partnership with Tokyo-based Voyage Group.

GREE will use an existing social TV app made by Voyage called tuneTV (in Japanese only). That app currently connects to Facebook and Twitter only and allows users to “check into” TV programs and share comments with friends while watching them.

Details are relatively scarce at the moment, but is sounds like GREE TV will basically make it possible for GREE users to do exactly the same.

The background here is that mobile TV is ubiquitous in Japan, especially on feature phones. There are tens of millions of phones in circulation with a built in TV tuner that support 1Seg, a mobile TV broadcasting service.

GREE says GREE TV is another step in its expansion to other categories in social media. GREE TV follows the photo sharing service the company integrated into their offering in October last year (GREE Deco Photo).

About the author

Dr. Serkan Toto

I am the CEO & Founder of Kantan Games Inc., an independent consultancy focused on Japan’s game industry.

Please feel free to connect via Email (Serkan at kantangames.com), LinkedIn or Twitter.

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By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry