By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry
I have written an extensive blog post on this question in April: ; Basically, what people in Japan and elsewhere define as a smartphone is vastly different. In the US, for example, it’s a phone with advanced functionality, for example web browsing capability. In Japan however, even the...
With 195,000 employees, you’re looking at one of Japan’s biggest companies. Basically NTT is a parent company of five: NTT East, NTT West, NTT Communications, NTT Data and NTT DOCOMO: NTT East and West are to cover Japan from a regional/geographical perspective. NTT Communications...
Traffic-wise, Yahoo Japan is not only Japan’s most popular online portal but the country’s biggest web site. Other popular portals include Livedoor, Goo, MSN, Nifty, Biglobe, Infoseek and Excite. Much like in other parts of Asia, portals are more popular destinations for web users than...
Web/software startups worth mentioning in this context (apart from the ones listed up above) are: (picture bookmarking service) (Twitter-based content aggregation and communication tool) (TV program recording and viewing service for mobile devices) (video editing software) (mobile browsing and...
Broadly speaking, Japan has invented the mobile web as a whole, i.e. if you look at factors like: NTT Docomo’s imode full PC web browsing on cell phones first app platform created in 2001 QR codes online billing and payment offline payments through cell phones (e-wallet) first 3G networks...
Here is the link to a column I wrote on the race between Amazon Japan and Rakuten for the journal for the American Chamber Of Commerce in Japan. Excerpt: The Japanese economy is mired in deflation, the population is shrinking rapidly, and retail sales are projected to fall by 1 percent annually in...
By Dr. Serkan Toto – On Japan's Game Industry