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AIG webcast with Chairman and CEO Edward M. Liddy

AIG has just informed us that they will be holding a webcast with Chairman and CEO Edward M. Liddy from 8:30am EDT, which is 9:30pm here in Japan on Friday night. The webcast can be viewed at www.aigwebcast.com and will be available as an archive at that site until Friday, October 24, 2008.

Missing your market: Facebook in Japan

A classic anecdote: Jean Snow reports that a fellow blogger’s wife is unable to open a Facebook account due to her family name being Yoda.

Any word yet on whether New York Islanders right winger Miroslav Satan has a Facebook account?

News Corp moving into Japan’s online advertising market

According to Tuesday’s Nikkei, News Corp has plans to enter Japan’s lucrative online advertising market. Back in April 2007, we reported that Dentsu claimed Japan’s online advertising market would experience “growth into a 750 billion yen plus market by 2011.”

Was Dentsu lowballing those numbers? In 2007, the online advertising market in Japan totaled about 600 billion yen. This was about a 24% increase over 2006. Dentsu’s report projected the market at 453.4 billion yen in 2007, with a jump over 600 billion yen happening in 2009.

News Corp’s operations will differ significantly from those of Google or Yahoo primarily in that they will not involve search-based ads. Rather, News Corp is looking to set up networks of sites that target similar demographics, and sell ads on behalf of webmasters who happen not to have a sales force at their disposal.

News Corp is looking to draw 10 billion yen annually in ad revenue from Japan within five years time.

Terrie’s take on Japan’s cyberspace; Japan’s spam blogs

If you don’t regularly follow, Terrie Lloyd’s weekly Terrie’s Take is a newsletter worth reading. This week Terrie focuses on Japan’s web businesses and cyberspace statistics. One number that caught my attention was that Japan’s 47.8 million Internet users viewed an average of 1,730 web pages each in February. These numbers come from NetRatings, and though I haven’t dug into the data to see how many web sites the average person visits, I hope to get time to do that soon. Terrie goes on to look at the top ten companies on the Japanese Web, and to show where SNS giant Mixi fits in. Read it here.

We also think it’s worth mentioning, in the wake of last year’s Technorati report claiming that 37% of blogs are written in Japanese (though Technorati didn’t seem to include Korea in their numbers), that Adam Richards at Mutant Frog Travelogue recently brought our attention to a CNet article reporting that Nifty has discovered that about 40% of blogs written in Japanese are actually spam blogs.

That’s a lot of spam…

Blogosphere: Mixi’s new Terms of Use to allow it to sell crowdsourced content?

Mixi, Japan’s largest social networking site, has announced a new Terms of Use that is set to take effect on April 1 of this year, the effects of which could seemingly have serious implications for the website’s users.

Although the terms of use cannot be seen without logging in to Mixi’s site, the changes have been reported over at Slashdot’s Japan site. Blogger Fukumimi proves a good translation:

By agreeing to the ToU (which all users implicitly do by continuing to using the service):

1. Users grant Mixi a no-royalty, non-exclusive rights (of replication, broadcasting, public transmission, display, distribution, translation, alteration, etc) to any content uploaded onto Mixi servers.

2. Users agree not to assert their moral rights against Mixi. [Moral rights include the right of attribution, the right to have a work published anonymously or pseudonymously, and the right to the integrity of the work. source:Wikipedia]

When the new ToU comes into effect, the terms will apply retroactively to content uploaded before the changes to the ToU.

What does this all mean? Essentially, Mixi will be able to use any content on its site - potentially even private messages between users - for any purpose it sees fit, including profit-making ventures.

If Mixi’s plan is to monetize its crowdsourced content, trouble could easily be seen on the horizon. As Matt at AltJapan points out, more than a few famous people currently write on Mixi. Would the firm dare to incite a potential legal challenge by attempting to profit from their work? Read more

Google, YouTube to team up with Matsushita to deliver internet-enabled flat screen televisions

Tuesday morning’s Nikkei is set to publish a story that Google and Matsushita have agreed to join forces and develop internet-enabled flat panel televisions that will allow watchers to access Google’s YouTube and Picasa <sarcasm>whatever that is</sarcasm> services with the touch of a remote control button…

…but only in the US, for now.

Baby steps. We’re still taking baby steps.

Google, DoCoMo to join up on i-mode mobile services

This is a move that promises to be good for NTT DoCoMo, a firm which is currently Japan’s leader in market share for mobile phone services, though is seeing a large number of younger users defect for Japan’s other two service providers, Softbank and AU. According to Tuesday’s Nikkei, from this Spring, DoCoMo users will be able to use Google’s search, email, scheduling and picture storage services.

Why is this big news? Well, it seems as though DoCoMo has finally realized that it cannot control all operations in a vertical structure - to move forward in the future and protect its market share, it will have to reach out to other firms in order to offer appealing top-end services to its users.

Does this mean that DoCoMo’s vertical market strategy is on the outs? Probably not, though the firm will have to look at other ways to attract subscribers and provide services. We’ve been a bit surprised thus far that Softbank has failed to leverage its Yahoo Japan brand as part of a mobile services bundle, though this could be just the motivation they need…

More on You Tube-Google-Advertising Marketing-Copyright-Dentsu-Japan

In the previous post, I talked a bit about You Tube’s official launch into the Japanese market and the issues it faces in terms of copyright protection. After publishing that, I came across a writeup in the Nikkei that sheds further light on what the Google/You Tube partnership faces in the Japanese market and how advertising dollars (as one might expect) tend to lurk behind everything these days.

The article is Japan TV Broadcasters Losing Opportunity By Shunning YouTube

An excerpt:

Another factor that distances Japanese media from Google is advertising. “While emphasizing synergy with the advertising industry, Google is working to eliminate the middleman,” said an executive at Dentsu Inc. The Internet ads that Google carries are basically uploaded by the advertisers themselves, giving Google discretion on where to place them.

Japanese ad agencies like Dentsu and Hakuhodo Inc., whose businesses are based on their ability to secure favorable ad slots on TV, in newspapers and on Internet portals, are trying to defend themselves from this new threat. “Under strong pressure from Dentsu and Hakuhodo, some private television networks and other media firms have been reluctant to partner with Google,” said a source in the Internet ad industry.

The author’s own opinion is clear, and he argues along the same lines that I do; Firms are losing out on opportunities to be ‘early adopters’ and thus see corresponding improvements in their brand image amongst target markets. Nonetheless, it is the powerful middlemen who stand in the way. As powerful as Dentsu tells itself it actually is, that firm will also have to join the 21st century at some point and begin shifting its value adding focus (or developing a new one) by offering consulting on using Google (or other online) advertising services for smaller firms as they grow more and more vocal in the internet marketplace.

You Tube Japan Officially Launches - With Six Business Partnerships to Go Along

Back in June, You Tube’s entry into the Japanese market was discussed on BizCast Japan over at Trans-Pacific Radio. At that time, You Tube had released a localized version of its site, apparently as a beta test. Today, however, the site’s full Japan release was announced, as well as six You Tube business tieups with Japanese firms.

Included in those business partnerships are satellite broadcaster Sky PerfecTV, social networking giant Mixi, Yoshimoto Kogyo, animator GDH, and Casio. Casio intends to build cameras specially-made for creating content that can be uploaded directly to You Tube.

Of course, not everyone is happy with this development. The Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers stated that Google’s yet-to-be-rolled-out copyright detection software “will not be good enough.”

This debate is going to rage for some time, and Google/You Tube are going to have to be very careful about where they tread legally, but I must say that I am impressed by the six firms thus far that have, if nothing else, realized the marketing and brand synergy that You Tube offers.

Wired published a post on this issue, and I thought the author had one particularly insightful comment:

Although Japan’s “gross national cool” has taken the world by storm, only the most obsessed Western otaku (fans) know Japan’s popular television shows, music and movies. Frankly, the Japanese entertainment industry has recently been eclipsed by the emerging music/movie giant that is South Korea, so a little YouTube publicity is something that, in Japan’s case, should be nurtured as a way to expose the world to the country’s work. The worst thing that could happen to Japanese artists is for their work to disappear from YouTube.

I’m sure it’s not the ‘worst’ thing, but it certainly shows the artists that their management is hell-bent on keeping their collective heads in the sand.

Former Sony CEO Idei Making Big Moves

On the train this afternoon I was reading a Japan Times article focusing on Nobuyuki Idei, the former CEO of Sony. The piece came via Kyodo News, and the original reporter had spoken with Idei on Monday of this week. Idei had much to say concerning the current state of innovation in Japan’s technology sectors. Here are some bits:

Sadly, Japan was unable to lead the information technology industry…At present, there is no world-class brand from Japan that does Net business. There is no new Sony on the Net…By using IT more and more, I hope one day there will be a new world-class company from Japan.

We’ve lamented this situation before, as have many others. But that’s not what we’re here to dwell on. What he said next in the interview struck me: According to Idei, Japanese Internet companies have not shown enough innovation and remain “localized” because they are overly dependent on imitating US-style business models. He then asserted that he has seen more promising innovation amongst Internet firms happening in China and other parts of Asia.

In 2006, in order to provide a “value creation catalyst” for young Internet workers in Japan, Idei set up a consultancy called Quantum Leaps.

Then, when I got home tonight, this headline was waiting for me: Aiming For Japan, Baidu Names Ex-Sony CEO To Board

The first two paragraphs:

Chinese Web search leader Baidu.com Inc., which is seeking to expand into the Japanese Web search market, said Tuesday it had named ex-Sony Chief Executive Nobuyuki Idei as a company director.

Idei, one of Japan’s most famous corporate executives, is widely blamed for missteps at Sony, the world’s largest consumer electronics company, where he was forced out as leader in 2005. He is the founder and chief executive of Quantum Leaps Corp., a technology consulting practice he currently runs.

I’m not sure how I missed the story before, but I’m glad I got them in reverse order, since the Japan Times/Kyodo piece makes no mention of Idei’s new post at Baidu. Isn’t context refreshing?

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