Japan Digest: Social gaming market to double, dream-controlling app, and more

(1) The Nomura Research Institute says that Japan’s social gaming market will likely be worth 393.5 billion yen (US$5.1 billion) in fiscal year 2016, roughly doubling in size when compared with 2011.

(2) Ad agency Hakuhodo’s Future Technology Works department has come up with a new app that controls your dreams. The Yumemiru (translated as ‘see the dream’) app lets users select different scenarios to dream about. It influences your dreams while you snooze by broadcasting sounds. Read more

Japan Digest: Japan YouTube users can rent movies, Gumi raises US$25.7M, and more

Here are some startup news snippets from Japan, not only from its capital, Tokyo, but also other startup hubs like Fukuoka, Kyoto, Osaka, and many more. Read more

Japan Digest: Handmade goods marketplace, Yahoo! Box, and more

Here are some startup news snippets from Japan, not only from its capital, Tokyo, but also other startup hubs like Fukuoka, Kyoto, Osaka, and many more. Read more

Japan Digest: New Google+ hot topics aggregator, Mixi Page, and more

Here are some interesting startup news from Japan, not only from its capital, Tokyo, but also other startup hubs like Fukuoka, Kyoto, Osaka, and many more. Read more

TWIA #56: Attack of The Groupon Clones

Yes, Google vs China comes to a stunning conclusion with one side making a kow-tow, and the emergence of Groupon clones taking over Asia springing from China and Singapore. How will all these change the landscape of Asia? With Chew Lin taking the helm as the moderator for the first time, the TWIA crew examines the key issues which dominate Asia, with little quibbles over Microsoft’s dropping of Kin, Huawei putting Froyo onto their Chinese Android phones, Mixi making a minor Linkedin, Amazon’s acquisition of Woot and the major differences between e-commerce in Southeast Asia & East Asia. You can go directly to TWIA website or listen the podcast here in SGEntrepreneurs. Read more

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TWIA #29: This Week in Japan

For this week, the TWIA crew is joined by Serkan Toto, a special guest from Japan, who is the only Asia correspondent for TechCrunch. We diced and sliced through the news happening in Japan: (a) DeNA’s reported profits and its competition with Gree, (b) Google is now booted out of mobile search by NTT-Docomo, the largest telco in Japan with them adopting Goo, (c) the new mobile apps platform set up by various Japan handset vendors including NTT-Docomo, and finally, we have a Singapore start-up named TenCube making headway in China. You can go directly to TWIA website or listen the podcast here in SGEntrepreneurs. Read more

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TWIA #27: What’s the deal with Softbank?

The TWIA crew returns without our moderator, John Lim. In his place, our co-producer Mike Foong has taken the helm and drive the discussion on the important news that rocked Asia this week. With our guest, Chew Lin Kay (@BlinkBl_nk) from BlinkBl-nk.com and Hackerspace SG, we surveyed the happenings from Barcamp KL, BlinkBl_nk to the launch of Amazon AWS in Asia, and moved to the important news of the week: (i) Ushi.cn, a Chinese Linkedin clone after BL’s rant in the live show that there is no linkedin clone in China from the live show? (ii) Yahoo! Japan and DeNA to run social game site, Yahoo! Mobage, (iii) Japan to adopt Chinese standards for 4G, (iv) Microsoft plans to invest in Kaixin001 and finally (v) Baidu filling up the vacuum for Google China now. You can go directly to TWIA website or listen the podcast here in SGEntrepreneurs. Read more

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TWIA Episode 13: The Google Showdown with China

Gen Kanai, Director of Asia Business Development from Mozilla Corporation joins the TWIA crew as the guest to discuss the Google Showdown with the China government on unfiltered search & censorship and examine the implications of foreign companies entering into the Chinese market. The TWIA crew and Gen Kanai continue to discuss the recent Yahoo! Friendster partnership in Southeast Asia and an exciting discussion about the security of mobile banking in Korea and how that ties up with browsers, search engines and security protocols in East Asia. Read more

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6 Essential Social Media Tools for Start-Ups

If you are starting up a new company that primarily goes from business to consumer, without a big budget in marketing or PR, your best chance for getting your message across will be via social media. Most start-ups or major corporations which adopt social media tools to market and engage their customers in Southeast Asia, are essentially in the IT, fast moving consumer goods (FMCG – for example, mobile phones, computers and gadgets) or online media space. Specifically in this article, we want to focus essentially on the start-ups space and offer 6 essential social media tools that a start-up will need. Read more