Posted: July 30th, 2011 | Author: Gang Lu | Filed under: Advertising, Angry Birds, MadHouse, Mobile 2.0, Mobile Ads, mobile app, Rovio | Comments Off
Once again, Angry Birds are overwhelmed by meetings/events/conferences in China. The difference, compared with the April at GMIC, is that at that time only Peter Vesterbacka was the super star, but this week in Shanghai, Angry Birds’ new appointed leader for China/Asia, Henri Holm also showed up together with his China team. They came to our Mobile Monday Shanghai event, went to Shanda event and of course the ChinaJoy. We also know they are checking their office places and starts recruiting more key staffs, the Birds are really taking off in Chinese.
With this ambitious goal of 100 millions downloads by end of this year, and the situation, as Peter said, Angry Birds is already the third-most-pirated brand in China, advertisements on a free version might be the major revenue directly from the apps. So one of the most important partners needed in China to start with is mobile ads solution provider(s). MadHouse, the Shanghai-based China’s leading mobile advertising solution company just becomes the first partner for Rovio to work with in China.
MadHouse is founded 2006 and is reported to offer intelligent targeting technology on a network that reaches 75%+ of all China’s mobile internet users. Read from the press release sent to me by Joshua Maa, the founder and CEO of Madhouse:
As part of this partnership, Madhouse will enable and deliver ads to Rovio properties across China – including placement of in-application banners and rich media ads as well as fully customized marketing solutions tailored to the needs of brand advertisers.
With plenty of lessons from other foreign companies, the Birds obviously understand that they must be a Chinese company. PPW has been appointed as the licensing representative of the Angry Birds franchise; A “Moon Festival” version will be released to entertain Chinese players; a line of Angry Birds shoes will be sold on Letao, China’s largest online shoe company too.
Will Angry Birds will eventually be Happy Birds in China soon?
[picture via VentureBeat]
Related posts:
- Angry birds Flocks to China Both Online and Offline
- Angry Birds Wants To Beat Disney in China Within 2 Years
- Meet Angry Birds, Plants & Zombies and Papaya at MobileMonday Shanghai
Posted: July 30th, 2011 | Author: Masaru IKEDA | Filed under: Gree, Japan, mig33, News | Comments Off
As we reported here on Asiajin, Japan's largest mobile gaming company Gree[J] partnered with mig33, a Singapore-born and currently US-based social network which has become the most popular in South East Asia.
Mig33 recently launched a developer program, which allows mobile game developers to make revenue by developing games on a platform which is compatible with Gree's one[J]. Attending the program could be a chance to give their apps reach more than 50 million users in the region, and the most popular sets of the apps published on the platform may be migrated for GREE's Japanese mobile users too.
As of this writing, 12 developers from 7 countries has been participating in the program, which may cause keener competition in developing mobile gaming apps because more developers not only in Japan but also those from foreign countries will be forced to sharpen swords on the common international arena, in publishing best-selling apps.
Meanwhile, in terms of global expansion by big name gaming platform operators, DeNA recently announced they would launch their Mobage service in English-speaking countries and Mainland China.
See Also:
Mig33 Launches Developer Program, Many Asian Gaming Apps To Come Out In Japan
Posted: July 30th, 2011 | Author: Ben Chiang | Filed under: CHINA | Comments Off
Alibaba Group, Yahoo! Inc and Softbank reached agreement over the controversial transfer of Alipay to a company controlled by Jack Ma, the founder and CEO of Alibaba. Under the agreement, Alibaba will receive no less than $2 billion and no more than $6 billion in proceeds from an IPO of Alipay or other liquidity event or 37.5% of the total equity value of Alipay, and it will continue to participate in Alipay’s future financial performance.
Also, according to the agreement, Alipay will continue to provide payment processing services to Alibaba Group and its subsidiaries including Taobao. Alipay claims to be the largest third-party payment solution in China, while Taobao is the largest domestic ecommerce platform.
The deal ends a public dispute among Yahoo, Softbank and Alibaba over Yahoo’s accusation of Jack Ma “stealthily transferring” Alipay to an entity owned by Jack Ma without notifying other shareholders.
Yahoo! CEO Carol Bartz said after the settlement that “this is a good outcome for Yahoo! and for our shareholders, as well as all the parties to this agreement. Alibaba Group and its management team have an impressive track record of value creation and we look forward to participating in Alibaba Group’s—and Alipay’s—continued success.” While Jack Ma remarked that “this agreement is good for Alibaba Group and its stakeholders, including customers, employees and shareholders. Most importantly, Alipay was able to secure the license it needed to continue operating.”
Yahoo! owns 43% of Alibaba. To many investors, Yahoo’s stake in Alibaba is even more valuable than Yahoo’s own online-advertising business. That’s why the transfer rattled Wall Street after Yahoo! disclosed it in May of this year. Although the dispute seems to be settled, analysts still concerned that “Yahoo appears to become a forced seller of one of its key Asian assets”.
Related posts:
- Alibaba's Plan for Yahoo's Share
- More Trouble For Alipay? Chinese Banks To Compete Into Online Payment Space
- Yahoo China, Might Be The Next To Say Goodbye
Posted: July 30th, 2011 | Author: Jason Lim | Filed under: ChinaJoy, Gaming, iResearch | Comments Off
From Thursday to Sunday this week, the Shanghai ChinaJoy Game Expo is on. The Expo is a big opportunity for companies to showcase their new titles to a mass gathering of hardcore Chinese gamers. Like car enthusiasts being wooed by gorgeous car models, gaming companies are using an arsenal of attractive female models, dressed in tight character costumes to fulful some type of fetish fantasy of their players. It seems they haven’t taken much notice of government directive against “vulgarity” and “obscene, sexually proactive behavior” as reported by Shanghai Daily. Held at the Shanghai New International Expo Center, the convention will feature sessions for game companies, game veterans, developers and of course players to discuss and experience the latest trends in the industry.
Online game market hits 9.48bn yuan in Q2 2011
The dynamic of Chinese consumers is starkly different to other countries. Since Chinese people don’t like paying for things online, companies have accepted this fact and monetize from selling virtual goods and online advertising. This is in contrast to many Western or European countries where avid game geeks would line up for hours to pay for the first copy or subscription of a game. However this doesn’t mean there is not much money in this industry. On the contrary, iResearch values the Chinese consumer online game market to be 9.48bn yuan in Q2 2011, representing a 23.9% increase year on year.
This new model of free to play but paying for in game items has been popularized by companies like Tencent, who we reported recently is teaming up with American game giant, Zynga. Kabam, who we also interviewed sees free to play as a friction-less way to scale users and monetize at the right time.
Online Web Game Advertising market shrinks 7.2% – Shift to Mobile Internet Games
In 2011Q2, China’s online game advertising market size was $173 million, a decrease of 7.2%. iResearch reports that, China’s user conversion and retention rate of online advertising is falling and online advertising costs are increasing.
As online advertising effectiveness for web games decreases, advertisers are looking to shifting budgets towards mobile internet games where iResearch values the mobile game market size to be 980m yuan in Q2 2011, a year on year growth of 66.1%. The explosion of Android and iOS has been a major factor of this growth.
Chinese game companies looking to expand overseas markets
As if the China market wasn’t big enough, Chinese companies are looking (as they should) to go global. Many have already started shipping titles overseas. However like many other Chinese tech companies which have listed on the NASDAQ in America, game companies like Shanda and CYOU, suffered steep stock price declines shortly after listing. Also Chinese game companies face challenges of intense competition from Japanese and South Korean game developers. To support their homegrown gaming industry, even the government is supporting with new industry regulations and favorable policies as well as encouraging overseas expansion.
Related posts:
- Online Game Company The9 Annouced $100million Fund for Mobile Internet Development
- The MMORPG Market Is Shrinking in China
- Global Mobile Game Awards at GMIC2011 – Submit Your Mobile Game!
Posted: July 30th, 2011 | Author: Akky Akimoto | Filed under: Japan IT Links | Comments Off
Continued from (Part 1). Middle part of July news which we did not write as a dedicated article. Continued to (Part 3)
Referred pages are all in Japanese, unless otherwise stated.
If you want to know any specific news more, but unable to find them in other English blog/media, please let us know.
July 2011 Japan IT Links (Part 2)
Posted: July 29th, 2011 | Author: Akky Akimoto | Filed under: character, character encoding, color emoji, Emoji, file system, Japan, Mac OS X Lion, Trend | Comments Off
[Update 2011-08-01] Some emoji-s may cause troubles by bugs. NAOI reported [J] folder with emoji-s categorized in specific section could disappear.
Japanese blogger NAOI pointed out how Lion, the new version of Mac OS X, added more support of color emoji on its system level.
Gmail has been known its emoji support, but that support was done by displaying those emoji characters with converted images. On Lion, the color emoji-s are available as regular letters on operating system level, which means you can create color-emoji folders,
and files,
Some applications can not show them in color. Your sending those strangely named files to older Mac OS, Windows or other OS may cause issues.
Will You Use Color Emoji Folders And Files On Mac OS X Lion?
Posted: July 29th, 2011 | Author: Akky Akimoto | Filed under: android, Bijin Tokei, Book, calendar, date, girl, iPhone, Japan, nyotai, nyotaimori, skin | Comments Off
Nyotai-Goyomi (=girl's body calendar. The word nyotai is the same one in notorious nyotai mori) is a set of girls' photos who has date drawn somewhere on her skin.
The date drawn on girls seem to be in various formats including Japanese digits. If you don't understand Japanese date notations, these apps may be not so useful. Well, your smartphone can easily show current date for free so people who purchase this may not care the information itself.
Bijin Dokei(Tokei) achieved huge success in Japan with "Time" and girls so this one may be welcomed, too.
Every month, new Nyotai Goyomi application are published on iPhone and Android under different themes.
Photos of some date are on the developer's blog [J].
via GirlsNews [J]
Nyotaigoyomi: Page-a-day Calendar Girls App
Posted: July 29th, 2011 | Author: Jason Lim | Filed under: Augmented Reality, MobileBus, SOUTH KOREA | Comments Off
A few months ago, there were a few augmented reality conferences in Beijing. So while in Seoul, Korea recently I paid a visit to one of the companies I met here – MobileBus.
Established in 2006, MobileBus started with two people as a 3D gaming studio but now has over sixty people across Korea and China with a focus on building marker based augmented reality (AR) mobile games; the first being ‘3 Kingdoms’.
So how does it work? Think about it like this – you activate the app with a camera and focus it on a piece of paper that almost looks like a bar code or a pattern of squares. Almost magically little 3D characters appear on the screen, as if they are standing on top of the table.
MobileBus was started by John Lee. Lee originally worked at a leading Finnish publisher and developer of advanced 3D mobile game technologies called Fathammer. Although he later left Fathammer he is cooperating with them to use their technology. MobileBus is also the key distributor for Artoolworks in Korea, a leading commercial developer and licensor of tools and applications for AR.
Like any normal application, a user can download the game onto their mobile phone. In Korea, a user can download it from the SK Telecom app store and then the marker will be sent to them by email which they can print off. In China, MobileBus is pre-loading their games in all Samsung phones sold.
John believes that one of the main challenges for AR to be accepted into the mainstream is cross-platform consistency, especially with Android with so many different specs like camera quality; “this needs to be solved for AR to take off.” With Korea widely known for its strong manufacturing technology companies such as Samsung; Android is starting to dominate the market with 6.5 million phones versus 3 million i-Phones. This means a standard has to be developed for AR to flourish in the growing Android market. Another main challenge is people’s awareness of AR. John also thinks that carriers and device makers must support with marketing and technical efforts to drive user uptake of mobile AR.
3 Kingdoms will be officially released in a month and the company also has plans to rollout another 2 games in the next year. The target users are aged 10-25 years old.
Related posts:
- Kabam, Social MMO Game Company, Raises US$85mn to Attack a US$47bn Market
- Papaya Mobile – mobile social game
- Online Game Company The9 Annouced $100million Fund for Mobile Internet Development
Posted: July 29th, 2011 | Author: dailylicious! | Filed under: scoble, startupquote | Comments Off
“people decide on their career paths based on what they perceive will make them the most powerful”
-
Olivia Fox Cabane - via Robert Scoble
Posted: July 29th, 2011 | Author: dailylicious! | Filed under: recruitment,, scoble | Comments Off
Scoble's notes on talent recruitment:
On Google+, Robert Scoble talks about recruiting the best talents for your company and he listed a number of ways companies do to make the workplace more enticing and inviting. There’s also a host of resources that he linked to that’s worth checking out.
