Hasta La Gadget!

Google is on a mission to connect with Japan at the moment. Following its More With Google ad demonstrating its image-searching as a fashion show, now it is actually participating in a real one, namely Tokyo Girls Collection.

And you don’t get more utilitarian and user-friendly a fashion event than the popular Tokyo Girls Collection, which famously innovated a whole new platform for mobile phone interaction, e-commerce and brand showcasing.

In collaboration with Google, Saturday’s Tokyo Girls Collection event at Yoyogi in central Tokyo will be streamed live on a special official YouTube channel, with three screens on offer for web visitors to view. The planned eight hours of realtime footage will include happenings on the main stage, backstage interviews with participants, and reports by the MC, says FashionSnap.

Mirroring the actual event, retail is integrated into this new digital version, with links to buy the fashion items online as they are showcased. After the live streaming is over there will be also be selected video highlights available.

Apparently you can even submit questions to the models and stylists through the Tokyo Girls Collection channel, as long as you have a Google account and are signed in. This replicates online the edge the now biannual TGC has always pushed of bringing closer together the power-house triumvirate of models, young fashion fans and e-commerce.

This also follows a precedent set by the major fashion shows and brands around the world, who have been live-streaming their events. Louis Vuitton even recently broadcast a collection via facebook, followed just hours later by 360-degree viewable images of the clothes.

CScout Japan is now hiring Trend Analysts and Project Managers to deal with another strong year of projects from our domestic and global client base. 2010 was our best year ever and saw tremendous growth in every market we’re active in. Now we’re restructuring, looking for another office in the Shibuya area, and bringing in fresh talent to propel us further!

We work with some of the world’s top companies to help them innovate and create new products and services for changing consumer markets. These range from quick market reports on a specific topic, to full-on ideation and innovation workshops around the globe.

The positions we’re filling are full-time, though we’re always on the lookout for qualified freelancers who fit certain niche needs. Starting salaries depend on skills and experience, and there is generous vacation time.

Your job:
– Coordinating projects in Japan, as well as with our offices in NYC, São Paolo, and Mexico City
– Keeping the public informed about the latest in the market at JapanTrends.com
– Researching specific topics, from mobile to automotive, to keep our clients up to speed
– Planning Trend Tour market immersions
– Creating custom reports on market trends

Your qualifications:
– Residence in Tokyo
– Valid visa for working in Japan
– Unending curiosity about the Japanese market
– Ability to track and analyze trends
– Multitasking
– Bilingual English & Japanese (more also a plus!)
– Versatile writing style
– Familiarity with both Microsoft & Apple office suites

Pluses:
– An eye for design
– Outgoing personality
– Video / Photo shooting & editing skills
– International experience
– Enthusiasm for social media, both Japanese and English

While we appreciate the heaps of international inquiries we receive, these positions are only for the Japanese market and require a current Japanese visa. Please inquire via our contact form if you are interested in joining our growing global team!

The opening of a new train line might not sound particularly exciting but for rail-loving Japan these developments usually come with much fanfare: mascots, campaigns and plenty of media attention.

We’ve already reported on some of the augmented reality apps and (troubled) publicity surrounding the new Kyushu shinkansen bullet train line, and here’s another interesting example. The Totteoki site is a portal for people to upload pictures from the stations along the Sanyo and new Kyushu shinkansen lines, building up a library of images of each locale along the route.

Inevitably the various tourist sites get a lot of photos but there are also plenty of images of the more everyday: children, animals, trees…Running from Osaka down along Honshu, via Hiroshima and across to Fukuoka, before ending at Kagoshima, you can browse snippets of life at the stops, learning experientially how the districts will be linked via the joining of the lines in March.

JR is here helping to create buzz about the new railway service by building up a digital community. Interestingly, by getting people from the different regions to upload pictures it connects remote groups together in much the same way as the actual train will do.

The appeal for the locals is evident enough: being able to see snapshots of their homes celebrated and shared. But Tokyo users are of course also free to upload pictures they took when visiting the area and no doubt these campaigns stimulate a kind of sentimental pique, even if the practical benefits of the new line are not primarily affecting them. Nostalgia is a powerful market force!

Japan may have produced the most tweets per minute. Twitter may have saved one local from a toilet mishap. Yes, everyone may seem to be raving about Twitter. But could the backlash be about to begin?

The media has been awash recently with reports of a part-time employee of a high class hotel tweeting about a celebrity couple apparently staying the night on January 11th.

Naturally this is rather intrusive and a clear breach of the hotel’s confidentiality. What actually happened? In truth, it’s fairly innocent.

“Aoi Takenaga” (@aoi_tkng, account now protected), a female university student worker, noticed J-League soccer player Junichi Inamoto and model Miho Tanaka in a restaurant inside the Westin Hotel, Tokyo.

[Image source here and here]

The culprit later went online to Twitter and posted:

Junichi Inamoto and Miho Tanaka have come to the restaurant. Miho Tanaka’s face is so small and cute…Looks like the two of them will stay the night : )
「稲本潤一と田中美保がご来店 田中美保まじ顔ちっちゃくて可愛かった…今夜は2人で泊まるらしいよ お、これは…（どきどき笑）」

This almost immediately spread in the local internet stratosphere, before making its way into mainstream news. Needless to say, the tweeter responsible is no longer working at the Westin. (It later transpired that the couple were simply celebrating Tanaka’s birthday and may not even have stayed the night.)

While obviously embarrassing for the hotel, this might not seem such a big problem for westerners, used to an environment where entertainers regularly have their personal activities exposed for all to see. However, celebrity life and media coverage of it is much more controlled in Japan.

Moreover, the culture takes privacy very seriously and normal users also famously shy away for the most part from having real online identities. This is one obvious reason for Facebook’s stagnant growth here while other SNS where fake names and avatars can be used have gone supernova.

Much was made last year of the successful growth of Twitter in Japan, with even CEO Evan Williams coming over to Tokyo in 2010 and praising local users’ activities. Japanese tweeting recently set a new record, following on from their blitz of activity during the World Cup, with a momentous 6,939 tweets sent per second on January 1st this year.

The share of tweets in English has dropped to “just” half and recent stats are showing that Japanese is now the number two language on the service, covering 14% of messages. So, other than normal folks like us, who are the powerful personalities behind these tweets?

It turns out that the Japanese Twitter user with the most followers is, not surprisingly, an international figure, and none other than Yoko Ono. Of course, she tweets in English, which probably explains why she has over one million followers. (This pales, perhaps rather predicatably, in comparison to American celebrities like Lady Gaga or Justin Bieber, or even Brits like Stephen Fry, who has over 2 million followers.)

Ono’s tweets have a whimsical and optimistic ring to them, often harking about world peace and the humane means to achieve this.

A recent example is:

Let’s dance together in our hearts and play the game of life in peace.

…and the pithy

We laugh, we heal, and we embrace.

Technically Ono is Japanese but seems to tweet almost exclusively in her adopted language. Of those actually writing messages in Japanese, J-Cast reports that popular Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son is number one, with 730 thousand followers, with former Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama (670 thousand) and outspoken ex-Livedoor CEO Takafumi Horie (560 thousand) coming up next.

Of course, large numbers of followers does not necessarily indicate much about the growth of Twitter in general other than that a lot of users are interested in certain people. It reveals the personalities appealing to Twitter users but they are a very specific type of consumer, the people with iPhones and no doubt all the other latest gadgets.

Hatoyama, though, did make quite a breakthrough when, as a political leader, he entered actively into SNS and online communities. His successor, Naoto Kan, has also made some gestures here but Hatoyama’s digital model has yet to be matched. Since stepping down, sadly Hatoyama’s Twitter account has barely been active, suggesting he is reluctant to become an online commentator when his offline career has been officially shut down.