Web 2.0 in Japan

6 Jul 2006 Category: Features, Internet, Japan, Worldwide

Web 2.0 in Japan

Japan is a country renowned for it’s technological prowess - being on the cutting edge of robotics, hybrid car research, video game entertainment and countless other areas. Strange then, that whilst the rest of the world has seen a huge boom in “Web 2.0″-style services on the internet over the past 12 months, Japan has been somewhat lagging behind. Fear not, however, as Japan is slowly catching up. Here is a quick look at some of the Web 2.0 goodness coming out of Japan and a look at their Western equivalents.

Written by Jon

Firstly, lets get this out of the way - what is Web 2.0? The simple answer to that is…everyone has a different answer. Wikipedia says this in their entry:

“Web 2.0 refers to a second generation of services available on the World Wide Web that lets people collaborate and share information online…Web 2.0 gives users an experience closer to desktop applications than the traditional static Web pages.”

Which is a very expansive definition, but it’s about as good as we are going to get in two sentences. For this article I have concentrated on several key areas of web services that seem to define the current gamut of Web 2.0 offerings, and have looked at interesting, popular and / or new websites in those areas from Japan and beyond. Let us begin…

Social Networking

Social Networking websites are those that allow users to sign up, make friends, join communities and interact with people from around the world.


Myspace

50 million people can’t all be wrong!

The West is well-represented by the huge, sprawling networks of places like Myspace, Facebook and Blogger. Interestingly however, despite the fact that Myspace is the veritable poster-boy of social networks, social networks being the poster-boy of Web 2.0…Myspace isn’t all that Web 2.0. Apart from having a very plain, cumbersome design, Myspace doesn’t have the sheen that geeks like myself expect from a web industry leader - for example there is no RSS, lots of page refreshing, the site has extremely ugly urls that help expose the underlying workings of the code, and it is very insecure (although I accept that the risk of being hacked increases exponentially when you have the amount of users that myspace has).


Mixi

GREE

In Japan, social networking is represented mainly by Mixi, with GREE following a distant second. In my opinion, both of these services suffer from the same problems as Myspace - no RSS (presumably a tactic to keep me coming back to the site itself) or other simple method of exporting my data, horrible, long urls and generally quite a “Web1.0″ feature-set, for a genre that is so often labeled automatically as Web2.0…

Video Sharing

Video Sharing websites are those that allow people to upload and share video content quickly and easily.

YouTube

The almighty YouTube is currently the undeniable king of video sharing. Many others have tried to knock it from its throne, but it has stood firm, despite legal woes and burning through bandwidth (at a cost of $1 million a month).

Hatenatube

To my knowledge there is no direct competitor to YouTube in Japan but there is an interesting little mashup* from the boys at fladdict.net, and it is called hatenatube. Hatenatube simply takes popular YouTube videos from a variety of sources and displays a thumb for each one. Clicking on the thumb opens the video in a semi-transparent dark overlay, similar to the lightbox effect. Such a simple idea, but executed very cleanly.

*a mashup can be defined as an original product or service that has been created out of existing products or services.

Podcasting

Everyone is diving into podcasting, but how are we supposed to keep track of all those podcasts? These sites offer a solution…


Podcast Alley

Odeo

The West is currently represented mainly by Podcast Alley and Odeo. Both sites offer good solutions to digging through the hundreds of thousands of podcast episodes they have listed. Out of these two only Odeo offers the ability to play podcasts inline, in your browser - Podcast Alley forces you to download the file fully before you can view it.

ZapZap

Newly-released and IMG SRC-produced ZapZap is a podcast directory that lets users decide what is popular and what should be on the front page, whilst also allowing you to mix-and-match a custom playlist of podcast episodes. Web 2.0 technologies are used throughout, such as AJAX / Javascript effects for the commenting and inline playing of audio and video. ZapZap is also bilingual, allowing people to browse content in either Japanese or English.

Productivity

As web technology gets better, we are able to transfer more and more of our desktop applications to the web, for convenience. Online productivity apps are a relatively new, and extremely helpful genre of web services.


Ta-da Lists

Orchestrate

Outside of Japan, online productivity applications are best represented by 37signals‘ suite of apps, of which the most well-known is the simple to-do list manager Ta-da Lists. For those who need to manage many different lists at a time, Orchestrate provides a simple, method for handling multiple lists quickly and efficiently.

Checkpad

As this genre of Web 2.0 service is still young, it’s even younger in Japan. Checkpad represents one of the few productivity-oriented web applications in Japan. Providing a similar service to Ta-da Lists, Checkpad differentiates itself by also allowing users to access their lists from their mobile phones.

Start Pages

The idea behind a web-based start page is that when you load up your browser, you get an instant, broad view of what’s happening on the web. Big names such as Yahoo and AOL provide pages of edited content that you can set as your browser homepage, but smaller companies are providing more dynamic, customisable variations to allow your browser homepage to be more relevant to you.

Netvibes

Netvibes is currently the most popular custom web-based start page out there. Featuring a fast-loading AJAX interface, Netvibes provides you with many different options at your disposal from the moment you visit the page. Users can add new panels containing news, pictures, email updates, search boxes and more - and rearrange them around the page to suit their liking.

Startforce

Japan-based Startforce takes an altogether different approach. Although they don’t explicitly state they are a start-page service, some of their ideology is the same. Rather than providing a panel-based interface like Netvibes, Startforce has attempted to visually emulate a computer’s operating system. Startforce allows you to store and swap files as well as chat with other people, all within an OS-like environment.

Blog Tracking

With the millions of blogs being updated every day, we need some method of keeping track of all that data…

Technorati

Technorati has done extremely well, positioning itself as the de facto method of finding out what is hot in the blogging world - fending off heavyweight competitors such as google’s blogsearch.

Kizasi

The near-unpronounceable Kizasi provides a similar service to Technorati, but in my opinion provides a clearer method of finding out what bloggers are talking about. The right hand side has a ranking of current popular keywords in blogs, with the left side home to a nice, large chart and a list of all the blogs currently talking about the selected keyword - with an excerpt from each blog. Very clean, very simple.

Industry News / What’s Hot

Various technology and / or Web 2.0-themed blogs and news services have evolved due the 2.0 boom and many are essential for keeping up to date.


Digg

TechCrunch

Digg continues forward strongly, with it’s recent Digg v3.0 makeover, and industry pundit Michael Arrington at Techcrunch provide invaluable, current industry news to tens of thousands of readers every day.


100shiki

Hatena Bookmarks

Techcrunch recently launched Techcrunch Japan which I’m sure will gain a huge following as time goes on. Apart from that, industry news in Japan is probably best seen through the eyes of the 100shiki website. 100shiki has a very simple purpose - showcase one new website a day. Sometimes this is a new web service, sometimes it is just something interesting, but it never fails to be entertaining. Hatena Bookmarks is a del.icio.us-like social bookmarking service and is probably one of the best places to look for aggregated tech-related news in Japan, thanks to an army of IT-obsessed users.

Well that about wraps up my little look at Web 2.0 in Japan - if any of you feel I’ve missed somewhere special, please let me know in the comments below!

67 Comments

  1. I’ve been using Starforce deskstop for a while now and I must say it’s really improved.
    Excellent example of web 2.0

    Posted by: Tingle on July 7th, 2006 at 2:35 am

  2. Good read, thanks for showing us the counter-parts in Japan.

    Myspace does have RSS though, I’ve personally been using it for a year now, keeping track of my favorite myspacer’s blogs.

    Posted by: Joshua on July 7th, 2006 at 4:58 am

  3. Isn’t a big reason that Japan lags behind on internet service is that Japanese consumers are very hesitant to pay online ?

    I’ve heard that e ccommerce is almost rare. Is this true? Are any online payment systems widely accepted in Japan ?

    Posted by: keith on July 7th, 2006 at 5:15 am

  4. the internet never was a place where japan was to be found at the forefront and it doesn’t look like this is going to change. always lagging behind, japan (once again) just proved to be fast to adopt once standards had been established. the rather lacking development of online retail on the other hand imo has more to do with consumer expectations regarding services. online shopping will never be able to make up for the “irashaimase!” experience. but I might be wrong on this.

    Posted by: drone9 on July 7th, 2006 at 7:35 am

  5. I’m surprised there’s no mention of Flickr or Japanese equivalents (http://www.zorg.com/), this would seem a big part of Web 2.0. Also, re: YouTube, that site itself is getting pretty big among Japanese (http://snipurl.com/sum8). At any rate, it’s hardly news that Japan is “lagging” behind in Web 2.0, this has always been the pattern. But perhaps to put the situation into better context, some mention of iMode and “mobile internet” might also be appropriate?

    Posted by: Kurt on July 7th, 2006 at 11:17 am

  6. well, despite the much touted technological edge, for a long time Japan lagged in PC usage and that was simply a matter of dealing with Japanese script. What’s interesting is that Japan went to mobile phone-based services very very quickly - for a lot of Japanese people their first experience of always-on interconnectedness was via a mobile phone, not the internet.

    Posted by: Adrian on July 7th, 2006 at 12:33 pm

  7. Joshua > I stand corrected! I never noticed it before…

    Posted by: Administrator on July 7th, 2006 at 12:52 pm

  8. Kurt > that is the first time I have ever seen Zorg. Many thanks for the link! oh and congrats on Easterwood - been a fan of the blog for a long time.

    Posted by: Administrator on July 7th, 2006 at 1:03 pm

  9. Perhaps the culture of consensus decision making in Japanese corporations is impeding experimental software development, but in a market economy, I think the demand just isn’t there. Why do westerners spend so much more time online with these entertainment sites to drive ad revenue? I think a better question is, ‘When?’. The answer is, at work. According to an AOL poll, the average American wastes 2.09 per 8 hour work day, and 44% of those 10,000 surveyed said surfing the net was their biggest time waster.

    Maybe the Japanese just aren’t wasting enough time at work to get the demand for these cool sites going!

    Also, I think Flickr.com should have been included.

    Posted by: dan on July 7th, 2006 at 1:25 pm

  10. [...] 引经据典也解释不清什么是Web 2.0, 最后还是用图文并茂的方法, 把日本人模仿目前流行的网站一一对比的列了出来,让读者一目了然, 要讲模仿小日本才是天下无敌呐, 呵呵… [...]

    Posted by: 拉阔:娱己后娱人 » Web 2.0 in Japan on July 7th, 2006 at 3:00 pm

  11. MIXI至少抄得不錯！！！

    Posted by: aofa on July 7th, 2006 at 8:57 pm

  12. [...] And in more user-trend reportage from abroad, PingMag takes a look at Web 2.0 in Japan. [...]

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  13. [...] PingMag - The Tokyo-based magazine about “Design and Making Things” » Archive » Web 2.0 in Japan (tags: web2.0 ajax japan) [...]

    Posted by: Like Your Work » Blog Archive » links for 2006-07-08 on July 8th, 2006 at 9:27 am

  14. [...] Web 2.0 In Japan over on PingMag. [...]

    Posted by: Pig Pen - Web Standards Compliant Web Design Blog » Blog Archive » Web 2.0 In Japan on July 8th, 2006 at 10:56 am

  15. zorg is something to do with picassa (http://picassa.google.com), right? or just by mere chance that their logos are very very similar!

    Posted by: chickerino on July 8th, 2006 at 11:12 pm

  16. Please learn to use a bloody apostrophe. IT’S means IT IS. ITS means belonging to IT as in “Japan is a country renowned for ITS technological prowess.”

    Posted by: John on July 8th, 2006 at 11:48 pm

  17. Thanks a ton for doing the homework on this topic! I’m excited to learn more about Web 2.0-ish stuff in Japan and other palces.

    Posted by: Easton Ellsworth on July 9th, 2006 at 12:15 am

  18. [...] PingMag - The Tokyo-based magazine about “Design and Making Things” - Web 2.0 in Japan they say, “whilst the rest of the world has seen a huge boom in Web 2.0 style services on the internet over the past 12 months, Japan has been somewhat lagging behind.” and I wonder - is it just shit after all. [...]

    Posted by: nuzzaci links for 2006-07-09 on July 9th, 2006 at 10:16 pm

  19. Jon - great overview of the Japanese web 2.0 scene.

    You may be interested to check out our Japanese job search engine http://japan.recruit.net

    A first of it’s kind consolidated Japan job search engine returning results from thousands of sources on the internet.

    Posted by: Maneck Mohan on July 10th, 2006 at 2:42 pm

  20. Clipmarks - http://clipmarks.com/exchange/ - is enjoying increasing international use, including Japanese.

    Posted by: Godfrey Daniel on July 11th, 2006 at 6:00 am

  21. [...] Ping, and online design magazine based in Tokyo, has an interesting article comparing some Japanese websites with their more-or-less equivalent US counterparts. [...]

    Posted by: Web 2.0 In Japan at Sugiru on July 11th, 2006 at 9:17 am

  22. Japanese review of Clipmarks.

    ■Webをクリッピングしてまとめて公開する「Clipmarks」
    http://d.hatena.ne.jp/chiyorozu/20060530/p1

    Posted by: Godfrey Daniel on July 12th, 2006 at 4:44 am

  23. [...] [...]

    Posted by: theory.isthereason » Web 2.0: The Japanese Way on July 12th, 2006 at 5:26 am

  24. [...] PingMag dresse un rapide inventaire des projets, Mixi, Hatenatube, ZapZap, CheckPad, StartForce, Kizasis, 100Shiki Originellement chez rMen’s weblog, the blog of a french cyberworker le 14 Juillet, 2006, 1:55am Informatique , Techno , Web 2 [...]

    Posted by: Le Blogueur » Web 2.0 in Japan on July 14th, 2006 at 10:54 pm

  25. In addition to zorg, there’s fotologue, which is more flash and less web 2.0, but the design is really sleek and beautiful compared to flickr.

    Posted by: kareno on July 21st, 2006 at 1:24 pm

  26. 不过这个网站还是不错的　楼下的是哪里的朋友

    Posted by: Anonymous on July 28th, 2006 at 12:59 pm

  27. Hi,

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    Posted by: Lokesh on July 28th, 2006 at 3:39 pm

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  29. [...] Now is the age of Web 2.0 which makes sharing every little bit of information on earth even more effective. Considering that even your bedroom is wired and you can travel the world within seconds on Google Earth without even getting up, it makes it almost seem ridiculous to think about a visual language of tiny city patches such as “Tokyo”! And yet, I will introduce this young creator group called ADAPTER today because in all this whirling and whizzing of data, they manage to stop, watch and catalyze this very moment of “Tokyo Now”. [...]

    Posted by: PingMag - The Tokyo-based magazine about "Design and Making Things" » Archive » ADAPTER: a design group renovates Tokyo on September 25th, 2006 at 10:20 pm

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    Posted by: M@Blog » Web 2.0 in Japan on October 3rd, 2006 at 10:18 am

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  32. Another Web 2.0 site in Japan (which used to be more of an online dating service), that was re-launched last year as a social networking community is Asoboo (http://asoboo.com/). Still in it’s infancy, they call themelves “a community-based entertainment guide…connects people, the places they hang out at, and the things they do, allowing you to explore networks of people, places, and events.” Asoboo is produced by The Plant Co. Ltd., with information design by Information Architects in Tokyo.

    Posted by: StrategyCore on January 5th, 2007 at 3:07 pm

  33. [...] I know this is old, but I just now saw it and it’s definitely interesting: Web 2.0 in Japan. [...]

    Posted by: Web 2.0 in Japan | Negatendo.Net on January 16th, 2007 at 9:35 am

  34. [...] 11. PingMag [...]

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  35. Nice overview of web 2.0 in Japan, thank you.
    We are doing a one-day event on Web 2.0, mobile technologies and language learning on 24th March 2007 in Nagoya, Japan.
    Come and join us to find out more about web 2.0 in Japan.
    http://wirelessready.nucba.ac.jp

    Posted by: Michael on March 4th, 2007 at 4:40 pm

  36. [...] 5. PingMag [...]

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  37. for a Web 2.0 networking site check out Uber.com. Although still in beta, it’s sleek interface and completely customizable pages have drag and drop flexibility. it offers so much more than myspace.

    Posted by: Brian on March 20th, 2007 at 3:34 am

  38. Coolest new twist on social networking i have seen, and even better its actually useful for getting more out of “real” life.

    Posted by: jonathon on March 20th, 2007 at 4:33 am

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  46. Sorry :(

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  47. Cool…

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  54. I think the reason why Japan was lagging on Web 2.0 is the widespread use of English in the 2.0 community. I think this trend is now reversing thats sites offering Japanese content, Google/Babelfish translations and an increase in Japanese 2.0 sites

    Posted by: Leyton Jay on January 24th, 2008 at 8:50 pm

  55. [...] in Japan. As I mentioned at the start of the article Lushable Japan is next on the agenda to cover Japanese Web 2.0 start up [...]

    Posted by: Lushable - Technology news, web 2.0 start up news » Blog Archive » Web 2.0 bubble in Japan on March 14th, 2008 at 1:44 pm

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