Japan Archives

February 17, 2008

Published by Motoko Hunt at February 17, 2008

Will Baidu gain market share in Japan?

It's been 3 weeks since Baidu officially opened its services in Japan after 10months of beta phase. While Baidu's news has been picked up by some search industry media, I haven't heard any user side feedbacks. None of my friends in Japan have tried the search at Baidu, yet. So, the question is... "Will Baidu gain market share in Japan?"

February 14, 2008

Published by Motoko Hunt at February 14, 2008

Yahoo Japan releases Yahoo Profile

2 weeks after Google released its Google Social Graph API, Yahoo Japan opened "Yahoo Profile" service. Yahoo Profile integrates Yahoo's Social Networking Service, Yahoo Days' profile pages and Open ID user profiles.

February 1, 2008

Published by Motoko Hunt at February 1, 2008

MSN wants to buy Yahoo for $44.6 billion

Microsoft announced it's offer to acquire Yahoo for $31/share, which is more than 60% higher than Yahoo's current traded price. Yahoo shows their willingness to consider the offer. If MSN and Yahoo come to the agreement, we may see new search engine-portal site later this year.

January 21, 2008

Published by Motoko Hunt at January 21, 2008

Search Around The World at SES Paris

On Feb 15, I spoke about Japanese Internet Market during the Search Around The World session at Search Engine Strategies Paris. It was the only session provided in English. I was happy to see we had a good attendance to the session.

January 11, 2008

Published by Motoko Hunt at January 11, 2008

Japanese Government’s statement caused DeNA’s stock to fall

Japanese government's new regulation to require all mobile service providers to use a filtering system to ban children (under 18) from accessing certain websites/mobile sites has caused Japan's most popular mobile portal, Mobaga Town's owner, DeNA's stock to fall rapidly.

January 3, 2008

Published by Motoko Hunt at January 3, 2008

Yahoo Japan’s face lift for the New Year

Yahoo Japan entered 2008 with a new home page, which has no category list. Though it has a search box right below the Yahoo Japan logo, it looks that Yahoo Japan is shifting to be more as a portal site than as a search site.