ABCLoop.com launch party

I just came back from the launch event for ABCLoop.com in Roppongi where I met up with Billy and John Martyn, the founders of ABCLoop. The Site is for English speakers who want to teach, meet and network with Japanese people who want to learn English and travel overseas. The emphasis is on “social” and bringing people together.

Since the Site is new right now, ABCLoop.com are looking for people to sign up and save their teaching profile.

Teachers explanation screen

There are meetup events scheduled regularly starting from this month

Japanese users can easily register on the Site

Congratulations to ABCLoop.com on their succesful launch

I should have some more pictures from the launch party soon to show. Looking forward to the next event.

• You can follow Billy and John on Twitter to find out what they are up to.
• Also, you can join the ABCLoop group on Facebook to get regular updates on events.

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From the NTT Docomo promotion site for 'Who is my boss?' http://docomo-1-1.jp/

I came across this new promotion that NTT Docomo look to be spending a lot of money on. They are hoping it will have a social viral connection and spread around the internet quickly. Time will tell. It is not clear though whether this will help them fight off Softabank and the iPhone.

Just another quiet day in Shibuya with the usual scenes, except what is that on the 109 building?

Looks like it is Darth Vader in a docomo commercial. Softbank might find that extremely funny since they would probably cast themselves as Jedi Knights fighting against the evil NTT docomo empire.

Plenty of ads up at the station as well.

The website is asking people to tweet out about it. This is docomo's attempt at viral SNS marketing.

from the docomo promotion site http://docomo-1-1.jp/

The promotion website can be seen here.

What do you think about docomo going over to the Dark Side?

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The Suica Penguin himself is on duty here at the front of the store.

The Suica Penguin store at Tokyo Station opened recently. I decided to follow up on my article the other day and take a visit to Minami guchi at Tokyo Station to see the Penguin Stadium, Pensta.

Bread in a can for Yen 420.

Penguin snacks. Very nice packaging. The plain black and white is quite smart.

Penguin stick cookies.

Bags and other goodies.

Chocolate crunch Penguin snacks. Just what every penguin wants to eat.

How about a Penguin himself as a souvenir?

Some small gifts to take home, including diaries, hand towels, brush and go-go reel.

The inflatable Penguin and a painter penguin behind him. I wonder what would happen if someone popped the penguin.

Nice selection of foods at the Penguin Stadium. I bet Chiharu Sakazaki is pleased to see how well received the Penguin has become.

Either white is the "in" color or they have not decided what to show here yet. Maybe they are waiting for an LCD display.

Are you a penguin fan?

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There are already many colorful advertising boards at Shinagwa Station, but an additional 44 large monitor boards just arrived to fill up some space.

I have been following the progress of Shinagawa Station in installing some new advertising boards. With a crowded walk area all day long, they have installed 44 large size 50 inch monitors to show ads to passers by.

Large screen advertising on 44 monitors at Shinagawa Station.

The monitors were just being installed here. People were walking by wondering what they were going to need so many tvs for.

I took this photo of a monitor at Tokyo Station a few months ago. Looks similar to the ones now at Shinagawa Station.

The advertising monitors get turned on and look very colorful.

More traditional advertising also has its place.

The scenery before the monitors were installed.

What do you think of the recent change from neon light advertising to digital billboards ?

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meiji chocolate have wrapped an entire kiosk in their brand at Tokyo Station.

Saw this great form of advertising at Tokyo Station for meiji chocolate. The whole kiosk is wrapped up in meiji milk chocolate brand with the back of the kiosk explaining some of the history of meiji chocolate back from 1926.

From the side on picture you can see the branding continue with a large chocolate bar under the counter area.

From the front the meiji banner is very prominent where normally you see the words "kiosk". Everything else looks like a normal station kiosk.

It seems like JR are getting more creative at advertising and marketing tie ups in the station which is a good thing for consumers. This type of promotion is really interesting. Do you have this form of advertising in your country?

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shibuya246 profile on Google Buzz

I was talking with a friend the other day and saying that Google was missing out on the SNS boom that Sites like Facebook and Twitter have caught onto. Google has been the starting point for many people when they search for something on the Internet, but with Facebook gaining users by the millions and Twitter moving up quick, it appeared that people’s attention was being diverted from searching the main Internet to just searching within their own community group.

YouTube is slowly evolving into a social network itself by improving its profile and groups pages. I thought that maybe Google would try and grow using their YouTube channel, but was surprised to hear they were going full scale with their SNS efforts by building it into Gmail.

shibuya246 on YouTube

The idea of using email to be the center of the Social Network is a risky one, as many users might feel their inbox is getting invading by unnecessary messages. Some other users have already cut back on their use of email to a certain extent and instead are using other forms of communication such as Twitter and Facebook.

Here is Google’s intro to Buzz explaining the service benefits.

I have not been using email as much as I use to, but instead have started to spend more time using Twitter and also interacting with users here on shibuya246. In order to use buzz I actually had to sign up for a gmail account in addition to the other email accounts I already keep track of for incoming mail.

The up-side of Google basing their service around the mail platform is that they already have millions of current users. They don’t have to start from nothing like Twitter did and this should help them catch up faster.

Once they integrate the much awaited Google Wave project to this as well, Facebook and Twitter may have something to think about. We have already seen Facebook buy out FreindFeed and have to assume they are busy writing the next version of Facebook with new features and a better user interface.

My first post on Google Buzz, and my first follow, Danny, also with some nice pictures on his post

If you want to find me on the web there are a number of ways you can follow me. The first one, of course is to follow me on this Site, shibuya246. You can now sign in using your Twitter account which makes it easier for commenting. In addition you can follow me at these Sites:

and now we can add Google Buzz to the list, where you can find shibuya246 at Google Buzz

shibuya246 fan page on Facebook

It will be interesting to see how Google goes with this project. They have introduced SNS type projects before, one such idea was Google Friend Connect. With gmail so central to the Google service platform maybe Buzz will have more success.

I wonder what Microsoft is thinking after their launch of Bing has now quietened down, and will Apple be content being the pioneers of new hardware these days as much as software, or will they also want to get a piece of the social networking pie?

What are your views on Buzz, Facebook and Twitter? Can they all compliment each other, or will we see some buy-outs and amalgamations?

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An office building in Tokyo, near Tokyo Station.

A lot of people ask me how they can establish their business in Tokyo. Some of those companies already have a good export business to markets like Europe and America, others are just getting started on exports and have identified Japan as their first market. Whether experienced in exports or not, there are always a lot of questions about how to tackle the unique nature of the Japanese business environment.

My company, Advance Partners, which I set up with a friend 5 years ago works in helping to integrate firms to the Tokyo marketplace, showing them “the ropes” in Japan and helping with social web promotion strategies. Although born in England, I moved to Australia with my family when I was 13 and attended High School in Brisbane, Queensland. From there I quickly found my way to Tokyo and now find the place I have lived the longest in my life is actually Japan. It is hard to imagine I have lived more years here than anywhere else, but it really feels like home ^_^.

I had lunch today with 2 staff of the Trade and Investment Office (Japan) for Queensland, Australia. Their job is to provide export advice and assistance to Queensland businesses in Japan. It was interesting to talk with them about introducing Australian clients to Japanese business partners, cross cultural networking opportunities and how they can assist with improving a businesses chance of succeeding in Japan.

There are many restaurants in the building. Even though it is not outside with street frontage they have done a good job of making a nice entrance, even with the window ornaments.

This is the food display counter. Lots of good food available normally under the 1,000 Yen level.

Like many traditional Japanese restaurants, you take your shoes off before entering the restaurant. You get a small locker to put your shoes in. The wooden peg fits just your locker and is removed once your shoes are inside. The lockers have a numbering system for you to find your shoes later.

Lunch in the Yurakucho Denki Bldg. Good food, fine company. Just another great day in Japan.

The counter area had a good rustic feel to it. You could probably find a lot of places to eat like this in the countryside as well.

The area of Yurakucho is very close to Ginza, Tokyo Station and the Emperor’s Palace. It is a nice area to walk around on a sunny winter’s day like today. I had more meetings to attend today, but I will come back and take some photos of the area for a Tokyo Photo Walk post another day.

Coming out of the entrance from the JR Station at Yurakucho.

Some people looking for directions outside Yurakucho Station. You can see the big green area on the map here is part of the gardens and start of the Emperor's Palace grounds.

Crossing over from the Yurakucho Station to the Yurakucho Denki Bldg. There are many big firms around in this area, as well as Ginza being a short walk away.

BIC Camera in Yurakucho. This used to be the SOGO Department building. I heard recently that Seibu in Yurakcho may also be shutting down. I wonder what company will look at using that space.

It is great to meet up with different people who are doing business in Japan and also to help firms find their way here as well. There are always many difficulties along the road to success, and to share those difficult times with others makes it all the more enjoyable when you can get together and toast your success.

I am fortunate to live in a city like Tokyo where most companies have an office, if not their head office, all in a relatively small area. It is easy to go from one meeting to another without having to jump on a plane to travel. Time traveling to meetings is short so more can get done ^^.

Do you enjoy the travel to meetings or would you prefer to have all the companies located in one place?

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The Official Site for Tokyo Day in London.

I just found out that London is hosting an event called “Tokyo Day” this weekend. The event will be at The Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre. It is sponsored by the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and will be covering traditional and modern Japanese culture. Sounds like a mix of kimono’s and anime.

I was tipped off to the event by The Londonist website who used my Domo-kun photo to highlight the event. Thanks guys.

Domo-kun taken at Tokyo Station with iPhone.

A lot of people ask me about using photos on the web or my flickr account. I am happy for the photos to be used as long as credit and a link are provided with the photo. If you could drop me a line to tell me as well it is appreciated, but you don’t have to.

You can get more information about Tokyo Day in London at the official website – http://tcp2010.com/.

Do you often have events in your part of the world for Tokyo or Japan?

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McDonalds advertising at Shibuya Station

With Wendys leaving Japan, at least for the moment, McDonalds is not letting up its campaign to keep people eating its hamburgers. After introducing the Quarter Pounder last year, they now have on sale 4 new burgers. Can you make them out in the billboard?

New hamburgers from McDonalds

The four new hamburgers will be on sale from Jan 15, 2010.

They are Texas Burger, New York Burger, California Burger and Hawaiian Burger. Do you have these burgers in your part of the world from McDonalds? I would have liked to see a Las Vegas Burger myself.

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Parco CANpaign

I have been busy working on the Site today and have almost finished the code so that you get leave comment annotations directly on the images. I first saw this on flickr, but didn’t see many people using it and so after installing the script once then didn’t continue with it.

Recently, I saw Danny making excellent use of it on his Site, dannychoo.com, and on closer inspection so that he and Chris had further integrated the script into the Site to make it easier to find peoples comments and reply to them.

Here is a look at Danny’s write up on how he adapted the original jquery code.

Seeing the number of people who enjoyed leaving comments directly on the photos at dannychoo.com I thought it was worth another installation. I am going to modify the code a bit more over the next few days and have to work on a problem with cookies on the site which keeps logging me out. As a test run, today’s article should allow you leave comments on the second photo only. Trying to fix the problem with comments on the others tonight.

I will work further on the code for this and integrate it fully with the Site soon. I will also try and fix the cookie problem so people don’t keep getting logged out.

PARCO CANpaign

Parco Department store had a campaign on recently for its 40th year Anniversary. They called it a CANpaign CANペーン, nice play on words.

The campaign ran in the week upto Christmas and gave you the chance to win some cool merchandise in a can.

If you hover over the image a button will come up in the bottom right hand corner under the photo. By clicking this you can leave a comment on the Site, but pin it to the photo. If your comment gets eaten let me know in the comments below and I will try to fix things.

Parco's CANpaign being advertised at Shibuya Station.

Some cute items in these cans.

When I was in Shibuya I saw an advert for this fantastic TV that can record 8 channels all at the same time and comes with a 3TB hard disk. That is more than most people are sporting on their desktop computers these days.

This TV by Toshiba has about 7 tuners in it so you can record multiple channels all at once and then search for programs later.

Here is what Toshiba say about the TV:

Support for multiple recording and playback functions with a 3TB hard disk

CELL REGZA has a 3-terabyte (TB) hard disk drive, 2TB of which is dedicated to the “time-shift machine,” which records user-specified programs. This immense capacity can simultaneously record up to eight terrestrial digital channels for as long as 26 hours. Sifting through that contents—and more—is easily accomplished with “Roaming Navigator,” which searches for and delivers thumbnails and data on archived, on-the-air, and to-be-aired programs.

I have found Toshiba to be quite innovative on hooking up their TV products to the internet. They were one of the first companies to let you access the hard disk on the TV directly through your home WAN. They seem to be more at the cutting edge than SONY which appears to be falling behind.

Would you like to get your hands on a TV like this? How do you feel about the SONY brand at the moment? Can it make a comeback?

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The Quiksilver Roxy promotion vehicle doing the rounds in Shibuya.

Caught a few shots of this promotional vehicle for the Quiksilver Roxy store in Harajuku the other day. The vehicle was rolling around Shibuya on a later sunny afternoon leaving quite an impression. I bet there were more than just a few male shoppers who wish they were out surfing instead of being dragged around the stores.

A look at the Quicksilver surf boards with Final Fantasy in the background. Which would you choose?

The surfboards pass through the streets between Seibu Department store and on towards Tokyu Hands.

A few people thinking about grabbing one of those board maybe and heading to the beach. At this time of the year they might want to try flying to Australia or Hawaii for a surf.

The surfboards go on their way to do another lap of the Shibuya scramble crossing.

It is not all surf at the Quiksilver Japan store. You can also find some good snow gear, and their blog has some nice Christmas pix on it as well. If you are lost here is their map.

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The Aflac truck was full of christmas cheer sporting these colorful ducks

The Aflac ads in Japan use a duck. You can see the character on the bottom left of the truck. Some of the ads are really well made, and have their own brand of 'cute' which is different to some other character brand ads.

For this product, they are taking the normal Japanese maneki-neko and converting it into a maneki-neko duck.

The ad below shows a cat teaching the duck how to hold up his paw to do the “maneki-neko” pose.

The truck says you need to check their website out to see what the special Christmas maneki-neko duck campaign is all about.

Up close with the ducks

As the big ducks roll by, not many are really paying them much attention.

Would you buy insurance from a duck that learned its trade from a cat?

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