Nissen's YouTube Channel

On 17 August Nissen, a Japanese e-commerce giant,  announced the launch of its official YouTube channel.

The interesting feature of the channel is the use of custom gadgets and annotations. The channel contains many 30 second clips with Karina showing off the latest in Japanese fashion. Users can click on the annotations in the video, which will bring them to the relevant page within the online shop.

Nissen is the first in Japan to use the custom gadgets, shown above the actual movies, for e-commerce purposes. Some 23,000 items can be searched for through these gadgets, and the coming autumn and winter collections are also included.

The YouTube channel also has a keyword-based search functionality for its products, a section for weekly top selling products and social media features like Twitter.

Currently 16 commercials can be found on the channel, and there are plans to expand this with more original content, fashion shows and even interior design product offerings. Watch this space.

What will the Women's World Cup effect be?

On Sunday 17 July, history was made when the ladies of Japan's national soccer team became world champions, beating the USWNT in a penalty shoot-out. It was an epic match,  in any case it gathered a lot of media attention, but what could the consequences be for Japanese advertisers acting internationally?

Probably not much, if nobody acts on it anyway. Japan has traditionally been a very inward-looking market, and is weak on (international) PR. To illustrate, I searched very hard for commercials related the Japanese soccer team on YouTube a few days ago, but I couldn't find any. I did find quite some starring the US team.

According to Tetsuya Honda, CEO of strategic PR firm Blue Current Japan, the craze surrounding the women national team should be seized as an opportunity to promote Japan and its culture. He writes this in a blog post for cnet Japan.

Why? Because Japan received a disproportionate amount of attention for winning the tournament. As we know, Japan had to endure a disaster on March 11, and many viewers, media and soccer fans recognized the victory as some sort of closure for the things that had happened. ESPN called the Japanese team the "team of destiny", and other media used words like "fate" and "destiny" to describe the happening.

There is some amount of magical "air" surrounding the Japanese victory. Struck by disaster, the team worked very hard and played with very little fouls (they also won the fair play award), and it came back twice from behind against a team that was technically superior, to win in a penalty shoot-out in a dramatic way. It seems unreal.

This "air" is something temporary that Japanese marketers and PR agencies should capitalize on. The sudden switch from negative news coming from the land of rising sun to positive news is something that doesn't happen this often. That is what Mr. Honda writes, and I tend to agree with him.

And if Japanese marketers won't do it, wouldn't this be an opportunity for any other international advertiser to promote Japanese products? Beyond the obvious connection with the victory in soccer, one could think of branding Japanese products with an increased focus on some sort of mysticism, kindness and (female) beauty.

Don't you think?

Land of The Rising Search Terms

Google presented the search terms with the highest growth in volume from 1 January to end of June 2011. These search terms reflect seasonal trends and highlights in current events. I made a list of the translations with a short explanation. Check them out:

1. Nuclear power plant - No explanation needed.
2. Galaxy S2 - Google may be proud that the Android-driven device is so popular. See also my previous post.
3. iPad2 - Apple's tablet doing a good job. Don't forget about the option to target tablets seperately.
4. tilt - Apparently, if you search for 'tilt' on your mobile device you'll get a tilted Google search results screen. Funny way to get some extra traffic! Also, it goes to show how large mobile search is in Japan.
5. Geiger counter - For obvious reasons.
6. Cesium - A chemical element related to the 3/11 disasters.
7. Power Saving - As I wrote earlier, saving energy is big in Japan.
8. Yoshiko Tanaka - Member of the pop group Candies, who passed away on 21 April 2011. Received great attention from the media, and sympathy from the Japanese people in general, when she released her final words to the public which includes a message of support to the people in the Tohoku region.
9. Rikuzentakata - City in the north badly hit by the disasters. Made famous in the west by horrific images.
10. Radioactive material - Again, people searched for information related to the disaster.

So, understandably, the triple disaster in the north of Japan had a huge impact on the search landscape. My predictions for the second half of 2011?

• Google+
• Galaxy S3
• iPad4

I am quite sure these will be in the next top 10. Seeing the current developments of tablets other than the iPad, probably some new tablet or app will make it there as well. In any case, hopefully we will see an entirely different kind of top 10 than the first half.

 

The tilted screen when you search for 'tilt'.

Picture from livedoor.jp

Targeting Mobile Japan? Build an Android App!

Japan has been an early adopter of mobile internet. While Europeans and consumers in the US were struggling to download e-mails on their phones, the Japanese were enjoying the ease of mobile sites and have been able to enjoy the convenience of being able to access the web while on the move.

It might therefore be surprising that Japan is actually lagging in smartphone adoption. In a recent Google Think Insights Study called "Global Perspectives: Smartphone Users and the Mobile Marketer" (PPT) we can read that smartphone adoption across the globe is as follows:

• US - 31%
• UK - 30%
• France - 27%
• Germany - 18%
• Japan - 6%

A mere six percent of the Japanese own a smartphone? This might be explained by the fact that the Japanese long relied on WAP technology (and i-mode, a similar system by NTT DoCoMo). This technology developed very well in Japan and the phones were also more suited to the Japanese than smartphones have been; I am referring to the superior input of Japanese characters using physical buttons as compared to touchscreens.

However, times are a-changing.

iPhone and Android phones are gaining in popularity and thanks to them smartphone adoption is growing. Recent growth is fueled disproportionately by Android devices, as we can see in this table I got from comScore Japan:

Although the iPhone is said to remain the most popular device (Android OS is used on many different devices), this fact may not be that relevant for developers of mobile apps. This Google Insights graph shows the popularity of the search queries "iPhone app" (blue) and "Android app" (red).

These are the graphs for July 2010 until June 2011. It's hard to see the results clearly on such a small graph, so see the results for yourself here. It is clear that Android apps are becoming increasingly popular while iPhone apps are just stable.

By the way. the Japanese are crazy about apps; an average smartphone user in Japan has 45 apps installed on his phone! That's nearly double the figure of US smartphone owner (23). Also, the Japanese are very willing to buy through their smartphone; 45% of smartphone owners made a purchase on their phones, 29% of smartphone adopters in the US, and only 17% in France. (All figures from same Google Think Insights Study.)

I am no e-commerce expert, but this seems like an opportunity waiting to be grasped. How about building a shopping app? Only 10% of Japanese advertisers have a dedicated app at this moment, as compared to 19% of US advertisers. Even a large e-merchant like Kakaku.com doesn't seem to have a smartphone app.

The building apps in Japan is still quite blue ocean. This while the Japanese love to use them. As smartphone adoption is kicking off, and Android taking the lead in this, the conclusion seems to be pretty straightforward. Don't you think?

E-books Go Offline in Japan

E-books are hot. Just recently Amazon announced that their sales of e-books surpassed the sales figures of physical books. Check out the popularity of Kindle, Amazon's famous e-reader, on Google Insights. It's skyrocketing.

As reading becomes an activity that doesn't require physical books, and as bookstores are disappearing into the clouds, one would assume no sane company would invest in making book vending machines. Luckily, life is full of surprises.

At the 15th e-Book Expo in Tokyo, a company called Glory was showcasing their latest innovation: an e-book vending machine. See the picture below, from a Japanese source.

The idea is that you choose a book from the screen, pay to receive a receipt with a QR code, which you can read with your mobile phone to download the e-book to your phone. Simple enough.

The article mentions that no registration is required to buy books, and that the possibility to pay with cash are the merits of this vending machine. Fair enough, but it seems very counter-intuitive to develop something physical for goods that are completely digital.

The fact that you need your smart phone eventually to download the book makes you wonder why a user wouldn't start with browsing on his phone in the first place. That made me come up with actually another merit of the vending machine: its big screen. It's probably more convenient to browse for books on a bigger screen.

Would this work? Would this machine increase sales of e-books? I think so. To understand why, you would have to see this clip about some innovation in retail in South Korea:



You may have seen it already. It goes to show that offline product confrontations are great triggers for people to start spending money. The e-book vending machine, through its physical presence combined with ease of use through an intuitive UI, may become a great success as well.

What can we learn from this? I think it is that relying on online marketing only may not always be a sufficient strategy. Combining it with offline efforts to invite potential customers to interact with your product offering, that might be a better way to go.

In Japan a Person Sighs Every Three Seconds... On Twitter

Every three seconds? According to mineral water maker Vittel, once every three seconds a person tweets that he is 'tired' or 'sleepy'. Research (Japanese) has shown that the number of tweets increase around Wednesday. This might be caused by a start-up problems in the beginning of the week, worsened by the prospect of two more days of hard work until the weekend.

You can see the evidence here (source). The red line indicates the tweets about 'sleepy' and the blue one are tweets about being 'tired'.

The x-axis are the days of the week. With some imagination, you can see some peeks around Wednesday (水).

So what do you do with this information if you bottle mineral water? Create an app ofcourse! On the Vittel Refresh Tweet site you can link the site with your twitter account and then it will run a movie that contains a few tweets from your accounts and some profile pics of your followers.

It wasn't very interesting for me to be honest but it might work better if you have some posts in Japanese about being tired or sleepy, something my twitter account lacks. In any case, it's innovative enough to create a campaign around it. If it is possible to pick and choose tweets from an account that gives access to an app, it would be also be possible to make it return messages in real-time based on the wording in the tweets.

Food for thought? Thirst for knowledge? Innovation in the Japanese advertising landscape never ceases to amaze me.

Dentsu Strikes Deal with Skype to Offer Ads while Calling

Dentsu will start offering ads on the online telephone application Skype, in Japan.

It will be an exclusive deal from which Dentsu hopes to generate some $12 million (1 billion yen). The ads will be shown when starting a conversation including video chat, and it may take up to 1/3 of the screen*. (Pretty in-your-face if you ask me.) Similar deals exist in US and Germany already.

These ads, which are a recent change in Skype's direction (it used to ad free), were not totally unexpected. The competition for online calling is getting fiercer everyday, and rates are dropping diminishing revenues. What better idea than to put ads on it (many eyeballs because of increased interest) and have the service for free (or at least cheaper)?

What will be the next step? The satirical website Onion News Network made this clip a while ago. I wouldn't be surprised if it would become reality. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.

Online Money Transfer by NTT Smart Trade

NTT Smart Trade,  fully owned by NTT Communications, started yesterday with a new service that complements the existing methods of payment on the internet.

Dubbed Chocom Soukin (Chocom money transfer) it is basically a way to transfer money between consumers. Why is there a need for such a service you might ask? It's because of the large net auction market in Japan.

Net auctions are C2C auctions, hosted on sites like Yahoo! Auctions and Rakuten Auction. In Japan, they're big. Estimates vary between 16.5% (PDF, Japanese) and 31.0% (PDF, Japanese) of internet users, but the Japanese just love being able to buy rarities and items from their childhood, and being able to sell valuable things that they do not use anymore.

The Japanese generally highly appreciate their privacy, and until now users had to exchange bank details to be able to finalize the transaction.They could make use of the money transfer service or the auction site but these were said to have high transaction costs (up to 6% for smaller purchases through Yahoo!).

But not anymore. With Chocom Soukin, users can send and receive money by just exchanging e-mail adresses. A payment to Chocom by creditcard or through a local ATM takes care of the rest. The costs are 3.15% per transaction, much lower than existing money transfer fees.

Some 70% of the transactions *(Japanese) involve prices lower than 3,000 yen, so this perfect for that part of the market. When customers pay a yearly fee of 500 yen,  transfers between Chocom account are even free. Quite a bargain.

Microsoft Partners Up with Baidu in China

Microsoft is partenering up with Chinese giant Baidu for their operations in China. The American company will provide English search results through its search engine Bing to users of Baidu.

While some sources in the media have announced it as a move of Microsoft into China, other media see it as move of Baidu to put more pressure on Google's presence in China.

A spokeman of the company is to have said that it wants to better accomodate the users that search in English, which are some 10 million queries a day.

Surely, the search queries in English will be censored by the government. While Google retreated out of China as a protest to censorship, Microsoft have found common to move into an alliance. An interesting theme for an ethical debate we will not go into at this moment.

In any case, this could make things more difficult for Google's operations in China. As of now, Baidu controls some 76%* of the search engine market in China, while Google's operations (servicing from Hong Kong) amount up to some 19%. Baidu also has a service in Japanese since 2008.

Reasons I could think of for Chinese residents to use Google instead of Baidu are because of the better search results you get when searching with English terms, and because search results are not censored. Now that Bing results are similar to Google's results (because of copying?) there would be less reason to use Google.

What can Google do? One idea is to stick to its morals and provide uncensored information from Hong Kong so they would retain that advantage against local search engines. And to be honest, that's about the only idea I have.

Hack for Japan

"I want to put my technical skills to good use." With that thought in mind, a few hundred IT developers gathered and started making web-based and mobile apps, in events called Hack for Japan.

Hack for Japan is a project that allows engineers to collaborate on developing apps or other tools to contribute to the recovery of the area that was struck by the disaster. The first event was just one week after the disaster, from 19 to 21 March. The second set of events were held 21 to 22 May on six different places including Sendai.

Employees from Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Rakuten and other companies participated in these events. In total, a few hundred people are said to have participated.

The developed apps include a tool (Japanese only) that distinguishes real news from sensational rumors, an app (English) that shows the geiger values of radiation in mapping tools like Google maps and a photo service that posts images of the recovery in the region called 'Recovery Clock'. Moving stuff.

Image from code.google.com

Also, in collaboration with a radio station called Nippon Housou, a web site that collects Dajare (Japanese word jokes) was developed. The idea was to support the recovery by making Japanese people happy with laughter. For those that can read Japanese, see the site here.

The organisers of Hack for Japan are planning to make this a recurring event for the coming years. In the words of Takuya Oikawa, Engineering Manager at Google and organiser of the event: "the recovery will continue, and so will the activities of Hack for Japan".

The third series of Hack for Japan events are planned on 23 and 30 July, in Tokyo, Sendai and Aizuwakamatsu.

Source: Nikkei Keizai Shinbun, 4 July 2011

Google Helps Japan Remember The Good Times

Do you ever walk around town, see some new buildings and cannot remember what used to be there on that spot? I guess it depends on your city but I often have difficulty recalling what buildings preceded the new ones.

What if your whole city has been changed in an instant? Buildings gone or moved, streets unrecognizably changed. Would you still be able to remember everything? Or would some details be lost in time?

The northeast of Japan experienced such a dramatic change in landscape on March 11. Whole buildings, blocks and towns were wiped from the map. Some people might have pictures online about the situation before the disaster, but wouldn't it be nice if you could share those pictures with your community in an effective way? Enter Google.

On May 16, Google Japan released this page called "Our Memories for The Future". It was revamped recently; my reason to introduce this page now.

It is basically a collection of photo's and videos, grouped in some 150 themes according to location, local festivities etc. Here's a commercial about the service.

Many of these images are of the disaster struck area, before the merciless earthquakes and relentless waves destroyed it all. You can search the images also according to location as you can see in this screenshot depicting Fukushima and Miyagi prefecture. The filter is set to "Before the Disaster".

You don't need to be able to read Japanese. Just take a look at some of the pictures. Some are about local festivals, others are about zoos and nature, and even company tours. It all seems very peaceful.

Just looking at them makes me realize how fragile life is and how we should be happy with what we got at this moment. As history has shown, we might not be able to hold on to it forever.

Show me the Yens! PayPal's Strategic Alliance in Japan

PayPal announced (Japanese) to forge a strategic alliance with Mitsui Sumitomo, a Japanese bank. Will they be able to get the Japanese to use their services? I am sceptical.

According to research (Japanese) by the Ministry of Economy Trade and Industry in Japan, some 32.6% of e-consumers in the US have ever used a third party payment method like PayPal to pay for their transaction.

In Japan however, users prefer to pay with creditcard (66.8%); only 4.7% of the Japanese users have ever paid through a third party like PayPal. Some 36.9% of respondents have paid through their local bank, ATM or even convenience store. (This was the only relevant article in English I could find about paying through convenience stores. Very convenient indeed!)

Paypal has been a leader in its market, but has recently been threatened by other companies including Google and Apple. It has even sued Google for abuse of trade secrets.

So it is no surprise that PayPal has chosen to find sources of revenue outside of the US now that the market is getting more crowded. Good move?

Mitsui Sumitomo is a large player in the Japanese creditcard market. According to this source it is second to JCB. Surely this alliance will give them access to a large customer base. It is said that they plan to start offering PayPal services to customers starting October and that they will look into mobile payment methods.

But what is the value proposition of PayPal again?

• Ease
• Security
• Payment other than creditcard

Ease of payment. It is questionable whether the Japanese value this as much as, say, people from the US. Note that many Japanese would rather go to their local bank, ATM or convenience store to make a payment. Why? Because that's more secure.

PayPal might be secure, and you wouldn't need a creditcard to make payments. But as users don't mind going outside to pay securely, why would they stay inside if it means they have to trust a foreign company with their payments?

So, again, I don't see it happening. This means that e-commerce retailers targeting Japan need not change their focus on the current popular payment methods: creditcard, local (bank, ATM, convenience store) and payment on delivery.

Gold in Cannes - JR Kyushu ad Scores in 'Outdoor' Category

It was probably one of the biggest outdoor advertising efforts ever. To celebrate the opening of a new Shinkansen line to the very south of Japan (Kagoshima), many were motivated to support its maiden ride by standing along the line and cheering.

Some 7,000 people showed up and cheered, danced and basically celebrated in any way they could. You can see the commercial that was based on it here.

Now that marketing effort, called the 250 KM Wave has won the gold prize in Cannes' international festival of creativity. This is great news for Dentsu, the largest agency in Japan who lead the project, and also for everyone in Japan recovering from the 11 March. Omedetou gozaimasu!

Recent Japanese Innovations in Maps

Local advertising is hot. Revenue from advertising using local information (search queries or physical locations through GPS) are growing. Apps are being created everyday that use this info and serve these ads.

So what innovations does Japan have in store to make online maps more attractive? Here are some recent innovations.

Let's start with goo. This top 10 most visited site in Japan is a directory similar to Yahoo Japan. They recently revamped their maps service. Cosmetic changes include the modification of the tabs and changing the lay-out so the map is some 30% bigger than previously. Also, they added information like altitude.

I had never used goo's maps before, so I am in no position to compare it with the older version, but I do see some points of improvements.

• No auto-complete of search queries
• When I type in a certain location, I still need to click the right location (for example, typing in Shinjyuku brought me to a place with suggestions; Shinjyuku area in Sendai city? No thanks. There's a Shinjyuku in Yamagata-ken as well? Not interested!)
• Typing 'Shinjyuku Tokyo Metro' didn't return any results

But in any case, the maps do look very large indeed and, if you're used to the Japanese style of lay-outs, very informative. With a single click I can search for the nearest ATM, convenience stores and world heritage sites. Nice!

What about Yahoo maps, from Japan's favorite search engine? Earlier this month, Yahoo Japan merged 7 services into what is now called Yahoo Loco. The 7 separate services were 'maps', 'regional info', 'traffic info', 'gourmet (dining) info', 'coupons', 'phone directory' and 'local search' (this was called Machimoba and allowed searching based on the location of the phone user).

The maps look good and they're slightly bigger than Google's, but smaller than goo's. It includes all the info you need; it is clear that the merging of the services works.

Possibly more interestingly, Yahoo is working on a iPad app that has 3D maps. Nothing too exciting you may think since Google's Android has had a Street View app for a while, but as the maps are rendered rather than photographed, this may be a smoother and faster-loading alternative to Street View.

Also, as there are no people, dogs or cars to be seen in these maps, this may avoid privacy concerns. According to ITmedia News (Japanese), Yahoo is working on integrating other functions like directions, restaurant search and location tagging of photos.

So what is Google doing in the meantime? In India they are having trouble Street Viewing, and there is no recent news about innovations in Google maps.


In the UK (and I suspect in many other countries as well) Google maps are the preferred choice. The ease of use is probably the deciding factor, in my case it is anyway. In Japan however, user preferences may be different. This may become apparent when you compare the richness of information in the maps of goo, Yahoo and Google.

Should this be a sign for Google? Should they adapt the lay-out of Google maps in Japan?

Satisfaction of the translation accuracy is "translation Google" tops.

If you try to search for something on the Web, English page is inevitable. Automatic us immediately when such a translation (machine) translation services if there is, very useful.

Say what?

The title and first paragraph is the translation of this article, which is in Japanese. The article says that Google Translate has the highest rate of satisfaction among users in Japan.

The survey was carried out by japan.internet.com and goo Research (weird name, I know). Of the 1,082 respondents, 42.1% had used an online translation tool to read a page that was in English. Google Translate had the highest satisfaction rate (43%), followed by Yahoo Honyaku (38%) and Excite Honyaku (37%).

I did some tests myself, for example by translating the previous paragraph, and came up with some findings:

• Google Translate is the only one to translate "goo Research" and "Excite Honyaku" to its names in Japanese. Yahoo translates the first name to "sticky research".
• Google is the only to have text-to-speech.
• Yahoo Honyaku has an auto-detect function to determine the language, similar to that of Google. The number of languages however is much lower (63 of Google vs. 9 of Yahoo Honyaku).
• Interestingly, Yahoo Japan's Honyaku is completely different from Yahoo's Babelfish.
• Excite also has only 9 languages, and no auto-detect.

The implication of these results is that when you would have to rely on automated translations of websites, Google Translate is the safest bet; the rate of satisfaction is the highest and although I am no language expert I can see that Google's solution has the least amount of errors and fewest strange translations.

Also, a translation tool based on Google's technology can be easily added to your site by using this wizard. This is a very good way of offering your website in different languages while your resources may be limited. In all fairness it has to be said Yahoo offers something similar, which has a cute yellow fish as a logo.

There are some more tools based on Google Translate's technology, but I will discuss those in another post. For now, I would suggest to advertisers that are thinking of targeting Japan, or other countries for that matter, to look into how Google Translate works.

Having said all this, even with the technology of today, a good translation would still need human intervention.  In international advertising, where you want to convey your message as truthfully as possible, you wouldn't want anything to be lost in translation, right?

Save Energy, Japan and the World (and make a handsome profit while you're at it).

Setsuden is big in Japan. Setsuden is Japanese for saving electricity, and since the terrible disasters on 11 March, it has become a hype, a rage and maybe even a moral obligation.

With the summer well under way, Japanese policy-makers and corporations are alike are trying to get the consumer to save energy. With a part of electricity generating infrastructure still broken, combined with the rising need for electricity during the hot months (airconditioners are ubiquitous in Japan), any reduction in usage is warmly welcomed.

What effects does this have on the search engine giants in Japan? In any case, search volumes of the word Setsuden have risen sharply since 3/11, as can be seen in the graph below.

Some research with the Google Keyword Tool shows that a popular related query is "how to save energy". It seems the demand for innovative ideas is very high.

What are companies doing? On June 17 Google Japan launched the "Go Setsuden" project. On this website users can register and keep track of the energy they are saving, share their results through social media and even publish own ideas on how to save energy. Earlier, Yahoo Japan released its "Setsuden Guide" with many tips and sharing functions. This guide has been online for nearly 2 months when Google's site was released. What are the differences?

Google Go Setsuden
- Functionality to publish own ideas
- Map with power stations in Japan
- Track daily energy savings and publish these through social media

Yahoo Setsuden Guide
- Categorisation in home tips and office tips
- Many other tips including clothing and lifestyle
- Publish energy saving plan once through social media
- Links to external sites of related organisations
- Links to Yahoo Commerce site with related products
- Advertisements on main page

All in all, it can be said that Yahoo's guide is more extensive while the unique features of Google's solution is that it is possible to track daily savings and contribute to generating ideas about generating energy. Also, the advertisements and links on Yahoo's site might seem like a strange way of making money, but it may be argued that these relevant advertisements helps the recovery of the Japanese economy.

So how can the international advertiser act on this? If you sell products or ideas that reduce energy consumption, you could consider targeting Japan. There is a great demand for implementable solutions. It would be hard to compete against local producers in the area of high end electronics, but niche products could do well.

Also, if you're active on the Japanese web, be sure to adapt your strategy to implement energy saving schemes with high visibility. Participating in the discussion will not only make you look good on the web, but it may also lead to energy saving and cost reductions within the company. Pass these savings on to your customers to create a triple-win situation.

So ask yourself: how will you save energy today? How will you save the world tomorrow?

Androids Everywhere!

Would you like to have a phone with which you can control your TV, dishwasher, stereo, car and maybe even your mother-in-law? And yeah you would be able to make calls with it as well.

Controlling your mother-in-law wouldn't yet be possible in the near future, but there are plenty of innovations lined up to make Android a more-than-ordinary-OS for your mobile phone.

Recently, in an ICT event called COMPUTEX (largest computer exhibition in Asia), many developers and OEM producers showed off their innovations using Android. In this article you can see (in order of appearance):

• Electronic dictionary
• Phone with fixed line (the tablet can be used seperately)
• Smart radio (allows you to listen to online music)
• Commercial flight onboard media solution

Speaking of airlines, American Airlines (the world's fourth largest airline) just announced it will deploy Android devices for its first-class passengers. Who would have thought that would ever happen when the Google phone was first released?

Earlier this year, Android surpassed Apple iPhone's iOS as the preferred OS for smartphones. Andy Rubin (Android's boss) has indicated that Android's ambitions go well beyond just mobile phoning. Evidence of this is, as you can see, showing up everywhere.

So what other innovations can we expect? I was thinking of stuff like:

• Car stereos (eliminates need for seperate carkit and navigation kit)
• Combine it with the car that rides itself (your phone as a car key? Yes!)
• Central heating control (heat up your house just before you leave the office, monitor energy use)
• Bath control (our friends in Japan would love this)
• Anything else?

I didn't actually come up with the bath control thing myself. I remember as a kid reading Japanese comics about what innovations may come in the future, and this was one of them. I remember thinking that that would never be possible.

Thanks to the recent developments, the future now is closer than I had thought. These are exciting times.

Yahoo Japan is Working on Like.com-Beater

Do you remember when Google acquired Like.com? I had heard about Like.com before, and I found it an interesting move by Google; I saw great opportunities for integration with Google Shopping, Image Search Ads and maybe even Google Offers.

Since then, nothing much has happened between the two. I wonder why. Was this $100M deal just a strategic move in the sense that Google wanted to keep it out of the hands of the competition?

In any case, a new threat has popped up.

In Japan, Google's main competitor (and market leader) Yahoo Japan has just started working on technology similar to that of Like.com. Currently in "Labs", Fashion Navi is to be integrated with Yahoo Shopping and it allows the user to search all available products through categories, price range and colour.

It is still very buggy and slow, and the links don't always seem to lead directly to the specific product pages. However, I do see the value added for the user; it could save great amounts of time if you're looking for a specific color, and when combined with the filtered search it could lead the user to the desired end product efficiently. Just like Like.com.

Try it for yourself here.

To improve the functionality, the people at Yahoo should work on the following:

• More elaborate categories including brands
• Intuitive filtered search with slide bars
• Ranking of product by reviews, price etc.
• Search options for multi-colored items

I am curious to know what this news will do the development of Like.com and similar functionalities in Google's products. Surely the search leader of the world can come up with something interesting? I mean, why does Google Image Search have filtering by color, while Google Shopping doesn't!?