As #4 of our series of the coolest mobile services in Japan, this week we’re taking a closer look at Mobile Suica, one of the two major services in the contactless mobile payments space (i.e. touch your
phone to the reader, and you’re done).
Check out the video below!
Otetsudai Networks in a location-based job finding mobile service that matches part time employees up with potential employers. Job-seekers enter their address into the site, and are shown a pool of local employers that need help *now*.
Location-based + real time + mobile = Otetsudai Networks. The service itself is not quite pretty, but the model can be extended to all kinds of industries, from employers needing help to shops having a quick sale to restaurants having a special.
Enjoy!
With 10 million users and more than 12 billion page views per month, Mobile GREE is among the hottest mobile social networking and games sites in Japan. At first glance, Tsuri Star 2 is just a Flash-based fishing game. However, there are hundreds of thousands of players getting involved in the social side of it all — joining teams to go fishing together, competing in tournaments, showing off their catches to each other, and becoming friends in the process.
Even more astounding: Players spend heaps of actual, cold, hard cash to purchase virtual fishing equipment that lets them catch bigger and rarer fish — helping GREE Inc. bag a cool US$ 41.2 million in revenues in the last quarter alone.
The video is in three parts:
1. A look at GREE’s wildly popular fishing game in action.
2. The shopping and “stickers” functionality in that game.
3. Fishing tournaments, where multiple users work together to catch the most fish.
Enjoy this overview!
Part 1:
Part 2:
Part 3:
Here is the first episode in our new series of cool Japanese mobile services, in two parts:
1. A look at the interface of Run&Walk, a GPS based workout assistant.
2. A look at Run&Walk’s BEATRUN, which changes the music track based on your running rhythm, plus a look at Run&Walk’s companion PC site.
Enjoy!
Part 1:
Part 2:
