The Japanese website “Kon Katsu News“, or Married Life News has posted an article about an easy and free way to tell if your boyfriend is marriage material.

The method?

Search all of the drives on his computer for the following types of files:
.jpg, .bmp, .wmv, .mpg, .avi, and .rm…

I’m not sure if this is supposed to determine whether he still holds a flame for his ex-girlfriend (old photos), has adult movies and pictures on his drive, has pictures of something even worse… or maybe checking if he’s smart enough to password protect or store externally anything that might irrationally make his marriage-blog-advice-following girlfriend jealous.

I post this here not because I think it’s good advice, but because of how surprisingly common it is in Japan for couples to go through each other’s pockets, bags, cell phones, computers, and who knows what else.

It also makes me wonder if other countries’ mobile phones have the same amount of secret and password protected features. Cell phones in Japan have special ways to hide information about contacts, recent phone calls, and photos.

Here are the winners of the 2009 YouTube Japan Video Awards. There are 7 categories, and the winning videos can be found below.

In the MUSIC Category:

This is a very cool video, definitely worth watching and definitely deserving of the award. An amazing amount of planning and preparation must have gone into this.

SOUR – HIBI NO NEIRO:

The winner for the anime category is also very professionally done.
FUMIKO’S CONFESSION:

This video won for best documentary/live action video. Also a fascinating video with humor and sensitivity.
I AM ROBOT:

In the Blog and How To Division, we have the video
HAIR TUTORIAL RIBBON WITH LITTLE HAIR:

Next up is a crazy cat starring in the animal division.
OKINA HAKO TO NEKO (THE BIG BOX AND THE CAT):

Next up is the technology division with this video. At the end of a hard day, a construction worker washes his machine.
ATAMA ARAEYO! (WASH YOUR HEAD!):

In the nature, scenery, landscape division we have another winner making good use of the score in this very professionally done video.
miniature city 2 -featuring vividblaze “tight rope (floor mix)”:

I love the fact that we live in this era when people can share things like this with other people all over the world. Art is unstoppable.

In an interview with Nikkei Business Online, Yahoo President Masahiro Inoue said that Google is not so great, and implied that Yahoo Japan has done great things while staying in the law. This comment may be a reference to Streetview which is one of Google’s most popular products in Japan, and for which Yahoo Japan has no competing service. There is also mention of Yahoo Book Search which was strongly opposed by publishing companies in Japan.

(A little NewzJapan commentary here: This is partially because of how powerful Japanese companies are, their relationships with the government and media, and how they stick together. Sometimes it seems like it’s the companies competing with the customers except for a few companies like Ikea and Uniqlo that have come in with non-traditional business plans and found success.)

Although Yahoo is still king in Japan in the search market, internationally savvy Google has been making headway with useful products such as the YouTube, Streetview, Gmail, Google Sketchup, and especially the new Google Japanese Language Input System.

Some people have commented that this could be a last ditch attempt to try to hold off Google’s gradually increasing success in Japan, and Yahoo Japan’s weakening.

Inoue mentions that Yahoo has put out some amazing products recently but mentions none by name.

Google has been gradually gaining ground in Japan thanks mostly to solid products and a growing knowledge of what niches have still not been filled by other companies in the Japanese market., all the while growing in its bread and butter search field.

UPDATE: No surprise here that the Hatoyama Twitter Acct is a fake. Just one of those things campy enough that you wish they were true. I’ll leave the link and my initial article as it was.

OK, I’m going to say first of all that it’s possible this is a fake account, but all I’ve read so far seems to indicate that it is real. I’ll update immediately if I hear that Hatoyama’s twitter account is fake.

The tweets are all in Japanese so far, but if you want a little look inside the mind of the current Japanese Prime Minister (a colorful character to say the least)\, please help yourself to an earful of his tweets at his twitter account:

http://twitter.com/nihonwokaeyou/

If you don’t read Japanese, you’ve always got a million options and Firefox addons to get an English approximation…

Google Japan has entered another unexpected market with the release of a free Japanese input software. Reviews on the net hail it as a very natural and easy to use system posing a huge threat to the standard issue ATOK, Anthy, WinAnthy, and other input systems.

Google’s Japanese input can be used with Windows XP and later, as well as Mac computers. It is free and currently listed as being in Beta.

It gets wonderful reviews from people in Japan because it is very natural, and allows for input based on shortenings. If you speak Japanese, you know how often words are shortened. The Google Japanese software gives you the option of choosing the extended version even when you put in the shortened version.

Basically, it seems that Google has taken it’s “Suggest” feature often used in its search engine and applied it to the Japanese input system.

For people who don’t use Japanese computers, when you input Japanese, you basically type in the phonetic rendering of the words using either the English “romaji” lettering or the kana. Then when you hit the space bar, a list of possible Kanji (or Chinese-type characters) for that phonetic rendering.

Google’s input software takes the next step and offers suggestions for what you may be trying to write, or expansions of what you’ve shorthanded.

This feature is common on cellphones in Japan where having to input by repeatedly clicking on those little buttons. In fact, because of the suggest feature on cell phone Japanese language input software, typing on a cell phone in Japan is much faster than typing in English.

Since its a free download, it may also be worth a try for people using non-Japanese keyboards but who also want to be able to type Japanese text.

As you know if you live in Japan, NHK demands payment for its services. In fact, they say that “if you own a tv” you are required to pay. Many non-Japanese people living in Japan think that pretending not to understand Japanese will save you, but they will come back with a vengence, or an English language pamphlet, or an English speaking rep. Many people Japanese and non-Japanese alike decide to just pretend not to be home.

They don’t seem to realize, however, that despite how wonderful NHK kids shows are, people paying mandatory fees to watch them (or not) on tv, are not going to pay even more on top of that to watch them on the computer.

The NHK On Demand service will be a year old this December. Some free programs also exist, but the majority of programs cost between 105 yen and 315 yen.

NHK On Demand was 1,300,000,000 yen in the red last year and is projected to surpass that this year. The service is obviously failing financially. I think they could really help themselves out by finding a way to market Japanese people living abroad. I would happily pay to be able to access NHK kids shows from abroad. I’m sure students of Japanese in high schools and college would also love to be able to watch NHK shows on demand to perfect their comprehension skills.

I think NHK can be a big success if they team it up with services like KeyholeTV, or compete with Keyhole TV. Japan currently has no service like Hulu or tv online so maybe this is NHK’s chance to take all that they’ve invested in their On Demand service and make it profitable. They have the technology in place. Now it’s just a matter of offering content people want with a viable plan for monetizing it.

I’d pay, or happily watch commercials if it meant access to kids shows from outside of Japan. The service needs some better marketing and a more aggressive plan for getting people outside of Japan in on the action.

For now, I’ll be content to enjoy some of the free content offered and keep an eye on the development of this promising yet underdeveloped service.

Twitter Japan was rumored to be starting up premium accounts for which users would have to pay to read. This has since been described to be a “misunderstanding” by someone at Digital Garage Mobile who did a presentation in Japan talking about subscription services. He laid out a plan which may have been just a proposal by which one would have to pay to read celebrity tweets.

In Japan, celebrity blogging is huge. Celebrities, idols, singers, gravure idols can all make a lot of money just by writing blogs (or having blogs written for them). These blogs are often the source of embarrassing or gossip-worthy comments. It gives net bullies the opportunity to pick on personalities. I even know of online bullying which led to the suicide of an adult video star who commented about her relationships with famous Japanese comedians. Fans of the comedians bashed her in comments, demanding that she commit suicide. Sadly, she complied.

Twitter would do well to follow the model of Ameblo and other major blogging giants in Japan and pay celebrities to tweet, then simply put some ads in among the tweets. The same people who read celebrity blogs in Japan and allow Ameblo to make a profit on them would certainly read very short, pithy tweets from their favorite actors, comedians, and “joshi-ana” (female tv announcers). Mix in an ad every third to fifth tweet and I doubt that anyone in Japan would complain. Access could easily remain free and still be profitable.

In a nutshell, I would sell some adtweets to be placed among the tweets of celebrities in Japan. Allow it to be free, and pay the celebrities. The model is no different from that currently done for the “celebrity bloggers” in Japan and would provide Twitter Japan with a nice bit of profit. The celebrities themselves could also use the opportunity to plug whatever book, magazine, tv show, movie, or song they are currently working on.

There is a lot of room for making a profit off of the internet in Japan but it requires embracing the model of providing services for free which Japanese companies do not seem ready to do… as in the case with NHK On Demand. (NHK’s plan to offer their tv shows online for a fee seems to be failing.)

The Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs has begun broadcasting Japanese network tv stations over the internet using P2P (Peer to Peer) technology.

As many newzjapan readers know, the Japanese government has gradually been making an effort to be more of a presence on the internet, including uploading useful videos to YouTube.

KeyholeTV is another step they are taking to show more of Japanese culture to more of the world. KeyholeTV does not provide an HD picture or anything like that, but what it does give you is WHAT’S ON TV IN JAPAN RIGHT NOW.

You have to download a very small program from the KeyholeTV Official Site, and then you are good to go. You can watch TV Tokyo, Fuji TV, Asahi TV, and all of the major tv stations in Japan including some local station, and even some Japanese FM radio stations.

It was fun watching “Ii Tomo” on tv last night and seeing Tamori again, or if you happen to miss Japanese comedy, just check your time zone and turn on KeyholeTV on to enjoy “Red Theater” which is currently Japan’s best skit comedy show. It’s on at 10 pm Japan time and definitely worth a watch. Ii Tomo, the popular and long running variety show hosted by veteran entertainer Tamori and a host of regulars that change each day is broadcast at noon every day in Japan. If you are in the US, you can watch it in the evening before bed for a dose of Japanese tv wackiness. Ii Tomo often features Western entertainers as well including Hugh Jackman, Beyonce, Will Smith, and a whole host of others.

KeynoteTV is available for Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Linux, and Mac OSX! There are also rumors of an iPhone app (which I believe has already been released in Japan).

So enjoy your free and legal Japanese TV shows, and don’t forget to get some sleep as well!

I use google alerts as a great way to get news about certain specific topics that I have an interest in. I have a google alert for “kindle japan” because I’ve written about my what I want from the Kindle in the past, my wish that it would be able to handle manga, and that Amazon would work with Japanese publishers so that I could read my Japanese novels on a Kindle as well.

Another google alert I have set up is for “street view japan”. This is actually my least favorite google alert… the reason is that any time there is any tiny protest against google street view, any time there is an anti-google street view comment on any tiny blog anywhere in the world, I get an alert because the news story, blog post, or letter to grandma that comes up in my alert inevitably refers to the ”

Recently there is word that the Swiss government would like Google to cease filming with their street view cameras in Switzerland. Many of the stories also bring up the “protests” against Google street view that took place in Japan. The problem is that there were no protests that I know of, there were bulletin boards on which the legality and appropriateness of Google street view was debated. Later Google lowered its cameras to film again, but this was not a response to these “protests” or “outraged bloggers”, this was just the right thing to do for a Japan with tiny streets. The higher cameras were unable to get good shots of some of Japan’s major streets which happen to be really tiny roads with 2 lanes which require cars traveling in opposite directions to slow down and make room for each other.

I am not saying that there were not a certain number of people speaking out against Google street view in Japan, I am saying that the case of Japan is a horrible example of people considering street view a violation of privacy and “forcing” Google to acquiesce to their demands for privacy. Google street view exists in Japan and is often used by people who know of it. There are enough people that don’t even know enough about street view in Japan to want to protest it.

I also mentioned in other posts how many businesses and cultural centers are welcoming street view Japan with open arms as a means of getting publicity. When the google street view tricycles were introduced in Japan, many of the temples and smaller areas in Japan jumped at the chance to have their streets and roads filmed.

I think the weak journalism that we see here also a sign of the “pop-japanology” I often mention on the blog. See my short editorial rant on how Japan is represented on CNN. There is a belief somewhere in the media that Japan is an easy country to explain, and that such basic ideas as “saving face” and “being shy” and “the education system making them automatons” can be used to explain behavior in Japan.

These are undoubtedly people unfamiliar with the intricacies of Japanese society (which are surprisingly similar to American society and other cultures and societies… funny that with all of us being HUMAN, there would be similarities, and complexities) who believe that things are simple and one-sided. They follow the rules. They are polite. They are shy. They don’t want to lose face. They take care of their elderly. They respect teachers. I could write a few more pages detailing things I have heard said about people in Japan (with no reference or evidence). Some of the worst perpetrators are people who have lived in Japan for a year or two without learning the language or culture on a deeper level and come away with a lot of misconceptions based on having lived in Japan as a “guest” for two years. I liken this to people vacationing in Hawaii for a few weeks and thinking that Americans go to the beach and eat out every day based on their experience there.

This article in Business Weekly about the Swiss Ban on Street View claims that the cameras for street view in Japan were lowered because the Japanese government “insisted” they be lowered. However, it seems more likely that Google decided internally to do what was best for the company and customers they served. There was a committee formed in the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications, but there was no overt edict issued.

I’ve written a long article to make my point, but I do believe that there needs to be better fact checking in articles referring to Japan, and more open-eyed, open-minded view of the reality of Japan. It is difficult to understand Japan culturally on the level of someone raised here, but part of that is because there is not a lot of conscious self-reflection happening here. There are not a lot of watchdogs from the media, or tell-it-like-it-is radicalism going on.

I also believe that there is room for a lot more, deeper study of the spoken language in Japan. Scholars often talk about the indirectness of the Japanese language, but I find it quite direct, although I understand that if you thought of the English language counterparts to the Japanese words that are spoken, one might think the people are being indirect when they speak. Trust me, however, when I say that those words in Japanese can be as direct as a sentence in Hemingway novel no matter how flowery and oblique they may seem.

As the iPhone went to Softbank (owned by Yahoo Japan), I was wondering if the Google Android phone would ever come to Japan.

Well, the Google Android Phone Japan Version is here, and it went to Docomo.

Other Docomo phones have gradually been increasing its compatibility with Google products such as YouTube and Google Maps here in Japan, and has always been cooperative with Google. (obvious if you consider that their competition in the mobile industry is Softbank, you certainly wouldn’t want to send any love toward Yahoo).

The good news for anyone who is a fan of Google or just a fan of healthy competition breeding innovation, then the good news is how much Google is using ads for the Android phone to introduce users to Google’s various services and alternatives to Yahoo.

Let’s see if the iPhone steps up. Maybe we’ll see some improved features in Japanese, and a little more on the GTD side of things instead of the flash things.

Maybe we have a future in Japan when finally all this mobile technology will pay off. We’ll have board meetings full of people with their iPhones and Androids and whatever AU KDDI comes up with to meet the demand. They’ll by synchronizing calendars and doing on the spot search, sharing files, projecting graphs and presentations from their phones.

Maybe kids in schools will be able to put this mobile technology to use, these phones they stick their noses in every waking moment outside of class will become learning tools. The instant access to information will convince schools of the importance of analytical skills over rote memorization of facts. More emphasis on the big picture, on analogy, on synthesis.

Maybe I’m getting ahead of myself, but if people can dream of world peace, then can’t a guy dream of world access to knowledge, and motivation to learn… can’t a guy dream of evolution?

Anyway, here’s an ad for the android from Google Japan’s YouTube channel. It’s interesting to take a look at this short video and what Google chooses to showcase.

• First search
• then business news and stock reports
• then Google maps, showing route searches and STREETVIEW!
• next, Gmail and its functionality
• followed by YouTube (possibly Google’s most popular feature in Japan), also emphasizing the ease with which one can upload videos as well

The commercial I saw today (during the Gokusen Reunion show) went by fast, but I’ll try to get it or find it on YouTube soon.