Motoko’s weblog

Baidu Japan started its mobile search service. In addition to mobile sites, it searches web, images/photos and videos. The unique service of this new search engine is that it lets you search with “Emoji” (emoticon) , too! Some of you may remember that iPhone struggled to gain the market share in Japan when it was introduced to the market. One of the biggest reasons why people didn’t want to use iPhone was that you couldn’t use “Emoji” with iPhone. Since then, Softbank added this Emoji function to iPhone, and now it’s the most popular mobile phones in Japan. In fact, Emoji is a big part of communication method for Japanese people not only with instant messaging, but with blogs, SMSs, etc. One of the first functions added to mixi (Japan’s popular SNS site) was a list of emoticons, too.

However, enabling Emoji search on mobile is much more than a “fun” factor, it helps search experiences. For example, Continue Reading »

Yahoo Japan added a new function to its keyword assist, which will automatically convert Roma-ji typed word into Japanese characters (Hiragana, Katakana and Kanji, see below.) as the searchers type. This could change your target keywords since many searchers tend to pick a word/phrase from a list to get the search results rather than to complete typing their original search query. (Note: When typing Japanese characters, many of us type the words in Roma-ji format using Roman letter alphabet, then select the desired format (Hiragana, Katakana, Kanji, or in many cases mix of 2 or more styles) from a list of words that have the desired character combination. I know, it’s time consuming to say the least.)

New Yahoo Japan Keyword Assist

The keyword assist function was added to Yahoo search box to help searchers narrow the search results by providing a list of popular search queries including the word/phrase typed in the search box. (See below.) Continue Reading »

Yahoo Japan announced today that Overture Japan will operate under Yahoo Japan brand starting October 1, 2009. Overture is currently a subsidiary of Yahoo Japan, providing the PPC services for PC and mobile for Japanese search market.

This may be a way to strengthen Yahoo’s online advertising services, which currently provides display ads, text ads, e-mail ads and affiliate programs. By bringing in Overture’s PPC services into Yahoo advertising service plan, they will be able to provide the total online advertising services to its customers. Continue Reading »

Since the announcement of bing-Yahoo deal in US, Softbank president has made a comment that he welcomed the deal, and there was a high possibility for Yahoo Japan to incorporate bing search, too. While the detail is still need to be discussed between the two search giants, his public comment can be viewed as a “GO” sign for the deal in Japan. (Softbank is the biggest share holder of Yahoo Japan.)

Personally, I think bing and Yahoo Japan are even a better match than US counterparts, and here’s why:

Yahoo Japan would keep its popular brand that has been known as a face of search in Japan. This will prevent from losing search users for not being familiar with bing search. Many search users simply search using Yahoo tool bar, and it’ll probably take a while for many (average) search users to notice that it’s powered by bing. Continue Reading »