* * * * * * * * * T E R R I E 'S T A K E * * * * * * *<br>A weekly roundup of news & information from Terrie Lloyd.<br>(<a href="http://www.terrie.com">http://www.terrie.com</a>)<br><br>General Edition Sunday, January 22, 2012, Issue No. 646<br>
<br>+++ INDEX<br><br>- What's New -- The Trouble with Kuchikomi<br>- News -- 17m smart meters sought by TEPCO<br>- Candidate Roundup/Vacancies<br>- Upcoming Events<br>- Corrections/Feedback -- Comments on Vietnam<br>- News Credits<br>
<br>SUBSCRIBE to, UNSUBSCRIBE from Terrie's Take at:<br><a href="http://mailman.japaninc.com/mailman/listinfo/terrie">http://mailman.japaninc.com/mailman/listinfo/terrie</a><br><br>BACK ISSUES<br><a href="http://www.japaninc.com/terries_take">http://www.japaninc.com/terries_take</a>, or,<br>
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e-mail us at <a href="mailto:info@pbxl.jp">info@pbxl.jp</a> or call us at 03-4550-2557<br><br>----------- PBXL is BUSINESS COMMUNICATIONS --------------<br><br>+++ WHAT'S NEW<br><br>This week the shares of Kakaku.com, the owner of a dining <br>
recommendation megasite called Tabelog, saw its shares sink<br>to JPY2,417, off about 30% from the stock's recent high of <br>JPY3,400 four months ago. The reason for the plummeting <br>price was the revelation in the press late last year that <br>
Tabelog rankings, until now supposedly free of influence <br>other than from the direct users of the site, had in fact <br>been manipulated by online advertising companies. <br><br>For around JPY10,000 to JPY30,000 the advertising companies<br>
"tuned" their clients rankings by posting favorable <br>comments under fake user names. Although Tabelog has <br>rate-the-rankers functionality which is supposed to balance<br>out any attempt to manipulate the system by weighting user <br>
recommendations against the reputations of those users, the<br>ad services firms obviously found a work-around.<br><br>Crowd-sourced recommendations (web "kuchikomi") is a big <br>business. Here in Japan Tabelog pulls in about a million <br>
people a day, and as a result will have ad sales for this <br>fiscal year (ending March 2012) of about JPY2.5bn, up 58% <br>over last year. The most successful recommendation engine <br>globally is probably Amazon.com, which has about 65m <br>
customers a month, about 10-20 times the traffic that <br>Tabelog does, although interestingly, just double the <br>number of page views per user (according to Alexa.com). <br>Another mega-engine which also relies on user <br>
recommendations is Facebook. However, we have left them out<br>of this discussion because their messaging is supposed to <br>be about people you do know, not people you don't and thus <br>would need recommendations for.<br>
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<br>---------- YOUR BOTTOM LINE IS OUR TOP PRIORITY------------<br><br>[...Article continues]<br><br>The big attraction of running a recommendation engine like <br>Tabelog is that it doesn't require major employee or <br>
production costs -- although obviously there is a heavy<br>commitment to software. Instead, your users create the <br>content -- which can work so long as you are first on the <br>scene, you are big enough, and you are able to control <br>
miscreants trying to game the system. Crowd-sourcing as a <br>content generator is the polar opposite editorial-driven <br>websites, such as those created by Recruit in the past, but<br>which are now far too expensive to compete with. Indeed, to<br>
produce the tens of thousands of pages of commentary that <br>Tabelog has, Recruit would have had to spend some millions <br>of dollars, and indeed used to do so. As a result, Tabelog <br>has killed Recruit in this online sector.<br>
<br>Prior to Tabelog confirming that a recommendations-only <br>model could work, the leader in the online dining content <br>business was Gurunavi, which also understood that you <br>couldn't produce the content with in-house editors and <br>
journalists. Instead, they had the restaurants themselves <br>produce the content. The problem was that the restaurants <br>would of course rate themselves as highly as possible, <br>which is why Tabelog became popular -- it was perceived as <br>
the Peoples' source of information -- online democracy in <br>action. <br><br>But this casting of Tabelog as a reliable barometer of the <br>opinions of the many (versus the few) is why Kakaku.com's <br>stock price has taken such a hit. The bond of trust has<br>
been broken.<br><br>Actually, we find it strange that the fact that Tabelog's <br>rankings can be manipulated is shocking to the Japanese <br>public, because crowd-sourcing of any kind is all about <br>high volume contributions which can only be checked <br>
through software and user voting ("likes", etc.). These<br>automated controls really only work if there is a high <br>volume of content and users to act as a base line and to<br>flag against. However, the reality is that there are at least<br>
100,000 restaurants in Japan and only the most popular of <br>them would have more than a couple of dozen <br>recommendations. So most of them are the focus of a low<br>volume user interactions, despite being on a <br>high-volume site.<br>
<br>It is this fact that the advertising services firms have <br>taken advantage of. It's a simple matter for them to set up<br>a "community" of fake users within Tabelog -- about 100-200<br>IDs would be enough, and have these fake IDs each build up <br>
a posting history, with other fake IDs in the community <br>confirming their credibility and popularity. Tabelog's <br>software wouldn't notice this activity, and the client <br>restaurants would quickly see their rankings climb, for a <br>
smallish investment of JPY500,000 or so. <br><br>Moreover, with their current model, the most Tabelog can do<br>is to threaten the fakers with being banned from the site, <br>causing them to simply sign up with another user account. <br>
OK, Tabelog could ban the restaurants hiring the fakers, <br>but then competitors could attack each other by hiring an <br>advertising company to promote a competing establishment <br>until it was flagged and banned by Tabelog.<br>
<br>So what can the recommendation engine operators do to <br>improve their content integrity?<br><br>In fact, in our own Metropolis group, we have been asking <br>ourselves the very same question. As many readers will <br>
know, we recently started a travel website called <br><a href="http://www.japantourist.jp">www.japantourist.jp</a>. During the design phase, we wanted to <br>avoid manipulation of the system and to give our users a <br>more authoritative and trusted source of information -- <br>
editorial -- just like the old days when the publisher's <br>reputation was on the line and you could trust them. But <br>how to produce trustworthy editorial without the costs?<br><br>Our answer has been to create a crowed sourced content <br>
system that has users produce content that aims to be of<br>editorial quality, then to check and approve those <br>submissions that meet a basic benchmark. Yes, the result<br>is not as polished nor uniform as regular editorial, but it<br>
is light years ahead of straight user recommendations. Our<br>internal standard is 350 words, specific topic and <br>content coverage, and 3 or more photos of the location. To <br>make it all worthwhile for a user to undertake this extra<br>
work, we provide incentives in the form of products and<br>services such as airline tickets, hotel rooms, and brand <br>name clothing and accessories. In this way, users are <br>highly motivated to make the grade. The results have been <br>
extremely encouraging so far, with almost 200 contributors<br>signed up and 150+ articles a month (after just 3 months) <br>being posted.<br><br>Our guess is that Tabelog will come to the same conclusions<br>as us:<br>1. Contributors will have to pass a screening of some sort,<br>
and because of the inconvenience of this, will have to be <br>incentivized. The incentives will have to be good enough to<br>be, well, incentivizing.<br>2. A level of content checking is needed that goes beyond <br>simple crowd-based checks and balances. It's Tabelog's <br>
reputation on the line, and only a group of editors and <br>fact checkers will ensure that it can retain its reputation<br>as a trusted supplier of information.<br><br>*************<br><br>For readers who might be interested in contributing to<br>
<a href="http://www.japantourist.jp">www.japantourist.jp</a>, the site is open to anyone who can <br>write (we will tell you if it's good enough). The scope is <br>pretty wide and indeed, we are shortly starting a teens and <br>
kids section, where they can write about their favorite places <br>in Japan. <br><br><br>...The information janitors/<br><br>***------------------------****-------------------------***<br><br>----------------------Delta Air Lines----------------------<br>
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Skymark, or ‘Pay with Miles’ program.<br><br>Please visit <a href="http://delta.com">delta.com</a> for more details.<br>-----------------------------------------------------------<br><br>+++ NEWS<br><br>- 17m smart meters sought by TEPCO<br>
- Class action pending against Olympus<br>- JAXA gets a virus<br>- Houses exempt from increased consumption tax?<br>- Japan wind capacity up 11.7 pct before new subsidy<br><br><br><br>-> 17m smart meters sought by TEPCO<br>
<br>As part of its restructuring program hashed out with the <br>government, TEPCO has decided to finally embark on a <br>modernization program in terms of its metering <br>infrastructure. The company will by FY2018 install around <br>
17m smart power meters into consumer connections, so as to <br>reduce manpower costs and increase its (and the consumer's)<br>ability to understand what power is being consumed. ***Ed: <br>This move could have been made 10 years ago -- that's how <br>
long this technology has been available. But we suspect it<br>was in TEPCO's best interest to keep power charges somewhat<br>obfuscated. Still, better late than never. Also <br>interesting to see that they are opening the bidding up to <br>
foreign companies as well.** (Source: TT commentary from <br><a href="http://e.nikkei.com">e.nikkei.com</a>, Jan 22, 2012)<br><br><a href="http://e.nikkei.com/e/ac/tnks/Nni20120121D21JFF05.htm">http://e.nikkei.com/e/ac/tnks/Nni20120121D21JFF05.htm</a><br>
<br>-> Class action pending against Olympus<br><br>Olympus is in for a bit of a rude shock as the same legal <br>team that successfully pursued shareholder losses from <br>Livedoor some four years ago, is now re-banding in order to<br>
sue Olympus. The legal team will start a web site and <br>solicit Olympus shareholders who lost money during the <br>dramatic plunge in the firm's share price last year, amidst <br>revelations of a massive accounting scandal and possible <br>
de-listing. ***Ed: Of course, the hedge funds that jumped <br>in at JPY500 have made a phenomenal amount of money, so <br>those shareholders who did abandon ship must really be <br>kicking themselves. Fertile grounds from which to recruit <br>
and conduct a class action law suit.** (Source: TT <br>commentary from <a href="http://e.nikkei.com">e.nikkei.com</a>, Jan 21, 2012)<br><br><a href="http://e.nikkei.com/e/ac/tnks/Nni20120121D2001A29.htm">http://e.nikkei.com/e/ac/tnks/Nni20120121D2001A29.htm</a><br>
<br>-> JAXA gets a virus<br><br>Probably not good to have a hacker messing with your space <br>rocket data, but that's the possible problem that JAXA has,<br>after it was discovered that a PC used for JAXA's H-2 <br>
unmanned Transfer Vehicle was infected. The space craft <br>carries cargo to the International Space Station. <br>Apparently the software picked up sensitive information <br>about the space craft and how it operates. ***Ed: Maybe it <br>
sends dating emails to the astronauts as well? All a bit <br>embarrassing for JAXA.** (Source: TT commentary from <br>GMAnetwork.com, Jan 22, 2012)<br><br><a href="http://bit.ly/zV1OLv">http://bit.ly/zV1OLv</a> <br><br>-> Houses exempt from increased consumption tax?<br>
<br>Interesting to see that the DPJ is already saying that it <br>may exempt house purchases from any raised consumption tax,<br>in order not to damage the housing market. Interesting, <br>because this means that until now consumption tax has been <br>
a sacred cow and nothing was exempt. Once this concept is <br>broken, it won't take long in our opinion for other items<br>to become exempt. In particular, we think certain types of <br>food will be exempt -- particularly rice. This would be an <br>
ideal way to compensate the farming community for any <br>short-term damage caused by TPP, and would not be a tariff <br>related to imports. (Source: TT commentary from <br><a href="http://bloomberg.com">bloomberg.com</a>, Jan 21, 2012)<br>
<br><a href="http://bloom.bg/ySHXuU">http://bloom.bg/ySHXuU</a> <br><br>-> Japan wind capacity up 11.7 pct before new subsidy<br><br>With almost all of its nuclear power plants off-line and <br>most to stay that way, Japan really needs to hustle to get <br>
its renewable energy resources off the ground. One of the <br>most under-utilized resources is wind energy and in the <br>year ending March 2011 the nation apparently had its <br>slowest increase in generation capability in over ten <br>
years. The reason for this has apparently been a <br>combination of new building regulations implemented in <br>2007/2008, as well as the slowing after the Lehman Shock. <br>***Ed: It's expected that a new feed-in tariff subsidy for <br>
renewable energy sources will significantly boost <br>generation capability from this year onwards -- our guess <br>is that the build-out will go up by a factor or 10 over the<br>next 3 years, providing land usage regulations are eased.**<br>
(Source: TT commentary from <a href="http://reuters.com">reuters.com</a>, Jan 20, 2012)<br><br><a href="http://reut.rs/yNQ2fG">http://reut.rs/yNQ2fG</a><br><br><br>NOTE: Broken links<br>Many online news sources remove their articles after just a<br>
few days of posting them, thus breaking our links -- we<br>apologize for the inconvenience.<br><br>***------------------------****-------------------------***<br><br>----------- Changing Japan's Corporate Governance ---------<br>
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--------------------------------------------------------------<br><br>+++ CANDIDATE ROUND UP/VACANCIES<br><br>=> BiOS, a Division of the LINC Media group, is actively<br>marketing the following positions for customers setting up<br>
or expanding in Japan, as well as other employers of<br>bilinguals.<br><br>** HIGHLIGHTED POSITION<br><br>BiOS is urgently looking for a Technical Support Engineer <br>with experience providing helpdesk and desktop support <br>
within a predominantly Japanese language environment at our<br>client’s office in the Minato-ku area. The candidate will <br>be responsible for resolving calls from end users and <br>escalating to the next support level whene appropriate. <br>
They will also be required to provide desk side assistance,<br>inventory management (PCs, printers, mobile phones, data <br>cards, etc.) and AD/Exchange account management.<br><br>Due to the technical nature and demanding work environment,<br>
this position is suitable for someone with solid experience<br>as a helpdesk/desktop support engineer or equivalent, with <br>experience for more than two years. In addition, since this<br>role requires direct coordination both in English and <br>
Japanese, daily-conversational level English and <br>native-level Japanese will be required.<br><br>Remuneration is JPY4.5m – JPY5.5m depending on your <br>experience and skill level.<br><br>** POSITIONS VACANT<br><br>- Sales Team Account Manager, BiOS, JPY4M – JPY5M<br>
- Field Support Engr., global telco, JPY6M – JPY8M<br>- Global Network Operator, Japanese IT co, JPY3M – JPY3.5M<br>- Network Engineer (Osaka), global IT co, JPY4M – JPY5M<br>- Proj. Mgr, global LCD/ceramics maker, JPY8M – JPY11M<br>
<br>Interested individuals may e-mail resumes to:<br><a href="mailto:tomohiro.kimura@biosjp.com">tomohiro.kimura@biosjp.com</a><br><br>** BiOS Job Mail<br><br>Every 2 weeks BiOS sends out a regular communication to its<br>
job seeking candidates, called BiOS Job Mail. Every edition<br>carries a list of BiOS's current and most up-to-date<br>vacancies, with each entry featuring a short job<br>description and a direct link to the main entry on the BiOS<br>
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convenient way for you to stay informed. If you would like<br>to register for the BiOS Job Mail, or to find out more,<br>please email <a href="mailto:kenji.sakota@biosjp.com">kenji.sakota@biosjp.com</a>.<br><br>Interested individuals may e-mail resumes to:<br>
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Web: <a href="http://www.biosjp.com">www.biosjp.com</a><br>-----------------------------------------------------------<br><br>***------------------------****-------------------------***<br><br>+++ UPCOMING EVENTS/ANNOUNCEMENTS<br>
<br>---------------- Start a Company in Japan -----------------<br><br>Entrepreneur's Handbook Seminar February 18, 2012<br><br>If you have been considering setting up your own company,<br>find out what it takes to make it successful. Terrie Lloyd,<br>
founder of over 17 start-up companies in Japan, will be<br>giving an English-language seminar and Q and A on starting<br>up a company in Japan.<br><br>This is an ideal opportunity to find out what is involved,<br>and to ask specific questions that are not normally<br>
answered in business books. All materials are in English<br>and are Japan-focused.<br><br>For more details:<br><a href="http://www.japaninc.com/entrepreneur_handbook_seminar">http://www.japaninc.com/entrepreneur_handbook_seminar</a><br>
-----------------------------------------------------------<br><br>***------------------------****-------------------------***<br><br>+++ CORRECTIONS/FEEDBACK<br><br>In this section we run comments and corrections submitted<br>
by readers. We encourage you to spot our mistakes and<br>amplify our points, by email, to <a href="mailto:editors@terrie.com">editors@terrie.com</a>.<br><br>*** In TT645 we covered some reasons why Vietnam is the <br>country of choice to replace China for Japanese <br>
manufacturers. We had a surprising number of readers who <br>have personal experiences in that country -- or perhaps not<br>so surprising, given the closeness between Japan and <br>Vietnam -- and we reproduce a couple of those comments <br>
here.<br><br>=> Reader comments: <br><br>Reader 1:<br><br>I lived in Vietnam for a year when I was a student at <br>Waseda, my MA was on Vietnamese educational system in a <br>Communist/Capitalistic/Confucian paradigm. Ties to Japan <br>
go way back to Japan's days as pirates, when they would <br>steal from the Chinese and sell goods in north Vietnam, <br>very interesting history between the two countries. <br>Vietnamese also have a deep dislike of the Chinese, which <br>
I'm sure isn't lost on the Japanese... <br><br>Ask a Japanese person over 60 after they visit Vietnam, <br>they always say " Natsukashii". Love that place.<br><br>Reader 2: <br><br>The Vietnamese are more receptive to training than the <br>
Chinese. They will actually follow procedures once taught, <br>while Chinese workers tend to think that they know better <br>and will short-cut things if they can. Japanese managers <br>working in China are prone to messy brain explosions after <br>
about a year.<br><br>***********************************************************<br>END<br><br>SUBSCRIBERS: 8,300 members as of Jan 22, 2012<br>(We purge our list regularly.)<br><br>+++ ABOUT US<br><br>STAFF<br>Written by: Terrie Lloyd (<a href="mailto:terrie.lloyd@japaninc.com">terrie.lloyd@japaninc.com</a>)<br>
<br>HELP: E-mail <a href="mailto:Terrie-request@mailman.japaninc.com">Terrie-request@mailman.japaninc.com</a><br>with the word 'help' in the subject or body (don't include<br>the quotes), and you will get back a message with<br>
instructions.<br><br>FEEDBACK<br>Send letters (Feedback, Inquiries & Information) to the<br>editor to <a href="mailto:terrie.lloyd@japaninc.com">terrie.lloyd@japaninc.com</a>.<br><br>ADVERTISING INFORMATION<br>For more information on advertising in this newsletter,<br>
Contact <a href="mailto:ads@japaninc.com">ads@japaninc.com</a>.<br><br>SUBSCRIBE<br>Get Terrie's Take by giving your name and email address at<br><a href="http://www.japaninc.com/newsletters/free_sign_up">http://www.japaninc.com/newsletters/free_sign_up</a>, or go<br>
straight to Mailman at:<br><a href="http://mailman.japaninc.com/mailman/listinfo/terrie">http://mailman.japaninc.com/mailman/listinfo/terrie</a><br><br>BACK ISSUES<br><a href="http://www.japaninc.com/terries_take">http://www.japaninc.com/terries_take</a><br>
or, <a href="http://mailman.japaninc.com/pipermail/terrie/">http://mailman.japaninc.com/pipermail/terrie/</a><br><br>Copyright 2012 Japan Inc. Communications Inc.<br><br>----------------- Japan Inc opens up Japan ----------------<br>
<br>J@pan Inc is Japan's only independently published English-<br>language business website. Authoritatively chronicling<br>online the business trends in Japan, each posting brings<br>you in-depth analysis of business, people and technology in<br>
the world's second largest economy.<br><br>Visit <a href="http://www.japaninc.com">www.japaninc.com</a> for the best business insight on<br>Japan available.<br>-----------------------------------------------------------<br>
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