Adways launches new mobile content site

Adways (owners of the Smart-C mobile affiliate network) and M-Up, a mobile content creation company, have announced the launch of Artist Koushiki Mobile (http://a-mb.jp/mobile/). The new mobile site will target girls in their teens and early twenties. The site will feature content and diaries built around popular Japanese singers and artists. In addition, users will have access to artists promotional videos, decorative email and SNS features to allow fans to communicate with each other. Taking a page from the Moba Game Town play book, Artist Koushiki Mobile will also feature mobile games and allow users to create avatars. Like Pocket Affiliate, Adways understands the importance of maintaining a portfolio of mobile media sites. As the affiliate landscape becomes more crowded, networks will need to lock in access to high traffic channels as a means for distributing their client ads. By teaming with M-Up, Adways taps into an already established mobile content source and thus benefits from a lower barrier to entry in the highly competitive mobile market.

Adways Ties Up with Chobi Rich

Recently Adways (owners of Janet affiliate network and the mobile affiliate network Smart-C) announced a tie up with Chobi-Rich (http://www.chobirich.com). Chobi-Rich is one of Japan’s most popular online incentive media site, otherwise known here as “point site”. Users earn points by clicking on ads or accepting special offers from advertisers. These points can later be exchanged for prizes. As part of the tie up, Adways will invest in Chobi-Rich though I am not sure how much Adways plans to invest. I see this as a strategic partnership that could help Adways by allowing merchants registered on its affiliate network to gain premium access to the large base of Chobi-Rich registered users. As a super affiliate, Chobi-Rich earns most of its revenue from CPC/CPA ads that it distributes to its users both on their site and through their email newsletters. Most likely Chobi-Rich might benefit from preferred offers on the Adways network and bonuses usually reserved for special partners. Not long ago, TrafficGate (www.trafficgate.net) also teamed up with another popular point site called Pex Point Exchange (http://pex.jp) in an effort to leverage the Pex media reach. One result of the tie-up was that TrafficGate affiliates could now exchange their commissions for Pex Points which can be used on the Pex site for shopping. At the time I believe the exchange rate was 1 Yen = 10 Pex Points. This turned out to be good for affiliates who had less than the minimum commission (3000 YEN) required for withdrawal.

The Japanese Love Their Mobile Games!

What more can I say? The Japanese mobile market continues to surprise even an old dog like me. To think that 3G mobile phones and the resultant mobile commerce industry is only a few years old in Japan. A survey by Netasia (http://www.netasia.co.jp/) demonstrates that gaming is the keystone to building a successful marketing strategy for the mobile platform in Japan. 600 young people between the ages of 15 and 29 were sampled in the survey with the aim of breaking down user preferences and spending potential. Here’s what they found:

• 79.3% play games on their mobile phones
• 30.7% would pay to play mobiles games if the monthly charge were between 385 JPY and 505 JPY
• Women outnumber men in frequency of use of mobile games
• Roll playing games, puzzles, table games are the top three most popular game types

MobaGame Town, the top mobile site in Japan, has successfully found a way to leverage the Japanese predilection for mobile games into a lucrative business. Unlike other mobile game sites that require a monthly fee, MobaGame Town is free to use and even allows users to earn virtual currency with which they can use to buy virtual goods on the game site. Marketers targeting 15 to 29 year olds will need to include mobile advertising channel (especially on game related sites) into their ad mix.

Network Profile – Affili Plus & Pokesupe

AFFILI PLUS

http://www.affp.jp/
Partners: 25,000
Merchants: about 30
Service started on Oct 12, 2006.

AFFILI PLUS is a mobile affiliate network run by Cyber Plus KK. Cyber Plus also runs Pokesupe, which is the Japanese way of saying Pocket space, (http://pksp.jp/). Pokesupe allows users to create their own free mobile web page. Pages can be created entirely on a mobile phone without the need to use a PC. Needless to say, this has attracted many young people and teenagers who make up the bulk of their users. Those who register with Pokesupe can opt in to display ads from the Affili Plus network. Registeration for the Affili Plus network can be done from within the Pokesupe admin panel. Pokesupe users need to accumulate points from the affiliate program and exchange them for cash later on. Pokesupe claims to have over 760,000 user accounts. That would make AFFILI PLUS potentially one of the largest mobile affiliate networks in Japan.