09.16.03
Yomiuri Starts Its Worldwide Electronic Edition

Via Pressnet: The Yomiuri Shimbun started distributing electronic versions of Japanese daily papers in major cities around the world this month. The electronic edition of Yomiuri contains 28 pages printed in black and white in A3-size. It is a mix of special pages from its satellite-transmitted edition for overseas subscribers and the main sections from the Yomiuri Shimbun daily edition. Circulation is estimated to reach a total of 2,000 hotels, bookstores and other sites in 55 countries. The price differs by geographic location. In the United States, for instance, the paper costs $2. A Yomiuri official in charge of the project commented: "We are receiving inquiries from business people planning to make overseas trips asking us where they can get the Yomiuri Shimbun." This electronic delivery is a cooperative venture between NewspaperDirect in Canada and its Japanese agent, Konica Business Machine, in Tokyo. The Yomiuri transmits PDF files of its newspaper pages to NewspaperDirect's servers on a daily basis, and the date will be transmitted to ND's "print stations" in major public transport facilities, hotels and bookstores worldwide.
 -- By Japan Media Review Associate Editor Keiko Mori
<Go to story>

09.11.03
Japanese Baseball Team Scores Home Run With Weblog

From Daily Yomiuri: The Hanshin Tigers professional baseball team, on a winning spree, has grabbed the attention of many fans due to a popular Weblog, featured in its official Web site. The number of monthly visitors to the site increased from 290,000 in April to 1.5 million in August. The site features a blog, Tora no Iji (Tiger's Pride), written by the team's batting coach, Yutaka Wada. The blog averaged 50,000 hits a day in August and boasts of more than 4.35 million hits since January. Wada believes that the blog is an effective way for fans to communicate with the team. Wada said, "I've been able to continue the blog because fans look forward to it. I hope it will be a link between the fans and the team."
 -- By Japan Media Review Associate Editor Keiko Mori
(Link expired)

09.02.03
UEFA Web Site Launched in Japanese

From Japan Corporate News Network: NTT Communications Corporation is launching a premium broadband Web site with soccer content from UEFA (Union des Associations Europeennes de Football) in Japanese. The site will offer services like pay-per-view soccer matches, soccer news updates and in-depth feature articles. UEFA's international site is the largest soccer portal in Europe with 4 million hits per day. In January 2003, NTT Com started the joint project with UEFA by launching and operating the Japanese version of the free-access portion of the Web site. NTT Com also plans to create a soccer site that provides Web-related support for mobile portals such as i-mode. In the future, the company will look for solutions that will assist leading content providers abroad with enhancing their marketing strategies in Japan and other Asian countries. This will enable the company to provide more sophisticated content tailored to users' needs.
 -- By Japan Media Review Associate Editor Keiko Mori
(Link expired)

Thanks to Nooper.com for the use of their photos.