As you know, we have had a couple of articles relating to Gree--the SNS based site--here in Japan which has been making significant headway in the market despite what is happening all around us economically speaking. I came across an excellant piece written by Terrie Lloyd covering Gree and the reasons for its success. Below is a short snippet of this article but for a full analysis please follow the
link. A great read for those following the online industry here in Japan.
"Several weeks ago we spoke about Internet Social NetworkService (SNS) company GREE as being a value leader forconsumers. We should have added that since their IPO inDecember, GREE has also become a significant profit leader,announcing mid-January that their parent-only net profitwill probably hit JPY3.5bn on sales of JPY11.2bn for thefinancial year ending June 30th. If their forecast iscorrect, then this will represent a profit increase of amassive 500% over the previous year -- a spectacular jump.
So spectacular, in fact, that GREE currently has a highermarket cap than the biggest social media player in Japan,Mixi. This is somewhat surprising because Mixi has far more"assets" at work, such as 15m users, versus GREE's 8m; bothPC and Mobile coverage, versus GREE being almost 99%Mobile; and a long-term proven profit/growth model.Nonetheless, on Friday GREE was worth JPY126bn in marketcapitalization while Mixi was worth about half that, atJPY73.6bn."
Koakuma Henshin (or “little devil metamorphosis” in English) is the site that takes your ordinary portrait and sexes it up and makes you look like ichi oku yen. Koakuma Henshin is marketed as harmless fun for those woman who are curious about what they might look like wearing a low cut skirt and wavey hair..... 
