"SmartNews (smart news)" headquarters feel like this In a reporter & interview we dig roots and asked a variety of digging leaves

Apple's "App Store Best of 2013 Best of the year"Or"Google Play Best of 2013News curation application which is selected as "App of the Year" of "SmartNews (smart news)What people are behind the scenes, what kind of places they work in, what purpose they have in the first place to provide SmartNews in the first place to unravel the mystery to unlock the office, I was concerned I have heard everything about it.

SmartNews (smart news) | Smartphone apps that can read news comfortably
https://www.smartnews.be/


SmartNews' headquarters is located a short walk from the station in Shibuya to the south.


When I was looking for the entrance of the office in the building, I found a beautiful space of design that was abruptly touched. If you look closely well it is like the entrance to the smart news headquarters.


This is where SmartNews is being developed


Here is a zone where employees headed to the PC and desks queued for keeping beating and keyboard sticking all the way. It is a space that about 30 people can work side by side.


In the back is a reference book for employee study.


The opposite side of the desk is entirely glazed and impression quite open.


This is a space to be used when talking to a conference or an outside person. As you can see from the fact that a PC and a cup are placed, some employees started working in this space away from the desk.


I also found a mysterious space where hammocks and balance balls roll.


This space is strictly prohibited and it is a place used for a little relaxation. Mr. Ken Suzuki who is chairman of the representative board at Smart News Co., Ltd. is shaken by the hammock. Later in the interview will also appear.


Part of the wall inside the office will be a whiteboard just paint "IdeaPaint (Idea Paint)"It is painted, it is actually used as a white board, and it seems that some elements of Smart News constituting SmartNews are beaten and written down everywhere.


Some are official characters of SmartNewsEarth KunAlso graffiti.


And somehow there is a bar counter in the center of the office.


Looking at the back side of the counter, water supply server, tea pack, filter for coffee etc are gissiri.


The office is extraordinarily spacious as it pierces the ceiling.


A family-friendly desk that some employees invented. It seems that it was created by saying "box seats like family shops can concentrate most".


The furniture put in the office is very distinctive, it seems that the designer Rie Rihara coordinated it as I asked.


That's why I talked to three people, Mr. Ken Suzuki (center), Chairman of SmartNews Co., Ltd., Mr. Atsuo Fujimura (left) and Ms. Kenji Tomita (right), in charge of business development.


GIGAZINE (hereinafter, G):
First of all, since all readers of GIGAZINE do not always know about SmartNews, I'd like to hear about the twists and turns leading up to the completion of SmartNews. How did SmartNews develop in the first place?

Mr. Ken Suzuki (hereinafter bell):
Hamamoto, the co-founder of the company and I met the first time about 5 years ago, and then I was talking about something like "I'd like to do something a little more interesting together." HamamotoCrawlerHobby is making hobbies and making various crawlers on their own. So, it is the beginning that I started making crawlers on Twitter a day and I started advancing along and advancing together.


bell:
Originally heBlogopolisSince I was doing a service to gather a large amount of blog data called "blogopolis" and visualize it, I was very good at analyzing and visualizing a large amount of information data. And just as Twitter was growing at such a great momentum, it turned out that analyzing this was interesting. I myself also had something like a social newsreader like SmartNews actually made about 10 years ago, just as Facebook came out, so "It's not fun to make that kind of thing" That was the first thing I madeCrowsnest(Crows Nest) is a social news reader. It was not SmartNews.

Crowsnest is a social news reader that makes it possible to gather information efficiently by aggregating links flowing to social media.


bell:
This is a service that crawls Twitter data, fetches the tweeted URL in my timeline, and tells the one that fits the first user among them. For example, it raises excitement in Twitter as a whole while raising excitement in your Twitter follower. Although I tried hard for about six months after starting this service, only tens of thousands of users gathered and "It is bad if this is a bit like that"South by SouthwestI went to Crowsnest 's application, but this one was also honorably brilliant. In the airplane on the way back, "Let's just pivot as it is," and SmartNews was born there.


bell:
From that point I made SmartNews in 9 months and released the application in December 2012.

G:
In the story, "Crowsnest got tens of thousands of people in the first six months" but it was said that was really the target to gather?

bell:
I guess I wanted about 10 times that.

G:
About hundreds of thousands of users?

bell:
I agree. However, once I thought about it well then I knew it could not be that much. I was serious when I was doing, so I had targeted that much. However, when SmartNews' application was released, tens of thousands of people came in at a stroke in a day and I thought that it was "so different".

G:
That is a big difference.

bell:
First of all, I decided to create a news reader application because I thought that nobody was reading news on smartphones. I am playing the game when I see the next door on a subway or something. Even if you look at the right or see the left, after all playing the game, when you look at your own smartphone you also play the game.

Atsuo Fujimura (hereafter Fuji):
What is that (laugh)


bell:
I like quite a gameCrash of ClanI am doing, but why everyone is always playing games on this train so much, why this is not it. I was wondering if I could make an application that would allow me to properly read news even in places where radio waves like the subway could not reach, but when I think about it well, it does not mean that everyone reads the news on the subway and can not read it When.

Wisteria:
There was no environment to read.

bell:
I realized that I was not able to read even though I wanted to read the line because it was late or out of the service area. "I thought that it would be worthwhile to make a news application that would be readable even outside the coverage area. This is also the starting point for SmartNews ideas. And it is not only that it can be read not only outside the area, but it is still the best for smartphonesUIYaUXIn order to make the best possible, we introduced design engineers to acquaintances. This person is a famous person in the world of design engineers, AmericanSun MicrosystemsIn that place,Project Looking GlassI was the one who leaded the top project. While making this person make a mockup, I made a layout that is unique to the present, so that I will make a layout that makes it fun to watch characters and illustrations.


G:
I guess it has not changed so much from the mockup of those days.

bell:
I made trial and error considerably, I prepared a horizontal row layout as in ordinary news apps besides the current layout, prepared a variety of patterns such as two-tier layout and actually I also did a user test. Then the ordinary layout was unexpectedly popular and it was like "that!", But ....

Wisteria:
The horizontal row layout was the most popular.

G:
It's like Twitter layout.

bell:
Although this ordinary layout is popular in the questionnaire in the questionnaire, though, it means that "It is awfully courageous to ignore the data and proceed" and I will dare to make it the current layout. After that, SmartNews says that the articles themselves are listed so that only articles that are interesting are displayed anyway. In order to make only interesting things come out, it is possible to realize which articles are valuable to the user by listening to the user's voice through social media, realizing an algorithm that only shows truly interesting articles It is. So, basically articles like those appearing above SmartNews are all structured as articles that all think that everyone is interesting.


G:
Although it is a question of that, SmartNews says that article distribution by algorithm is fully automatic. It is said that we do not have any manuals, so we are collecting about 10 million articles a day and we have received about 1000 articles a day by score calculation and categorization. This article sorting uses "technology to analyze tweets that Crowsnest possesses in real time"Past interviewsSo, are you still talking about SmartNews analyzing Twitter only to analyze articles, or are you analyzing something else something else?


bell:
Currently I am trying to see the data inside. I am also referring to which articles are read and how much I am trying to see social media data other than Twitter.

G:
Although trying now is not implemented yet, it seems to be about "it may be implemented in the future".

bell:
It is partly introduced in experiments, is not it?

G:
I see, i see. How much article is being viewed or that we refer to the data around it to some extent is it that the order of articles changes in real time as you watch it?

bell:
Well, I am planning to make it more comfortable for articles with more value.

G:
Actually using SmartNews I felt that "there are things in various ways" for quite a while but, one day suddenly "Yomiuri Sochi Olympic Channel" appeared.


bell:
Yes it is.

G:
The channel opened for a limited time from February 7,Total PV exceeded 14 millionWhen I saw that, "I want to do something like GIGAZINE, I wonder if there is such a thing ~" though. How did it come to tell you how to make and display a special channel called Oh? Did you talk about Yomiuri or was SmartNews' suggestion of "How about this?"

bell:
Actually, today the world cup special feature started in the same way as it is today (laugh)


Wisteria:
It seems to be the featured channel of the World Cup this time, but the base of the Sochi Olympics is a channel that the user called "standard channel" comes out in a form that can not be displayed / hidden, so we advanced very carefully . It will be unnecessary if it is not interesting to many users. So I do not intend to open such a channel frequently, but in the case of Yomiuri, Yomiuri himself is the official sponsorship media in Japan for the Olympic Games, positively putting out Olympic content to the world in many ways Since I had the need to go, I feel like I'm going to be able to do this "while talking. In the case of Yomiuri, it was an official sponsor, so I think that it was a plan that I would like to try as a topic.

G:
In other words, rather than calling out from SmartNews, it seems that it was a story about whether to do such a thing while talking with them.

Wisteria:
Yes. Because I often meet with big publishers and press organizations quite often, but I do not decide much goal even when talking, for example, "Let's do something with SmartNews" There are many cases to argue about. But, as I said "I must raise the Sochi Olympics", it was a matter of being able to see both the goal and the starting point, so I decided at a stroke "Let's do something together with Yomiuri at SmartNews" together.


G:
I see, i see. Although the talk changes a bit, it is a very technical question, but according to the SmartNews blog on April 16, 2014, "About the phenomenon of moving to the App Store arbitrarily while reading SmartNews" So, I have no tap on the official blog about the problem that I do not tap advertisements but I will move to the App Store without permission, but what was the cause after all?

bell:
I am thinking that I'd like to announce again if I have a proper investigation when I am taking some measures.

G:
Well, I do not forget to update my blog.

Wisteria:
Oh well but basically I have been grasping the sense of direction, so many so-called ad networks have already spread, and there are various affiliators, and it seems that something that we were not aware of was happening It is that.

bell:
It is a stage where people from the ad network industry are now receiving technical support like 'Is this the cause?' Since the ad network is not what we can completely control. SmartNews's "web mode" is totally a browser's story, like the Safari on iOS, for example, so there is a place we can not handle what happened in it. So, what kind of phenomenon is happening is being analyzed and taking countermeasures while cooperating with stakeholders in Ad Network in Japan.


Kenji Tomita (hereinafter referred to as Tomi):
So, as a matter of fact, it is a phenomenon that can happen when you see it with a smartphone application rather than what is happening only with our app.


G:
Although the story changes galantly, I was worried about seeing the site of SmartNews, but since November 2013 I think that the page called "Smart Leader of Attention" has started What is it?

Featured smart reader | SmartNews
http://leader.smartnews.co.jp/


Wisteria:
Ha ha ha ha (haha)

G:
It has been updated regularly for some time, just a while agoupdateAlthough it was done.

bell:
What is that?

Wisteria:
Sorry for the inconvenience.

G:
If it is the latest oneTetsuya BesshoIt was an interview with Mr. san. I was watching this and thinking "What the hell is this?", Fujimura-san is doing that, do not you think?

Wisteria:
That's right.

bell:
Is not it Mr. Fujimura's hobby?

All together
(Lol)

G:
What kind of project is that?

Wisteria:
Basically I am updating and I do not have any person in charge. I am doing publicity, but in the case of a regular company, I have two kinds of publicity to spread so-called product recognition and a publicity to have the company image and social presence recognized I think that I have to do it, but we have only one product so we have to do the latter of this firmly. So, we have appeared to people who are doing a very unique job in various fields in order to have people know what kind they want to be present in a multifaceted manner.

G:
Tetsuya Besso, actor's alternative, IT journalistShinba Hayashi, Was former Google Japan presidentKenro MurakamiAnd I do not really understand what they have in common, but what kind of common terms are there?

Wisteria:
The common point is, it is only "I love SmartNews" Well (laugh) Well, even if I only let those people talk about SmartNews, it seems like an inner ring talk, so I'm going to be a leader on various occasions in the future era It is such a place that we are talking to people who can become a company and putting our company company public relations position.

bell:
Mr. Fujimura is a person who was originally edited, so I love the content, but of usAggregatorSo I do not make any content at all. Originally I also wrote books and articles, and co-founder Hamamoto was also writing articles often, so everyone is the one who produces the content. So, now that I'm only aggregating, stress gradually comes up. That's why Mr. Fujimura interviewed me with a lot of fun in saying I should post articles as well.

Wisteria:
No, heh (laugh)

bell:
I think that it is good to do such things by themselves. However, I was doing it with a very fair algorithm saying that it does not always appear on SmartNews because it actually entered a smart leader.

Wisteria:
That's right, because I have not been able to introduce it.

G:
Because I do not appear in SmartNews, I wonder what it will do for extra ... .... That's what it is, I see.

bell:
Yes, it does not seem to discriminate against our own media.


G:
Since Mr. Fujimura's tangled story came out, I would like to ask Mr. Fujimura individual questions, but each time I see the interview I received in various media so far, "Why did not anyone question this Wonderfully, I was originally active as Editor in chief of ASCII Co., Ltd., then I went to Lotus Co., Ltd. in the 98's after being a chief editor in monthly magazine specializing in network technology Then I became marketing headquarters manager and then marketing it, then I made Atmark · Ity Co., Ltd., and it got stuck to ITMedia Inc., it became a chairman unawares, and when I noticed, I got to SmartNews It is becoming a feeling that it is coming ... ....

Wisteria:
I'm checking it carefully.


G:
Perhaps it may have been answered somewhere, but ITmedia still understands in a flowing manner, but I have not written anything at all about why I came to SmartNews from ITmedia So, how did you get involved with it?

Wisteria:
Basically I have been doing paper media so far, when considering 100% Web media, paper has a wasteful element of some kind of resources, including paper usable usability etc In the new media field, I have believed that this will become a media structure of the 21st century and have been doing for ten years. However, at the timing when I thought about going to go out with a company, I hit the Lehman shock, at that time the advertisement income of existing media such as newspapers and magazines was inclined, but they planned to take off from there Even though it was, they also came with Garne. When I thought about what kind of media in the 21st century would be the kind of wind that seemed like "I was doing media with a mechanism that does not change at all" I thought it was like reworking again. " At that time, there are several perspectives, mobile is also a big trend, and various perspectives such as approach to freedom or freedom content to the user have become frustrated in the head, and in a nutshell, "once again I thought that something was created by myself. " And when I was aiming a little bit towards a venture-like place and thought of a place like "I could go there if I could do it", with Ms. Suzuki ...

bell:
Yes, please go drink.


Wisteria:
Well here is like a coincidence. He is eager to talk about what he wants to do with SmartNews at this time.

G:
At that time it was around SmartNews already?

Wisteria:
I agree.

bell:
Um, it's probably about a month and a half or two months after I released SmartNews.

Wisteria:
The year has passed.

bell:
Yes. About January or February, my friend introduced me and took me to a wonderfully good drinking shop in the basement of Shibuya, first talkedTakaaki YoshimotoI was talking about.

G:
Hahaha (haha)

bell:
So talking about 30 minutes, I always talked about Mr. Takaaki Yoshimoto and thinking "Who is this wonderful person?"

Wisteria:
What do you mean (lol)

bell:
Actually I did not talk about SmartNews at all.

Wisteria:
Well after that, listening to the story of SmartNews etc, it seems that it is a part that overlaps with the image when I found a venture again for myself in the wind "If I do it ..." or if SmartNews can do it There is a factor that seems to be, if it is, it will be for my study as well, so I said that "I will do it together" at that moment.

bell:
Please answer immediately.

Wisteria:
30 minutes drinking, so yes.

G:
It's amazing momentum (laugh)

Wisteria:
Well from there there were various adjustment periods, but the judgment was about January or February.

bell:
From the first glance that it is intuition, "This person is not just a person."

Wisteria:
I'm not just a person (lol)

bell:
Actually he was not just a guy.

G:
Indeed, it was such a circumstance ... No matter which interview I've read so far, I did not know where Mr. Fujimura got out from.

Wisteria:
Well ITmedia is a solid company, so even if you do not have it, it turns at all. Rather it was timing that I had to think about including my next meal.

Three people who responded to the interview were all Mac users and stuck a SmartNews sticker on the top board part.


G:
It's was so. Another thing at Mr. Fujimura's background. When I look at the SmartNews interview article, Mr. Fujimura always responds, so it seems that every time a career comes up. Whenever I saw that every time I saw that, the first thing I thought was ASCII, then I moved to Lotus, made Atmark · ITi, absorbed by ITmedia, now it is SmartNews, I think that Lotus only floats in the system.

Wisteria:
That is, there is one thing in my work related to software products. Actually, there was a considerable career before ASCII, but there was still a job related to software related ventures, and then I joined ASCII and actually joined ASCII 's software business. I was doing product marketing with a database or such a lineage product, but I thought that if ASCII itself collapsed software so that the place would be lost, I wondered what to do, because there is a publishing department inside the company " I came to the direction "and I shifted to publication with a story like it.

bell:
Oh, that's right ....

Wisteria:
So while I was doing ASCII for a while, a person named Hirano of Infoteria founded and passed through Lotus, so Lotus had an inquiry saying "I am looking for people because there is no after-boat", I will go there talking It was decided. Do you say that you are going back and forth between media and software business in yourself, there are two axes in yourself?

G:
I see……. I saw some software-like things when I saw Lotus, so I thought that something is connected SmartNews somewhere, but when I listen to the current story I say "Ah, I see!" I feel that.

Wisteria:
Well that time,Lotus Notes / DominoAs I got the responsible person for product marketing, I was involved in the work to organize among people of engineers and people of marketing business and consumers, so that my respect for engineers grew for me there There is a good experience in myself as opposed to it, it is hard to understand if you do it from others.

G:
No, I personally became very inconspicuous as I go through such a way of connecting.

Wisteria:
I have never heard of this before.

G:
Really. I thought that it might be a suspicious project that would not answer even if I asked something, but I did not have that kind of thing.

bell:
Mr. Fujimura's insight and respect for technology are tremendous, and he is tremendously treating the engineers. When I joined the company, I only came here saying "I do not need my salary, so raise engineer's salary".

G:
Oh, that is amazing.

Wisteria:
At that time, the company really was in a state of disappointing ...... Well still it is a bit lucrative (lol)

With SmartNews where you work anywhere, there are also staff who work in a sleeping style while being surrounded by balance balls and cushions.


G:
Next time I will return to Mr. Suzuki's story again, but Mr. Fujimura was originally a position of management. And Ms. Suzuki is currently a manager, is there something strange about managers who think something to talk about so far and say "Oh, that's great?"

Wisteria:
There is no such thing (laugh)

bell:
That's right ... Well, there are many, but Hamamoto was originally an engineer and I am rather a researcher. IVCI also did something like company management, but I have never run a large company like Mr. Fujimura, there are times when I basically act on a toy without worrying about it basically. For example, we do not properly care when an important person such as a party arrives (laugh)

Wisteria:
That kind of story (lol)

bell:
Mr. Fujimura carefully all .... It started from that kind of thing.

Wisteria:
I'm sorry I got derailed, but I'm feeling something like a funny thing to behave like a manager, carrying such business things. Well that thinks that it is for each person, but I do not intend to enter the face of the manager here and because I think that it is underwork.

bell:
In the end people are making a company, are not you? There is movement of each person's mind, I think that it seems to be the most important thing in management, like Mr. Fujimura's change of each employee we do not notice I will be aware of something like it and will tell you, so I have something to think like "Oh, I see."

Wisteria:
Is such a badge hanging?

bell:
Yes Yes.

G:
Well, what is that "that badge is hanging".

Wisteria:
It looks like the pregnancy mark was hanging.

bell:
Pregnancy mark, that's right. It is not easy to notice that employees are pregnant or such.

G:
Oh, is that something like that?

bell:
Yes, only Mr. Fujimura notices. Basically this is the number of people ......

G:
How many people are you currently at?

bell:
I have 13 people. It is not necessary yet what kind of management like so-called big company is like.

Wisteria:
He says he will not do things like company preferences as much as possible.

bell:
I do not want to make something like that with hierarchy like that, so as not to be as good as possible. Conversely, it seems that we are currently designing it so that we do not need management. I think that it will gradually change as the part that should be structured should come out as it grows up.

Wisteria:
Well how is it going to resist you? Where it will be like that.

Suzuki:
It is bound to be bureaucratized by so-called rules and so on, because I want to eliminate thoroughly, only the intention to thoroughly eliminate is very strong.


G:
Oh, I see. Also, this is also going to be out of the story again, but on May 16th "1st Media Partner MeetingI attended as partner candidate for "


At that time I heard that the total number of installations reached 3 million and the active rate was 75%


Daily active rate is 38%


Engagement rate is 50%


There were a total of 1,1 million total flips per month, a lot of good economic stories such as winning Google 's App of the Year and having been elected to this year' s best in the App Store.


However, there are things that I have been worried about looking at, and in the end what is the current source of revenue? Because even in the past coverage, for example,Mr. Fenrir who is making SleipnirI heard something, but the Sleipnir user around me knew only Sleipnir, so most people thought that Fenrir would collapse someday, so I thought that such a thing would not be profitable . Besides that, listening at various places, recently social games have gone out and disappearing, are not they repeating the disappearance? Thanks to that, unless you are on a profit base properly, that company / service / application will collapse and disappear someday, or if it is doing well it is bought somewhere and it will disappear, that kind of thing In the wind everyone holds something like fears. That is, you have concerns that "How long will this application last?" With that, it becomes a place where I am very concerned personally "is smart news okay?" Regardless of how many percentage of earnings will be divided by the media in this previous media partner meeting, "I am 100% medium company" is written, "Although we are good, smart news What do you think ...? It's a really bad news story, but what's going on around now?

Atsuo Fujimura announcing that it will allocate 100% of advertising revenue to the media side at the 1st Media Partner Meeting


Wisteria:
In a word, it's okay.

G:
Are you OK?

Wisteria:
It's okay, yes. Please use it with confidence as it's all right. For now the profit is almost zero ... ...

G:
What is it like being almost zero and OK?

Wisteria:
I am doing it almost at zero, but since I got funds of 420 million yen from VC in July of last year, I am turning it with that money and I think that we will still procure additional items from there as well.

G:
I expect to continue to raise funds from VC in future.

Wisteria:
Yes, so it's okay. Naturally I will definitely make a profit margin. It is possible to make it profitable if it thinks to monetize even now. So I am not worried about that.

G:
I see, i see. However, as these stories do not frequently appear on the table, when looking from the outside, it seemed like this is where this money is falling from. I think that it is very wonderful to assert assertion like that now.

Wisteria:
It is all right now. As I mentioned earlier, there are about 13 staff members in total, so we are managing the scale as much as this number in this number of people, so we also have to increase the number of staff. For example, I can simulate the profits gained by putting in advertisements etc. among us, but now it is time to accelerate our growth, so it's time to accelerate growth and advertisement like here, like here for billing If you do something, after all your growth speed may be dull.

bell:
There are only 13 staffs now, but I would like to increase it to about 40 people within 6 months.

G:
Oh, it increases at a stretch. It is rather close to being lacking in person now, or is it a feeling that it will increase more for that because there is something to do further from here.

Wisteria:
Both of them. Incidentally, even now I am doing it like two or three roles, so I will focus more on specialized areas and the things I want to do more and more, so both engineers and business people are corporate people I also plan to increase all of them.


G:
I see. At the beginning I thought I was going to talk to Mr. Fujimura clearly, so I did not plan to ask a question like this, but since I'm looking forward to seeing Mr. Suzuki in front of me, I think I will definitely tell you. In addition, I think that it will be a nasty question, but in February 2014 TechCrunch Japan "Media with more than 1 million PV per month from SmartNews to 66 media"In principle, there was no money to partner with SmartNews and the media partner, but as a rule," We pay the license fee for articles for several of 102 media "(Mr. Fujimura) Although it is written as "It is", what kind of judgment do you distinguish between SmartNews paying licensing fee and those not paying for SmartNews?

Wisteria:
Basically, I do not have much concept of license fee, so I will operate it.

G:
Is not it?

Wisteria:
However, in the case of a medium company that has not been able to deliver content to outside such as us, for example, it is a big publisher, and the business model says "to provide content to other companies for a fee" There are many cases where there are only things. In such a story with a publishing company like "I can not associate with SmartNews unless it is a model," it is a rare case, but there are cases where I will pay. As we mentioned earlier, we are not doing sales, so we can not afford to provide the funds to the outside abundantly, but we can not open an account with SmartNews unless there is a relationship of payment transactions, There are truly several publishers, so we have a small amount in consultation with those who like us, but we are going out with each other. However, as long as we have expanded it and it is not such a thing as to whether we have the physical strength to do, as far as we are, we are doing it in a form that can carry out dealings with traffic emphasis as usual.


G:
I see. Although this is certainly December 2013, although it is "Mobile Watch"[Key points of smartphone application development] Google listens to Mr. Fujimura of "SmartNews" pushing the drummingIn an interview called "SmartNews behaves as a" search engine + browser ", so many things are said to be cash or copyright issues, but they are misunderstood." But though. Whoever seems to behave as "search engine + browser" is quite impossible. The reason why we asserted such a thing is that in the case of GIGAZINE, not only is it posted as a barter with traffic for free, but a news agency that news is delivered at a fee is being distributed to newspaper companies It also has a similar form.

Wisteria:
There were many such publishers, so we had discussions like the one we had just said.

G:
There are many applications that load GIGAZINE 's news without permission, but since it is almost insignificant, I have not considered so much until now. However, it is posted at the end of the month every monthArticle on access analysisAs you can see, you see a tremendous amount of people from SmartNews, so once you talked to our company's lawyer, "What's wrong with this?" Well, well, "Although SmartNews is doing this kind of explanation, is it technically possible to communicate like this?" When asked what I meant, I was told that "I do not think I can communicate".

Wisteria:
Is that so? (Laugh)

G:
'Because such is self-proclaiming'. In a bit of that explanation SmartNews thinks that it might be forced into a cowardly position, and in the subsequent interviews this explanation disappeared. So, acting as the first "search engine + browser", I thought that there was something like something reasonably obliged to explain. I do not mean that it is a normal news app, but rather a little unusual explanation like "search engine + browser" does not quite understand, maybe I can not say that it is an ordinary news app.

Wisteria:
Well then. I participated in SmartNews after a couple of months from when the service was launched, but I started turning around the publisher and I'd like to make a good relationship with SmartNews, an approach that can contribute to the publisher As a result of having a place for suggesting suggestions, it is understood that the medium company's first concern is that it is the part of "It is a company that brings copies of content" It was. So, we had to explain hard that we do not have a mechanism to hold copies of the content on the server in terms of the mechanism as well. By doing it over and over again, having you understand that you do not own copies without permission, you can have them solve concerns about this side, then from here various kinds of The two stages of starting the business talk that we can offer the benefits were necessary in the discussion with the media company.


Wisteria:
Returning traffic to each medium company after a story "Are you using something on your own with copies?" Or "Do you do business on your own?" There was a mechanism of traffic return already at that time, but I could not confirm it because the referrer can not be seen. It is where we were hand-caught. However, now it is now possible to see referrers, so that they can understand, so that they can be convinced that they can explain those plus aspects. However, it is somewhat complicated about the first place, "Do you have a duplicate of contents"? As technical explanation and idea, as we mentioned earlier, we have duplicates automatically , We are not handed over to the user, we use the caching mechanism without holding it. And, "I'm talking to the user that they have accessed the content at any time by the user's choice, so I am not talking about the actual copying of the contents anywhere." That is where the explanation was difficult to understand at the beginning, and I am getting to be convinced much while I talked over and over. On the other hand, business proposals are more likely to be accepted, so now we have partnered with over a dozen media.


G:
So, it means that 100 companies that are affiliated now have a good relationship with feeling that it is a copyright violation or not asking about anything anymore.

Wisteria:
Since it does not necessarily talk about business unless it is technically convinced, I worked hard on the technical explanation there. Although there may be places that it is not yet good as a word.

G:
After all it was hard work like a negotiation around it?

Wisteria:
I agree. Since there is no place to say that smartphone strategy is wonderfully going well anywhere in the period, there is no place to say that the smartphone strategy is wonderfully going on, We have to spread the content of. In the age of the web, for example, there was a relationship between Mr. Yahoo and Media Company. I think that it was a time to think about what the era of smart phones should be, so if the concerns and the point of view on the part of the content handling mechanism are solved it is possible for the media company to properly go out with us As I knew it was a lot, as I talked, I was convinced about one technical problem or part of the legal formalism, while on the contrary I looked at the business conditions When you make it like a flow like "I got on!

G:
I do not want to bear the copyright, but when talking to the media company I did not know where I was talking. Where is the point of contact, is it talking to the technical side, or is it the law, publicity or public relations, where do you talk to each other and talk about it so well .

Wisteria:
If you are a big company or something like that, people in the editing scene do not do such negotiations, but basically I want to meet with editing scene. I'm going to know the trouble of the people in the medium, and I do not like intuitively that concerns like "Do not you have copies of the content?" As I said earlier, Since I think that if you talk directly to those who think that you should do their business with the contents that you made, including the merits of what we are thinking or doing I am planning to talk to those people as much as possible. When talking at the entrance of a so-called formal company, it tends to be a formal discussion at first. Of course I am not going to avoid it, but as I mentioned to those who have problems with how to adapt their media in the times and how to grow, it seems like it can be solved quite Right.

G:
I see. Is it feeling that you finally found out who is familiar with the talk with pinpoints and talking to you?

Wisteria:
It is not such an objection (laugh)


G:
(Lol)

Wisteria:
It is not personal network politics.

G:
It is not a network of people.

Wisteria:
As I thought that the publisher also had some parts that we do not know how to communicate with places like us, so many cases have you e-mailed to the info.

G:
From the other side, there were quite a lot of them.

Wisteria:
Well, there were many inquiries. As a mentality of a Japanese media company, I was having trouble communicating the most, so I was talking in somewhere like a storytelling.

G:
As it was a story before, it was a story of one person in charge, so it means that I was doing it all by myself.

Wisteria:
That's right. So I can get angry even now, 'come on late'! (Laugh)

G:
Often I could do such a huge amount of work alone, over a dozen or so media ......

Wisteria:
Well the world of basic media is fun, yes.
G:
If I listen to something now I can hear a story that seems to have a hole in the stomach, but (laugh) It is working all the way from morning till evening.

Wisteria:
No way. I am being relaxed the first time, but I still have to have the engineer work comfortably after all, so I hope that we can assume such a noisy element as much as possible.

G:
I see. So, it will be the last question, but what kind of direction do you think SmartNews will have in the future?

bell:
The thing SmartNews wants to realize is to find out the high quality content written by people in the media and to match so that many readers will read good quality things out of a lot. And I think this is what we are realizing with SmartNews' algorithm and UI. But considering the business of the media and the whole user, this is only a partial story, only to find good content and make it readable. But what we are aiming for is a society in which better quality content is born more and more by making the whole ecosystem. Then, of course, I would like to absolutely do what I would like to help monetize the people of the media, and it is not just that, but I'm not sure how to help people in the media coverage of the media, I am thinking how I can help and want to do such places as well. This is quite a long span story, but I am aiming for that kind of part.


G:
Indeed, the story that I said now is about the spans of years to come.

bell:
It is about 3 years.

G:
I see, i see.

Wisteria:
We are the company that makes the application, we handle big data as well. Even though I am not planning to depart from SmartNews because I am doing a work that can extract various multifaceted values ​​by analyzing big data, "huge evaluation information on contents" gathered here is originally I think that it is a way to return it as something useful information to such people as it relates to the people who made the contents.

bell:
This will be a while ago, but Mr. Fujimura was originally in the editing world, actually he was in the writing world, literary criticism before that. I myself also do writing books and writing articles very well, it is rather a person on the side who studies and writes. Hamamoto is also writing articles and writing translations, and I am sure that I am quite sure what part of what I am doing work and writing articles in that context. So, I'd like to do with the power of technology to create a world that has not been realized yet, that many things I have read carefully are read and turned into revenue properly I have a great feeling.

G:
Finally I would like to ask one more question, but SmartNews basically seems to be targeting news media rather than collecting articles from personal blogs and so on.

bell:
Naturally there are people in the media who write high-quality articles, and I think there are people written by individuals. We are such a kind of what it is, I am feeling that I would like to cheer for those who are going to make a good stuff for each person.

Wisteria:
That's not enough, is not it?

bell:
Well, now it is still in a form that only large media will come out.

G:
It means that there is a concept of feeling that it is finally about the end of that area, but it is strange, but it gets collected from a little more various places.

bell:
I think that it will become like that.

G:
I heard a lot of very nasty things, but I could hear a lot of very interesting stories. I'm really thankful to you!

SmartNews (smart news) | Smartphone apps that can read news comfortably
https://www.smartnews.be/