Interesting article from PingMag, detailing the most popular web apps and services in Japan. The highlights...

- SNS: "In Japan, social networking is represented mainly by Mixi, with GREE following a distant second."
- Video: "To my knowledge there is no direct competitor to YouTube in Japan but there is an interesting little mashup* from the boys at fladdict.net, and it is called hatenatube. Hatenatube simply takes popular YouTube videos from a variety of sources and displays a thumb for each one."
- Podcasting: "Newly-released and IMG SRC-produced ZapZap is a podcast directory that lets users decide what is popular and what should be on the front page, whilst also allowing you to mix-and-match a custom playlist of podcast episodes."
- Productivity: "Checkpad represents one of the few productivity-oriented web applications in Japan. Providing a similar service to Ta-da Lists, Checkpad differentiates itself by also allowing users to access their lists from their mobile phones."
- Start pages: "Japan-based Startforce takes an altogether different approach. Although they don’t explicitly state they are a start-page service, some of their ideology is the same. Rather than providing a panel-based interface like Netvibes, Startforce has attempted to visually emulate a computer’s operating system. Startforce allows you to store and swap files as well as chat with other people, all within an OS-like environment."
- Blog Tracking: "The near-unpronounceable Kizasi provides a similar service to Technorati, but in my opinion provides a clearer method of finding out what bloggers are talking about."
- News: "...industry news in Japan is probably best seen through the eyes of the 100shiki website. [...] Hatena Bookmarks is a del.icio.us-like social bookmarking service and is probably one of the best places to look for aggregated tech-related news in Japan, thanks to an army of IT-obsessed users."

I'm looking to cover more of international markets in the near future, so posts like this from PingMag are very useful. Anyone know of similar articles for other countries?