Yahoo Auctions
The award-winning “Share a Coke” campaign launched in Japan last year with bottles that invited consumers to share a memorable song, connected with a particular year, with a friend. Now, name-printed bottles – a part of the campaign that’s already launched in different countries around the world – have made their way to Japan. In grocery stores around the country, you can happily root to the back of the chiller cabinet looking for a Coke with you or your friend’s name on it (if you have a Japanese name, that is!).
And it seems some bright sparks have hit on a brilliant money-spinning idea off the back of this: collect the names of all the members of a pop group, and sell them on online auctions. A set of Coke bottles with the names of all five girls from idol group Momoiro Clover Z, printed complete with -Z suffixes, has sold on Yahoo Auctions for 15,000 yen (US $150).
Something attracting quite a bit of attention on the net at the moment is an incident involving a 25-year-old homeless man in Japan who put himself up for sale as an “item” on the Yahoo! Auctions website. Anyone winning the bid would in theory have been able bring the man into their home and provide him with accommodation.
The online role-playing game, Final Fantasy XI has garnered tremendous popularity within Japan, not to mention the rest of the world. Love of the game has grown steadily in the 11 years since its Japanese release in May of 2002.
Unfortunately, as gamers grow older and become busy with real-life responsibilities, they sometimes must set aside their virtual buster swords and magical mage staffs and focus on the tangible things in life. Luckily, there’s always a circle of lazy gamers ready to take their places! These impatient players are wide-eyed and eager to buy your character’s levels and loot off of you. Read More
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