Google may be a verb, but in Japan, Yahoo! is an adjective. Yahoo! Weather, Yahoo! Auctions. Speed an minimalism is not part of the internet culture in Japan. High speed access is a given, and are much more affordable compared to North America. Residential broadband connections 100Mbps for less than ¥4500 ($50) a month with an IP phone is close to the standard configuration. ISP even give you between ¥10,000 and ¥30,000 just for signing up for a 2 year contract.
The New York Times posted an interesting article about this here.
Yahoo! Japan is often the default home page on many browsers. The ISP install cd for many companies sets the homepage. Many Japanese don’t bother to change it. The majority of users in Japan don’t bother to switch their homepage, especially when it’s convenient to get the information they need or search for it right there.
The main Yahoo! homepage has a little bit of everything, from sports, news, weather etc…
Much like a bento many Japanese have for lunch, there is a wide variety of things. It’s said that the more things you eat, the richer you feel. So instead of fewer, but bigger portions, many Japanese prefer many smaller items.
Yahoo! has been doing business in Japan longer than Google and is more established. They also have ties with other Japanese businesses, like Softbank. Yahoo! is the largest stockholder is SoftBank and followed the trend in North America of companies acquiring the naming rights for buildings. They renamed the Fukuoka Dome to “Fukuoka Yahoo! Japan Dome.”
Google is still has a lot of work to do in Japan, if they want to catch Yahoo!.
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