News Archive

Netwise ditches dark, cramped Shibuya office for shiny new one

We are pleased to announce that Netwise has moved into a new, more spacious office in swinging Shibuya. The new office is located between Omote-Sando and Shibuya stations, right off Aoyama Blvd. and just two short blocks from Aoyama Gakuin Daigaku. We're excited about the move, and know you are, too.

The new office gives Netwise lots more room to work and play, and is well-suited for meetings, drop-bys and the occasional informal wine tasting. To you our door is always open, so feel free to come by any time and say hi. (But please do allow us a few weeks for us to finish decorating...)

New address

Netwise
Shiraishi Dai-5 Building 5F
Shibuya 2-11-2
Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0002
Tel/Fax: 03-5485-4636 (unchanged)

View map »

New website for Fuji Chemical launched

Netwise has completed work on a new website for Fuji Chemical Industry Company Inc. The new site is a showcase and information resource for Neusilin®, a synthetic, amorphous form of Magnesium Aluminometasilicate. With over 500 pharmaceutical preparations and a market presence of over fifty years in Japan, Neusilin® is well accepted by formulators world-wide as an aid for formulations containing antibiotics, oily actives, poorly water soluble APIs, herbal mixtures, vitamins, etc.

Netwise designed the site and deployed it on a custom-developed Content Management System (CMS) tailored to the specific content and requirements of the site. As part of the project the site structure and content was optimized for all major search engines and equipped with full traffic analysis and reporting functions.

Netwise supports Japan-based NPO in global music promotion project

Japan Positive Network (JPN) is a non-profit organization working to deepen cross-cultural understanding through music and the arts while addressing problems of child health and cultivation, regional enablement, and protection of the environment. Netwise collaborated with JPN on the renewal of their website and is participating in the World Positive Project, a Japan-based collaborative international music promotion project.

The World Positive Project collects and distributes musical instruments and equipment for re-use by schools and producers globally that can put them to good use. Netwise designed and built a simple website for the project, including a submission form for parties interested in contributing instruments and equipment for aspiring musicians around the world who can enjoy and benefit from them. This project site provides a convenient way for people in Japan with unused or unneeded equipment to share it with economically-challenged aspiring musicians around the world.

For the recipients of these gifts in Africa and elsewhere, the world of music can suddenly take on a new and, more importantly, practical meaning, and represents the gift of music in the truest sense. This project recognizes that music has no borders, and has the power to bring beauty and joy to all that experience it. Music is, after all, universal, a fact that the World Positive Project seeks to recognize and promote.

As a socially-conscious Japanese company, Netwise is proud to support the activities of the Japan Positive Network, and other important community-building projects going forward.

Netwise tailors new Richard James site for the Japanese web

Netwise has completed the new Japanese Flash website for leading Savile Row tailor Richard James. Named Bespoke Tailor of the Year by the British Fashion Council and boasting a star-studded client list with names like Sir Elton John, Tom Cruise, Guy Ritchie and Hugh Grant, Richard James is a designer at the top of his game. He recently opened his first store outside of London in Tokyo, choosing for the location ritzy (you guessed it) Tokyo Midtown.

Netwise was approached to manage the online side of Richard James' foray into Asia, and completely localized the original English Flash website while redeveloping the Collection pages and adding new content. In collaboration with our photographers we also shot the entire Richard James product lineup for Japan to create an online catalog that brings the collection to life with color, clarity and class.

See for yourself at: www.richardjames.jp

Netwise completes conversion to Kabushiki Kaisha (Stock Company)

We have completed the conversion process from the Yugen Kaisha (YK) business entity to Kabushiki Kaisha (KK), or "stock company." This move is part of a larger rebranding effort designed to improve our corporate image overall, and also makes a statement about our continued growth.

As part of this process we have elected to drop the "New Media" from the English rendering of our name and made some minor changes to the company logo. However, rest assured that our trademark high-end design and technical prowess, as well as the fanatical customer service our customers have come to expect, will remain unaffected by the changes.

New wine community website
goes live

TheLocalNose.com (TLN) is a Singapore-based wine recommendation website, wine locator, and consumer wine information hub designed and developed by Tokyo-based web agency Netwise. This original and completely unique community wine portal features weekly recommendations of locally-available wines by a panel of local wine experts. The six best wine deals are published on the site each week with full technical details, pricing and retail locations. Registered members can also write reviews of all recommended TLN wines.

The site includes information on Singapore wine events, wine clubs, bars, corkage fees and more. Unlike other wine mega-sites like Snooth, the local focus of The local Nose means that the wines you're reading about online are readily available nearby.

Netwise completely designed and developed The Local Nose website, building in a number of special features like a multiple-cart ecommerce function, full event calendar and news functions, an inline wine terms glossary, and a wine management database and administration function. More features are in the works and will be rolled-out in the near future.

Netwise completes new
Tokyo American Club website

This week the Tokyo American Club unveiled a new club website completely re-designed and developed by Tokyo-based Netwise. The new and much improved site was greeted with positive reviews and hearty enthusiasm by both members and employees of the Club, now seen as one of the finest in Asia.

The new site was deployed on the award-winning Joomla! content management system (CMS), one of the most powerful and extensible web publishing platforms available today, and provides a wide range of new functionality to members and administrators alike, including:

• A multilingual content architecture and CMS which allows per-item publication of news, event and other club information in English and/or Japanese
• Improved, personalized member area
• Searchable member directory
• Full-featured club event calendar and registration function
• Granular control over banner ads and other promotional content
• Integrated HTML newsletter mailer
• Full sitewide search function
• Search Engine Friendly (SEF) URLs
• Full tracking and reporting of site traffic with Google Analytics

The re-launched TAC site also benefits from a complete information re-architecture and a sophisticated new design, bringing the online face of this elite member’s club up to the same level as the club itself.

See the new site here: Tokyo American Club

Global Dining launches new
corporate website

We completed work on the new corporate website for Tokyo-based restaurant management company Global Dining Inc.

Global Dining owns and operates numerous restaurant chains, including well-known Café La Boheme, Monsoon Café and Gonpachi, as well as various upscale dining restaurants such as Tableaux and Legato. Global Dining was established in 1973 and has over 1,700 full- and part-time employees. Read about the new site here.

Netwise partners with Le Petit Tonneau to produce online wine store

Netwise has partnered with local restaurant operator and wine importer Le Petit Tonneau Ltd. in launching a new online wine shop specializing in wines from the South of France, including Languedoc-Roussillon, Provence, Southwest and the Rhone Valley.

In addition to a wide selection of hand-picked wines from one of the world's most exciting wine regions, customers will also find lots of great information about French wine regions, grapes, appellations and more. Fans of French food and cooking will want to explore the growing library of detailed food pairing recipes by well-known Petit Tonneau Chef Philippe Batton.

The new Online Wine Boutique was designed and developed by multilingual ecommerce specialists Netwise in both English and Japanese to serve wine lovers in both the foreign and local communities. The new site offers a variety of wine search options, including a convenient “find by occasion” function that make it easy for non-experts to find just the right wine.

Customers can choose from three payment methods—credit card, COD or bank transfer—and receive free shipping on all orders over 15,000 yen.
To celebrate the launch of the new site they are offering 10% of all first-time orders.

Lovers of French food and wine in Japan now have a new home on the web. Visit www.petitonneau-wine.com and see for yourself!

Redesigned DEAN & DELUCA
website launched

We're very happy to announce the release of the redesigned DEAN & DELUCA Japan website. The primary goal of this project was to reorganize the website structure and content such that the online store (designed and developed by Netwise last year) would form the central core of the website. We also made numerous design changes that brought the Japan site more in line with the CI of the current US site. (Though we're of the opinion that the Japan site now looks much better than its parent...)

We also added some new features and tweaked the presentation of some of the products and product categories. The location pages were reworked to improve the layout and the printed versions. We also added a new function to manage recipes in the administration console, with a front-end presentation that looks like a recipe page should.

Next we plan to start building in some really great new features that will make the DEAN & DELUCA online store among the very best and most useful in Japan. All hush-hush for the moment, but we'll report back when the new features come online.

New ROTI Roppongi site goes live

We completed work on the new website for ROTI Roppongi, the recently redesigned wine bar and brasserie located in the heart of swinging Roppongi. ROTI has long been well-known to Tokyoites as a high-end American-style grill and rotisserie, and is run by long time Tokyo Chef Ian Tozer.

Netwise was approached by ROTI Roppongi's new owner Maruka Group to create a new online presence for ROTI to coincide with the launch of their newly redesigned venue. We created a simple yet stylishly elegant new site to match the new design and direction of the restaurant. New new site represents a dramatic improvement over the previous site in terms of design, usability, and content presentation and optimization (SEO).

Visit the new site here, and by all means pay a visit to the redesigned restaurant as well. You'll find some of our favorite wines from ORCA International and The Vine in the wine list, and the dinner menu continues to impress. Chef Tozer has done a fantastic job of re-creating the ROTI concept, and we're sure you like what you find there.

ORCA International site redesign complete

Tokyo-based wine importer ORCA International has been a Netwise client for many years, and we have had the great pleasure of watching their business grow year after year. We're also happy that they have entrusted Netwise with their website and online store. We are big fans of their wide selection of Pacific Northwest wines. It's the most extensive in Japan, and you can purchase any of the products (including Seattle microbrew favorite Redhook Beer) online using the site Netwise designed and developed for them. Oregon Pinot Noir? Washington Viognier? They've got 'em, and if you've had them, well, chances are good you want 'em.

The original ORCA site had been online for three years, and so the time had come to give it a makeover. We did so this month with a new design that freshens up the look and feel while keeping all of the great functionality of the previous site intact.

We will be rolling out new features later this month, including an advanced wine searching function for pros and people in the trade, as well as new wine club and other goodies. Check back later for details.