Yahoo! Japan is partnering with production company Yoshimoto Kogyo to launch an online service offering sponsored original drama and comedy shorts, reports The Hollywood Reporter.
The Myzo service will show clips created by Yoshimoto Kogyo subsidiary Bellrock Media, which specialises in broadband and mobile content. It will be free and available via mobile at a later date.
"The videos can include a branded story line, a lifestyle message or product placement," says Bellrock VP Kenneth Prechter. "There are around a thousand of these two- to three-minute clips... many of them featuring Yoshimoto comedians."
Based in Osaka, Japan, Yoshimoto Kogyo was established in 1912 as a traditional theatre group. The company has grown to become a media conglomerate comprising Japan's largest comedy agency, a TV production outfit and an amusement park.
The partnership is not Yahoo! Japan's first foray into broadband TV, having launched Videocast, a Japan-only video sharing website last year. The site, which can be accessed from any PC, is also compatible with mobile phones. Features of the site include comments, user and community chart ratings and downloads for offline viewing.
Yahoo! has a higher profile in Japan than in the west as it is the country's most popular search engine. Approximately 42.9m Japanese web browsers visited a Yahoo! site in January this year, compared to 32.9m visits to Google's online properties, according to comScore.
Local portal Rakuten came third with nearly 30m visits, while Microsoft's internet properties and Japanese telecoms conglomerate NTT had 29.3m and 27m visits respectively.
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