Nico Nico announced last week its biggest service upgrade ever. You can read the news in English here. This "Zero" version will affect on May 1 (already in effect).
Summary
- Nico Nico Douga (its formal name) will be renamed to niconico, with new logo.
- Video resolution increased from 640x368 to 864x486.
- "Nicoru" button (similar to Facebook's "Like")
- NicoSound music download service. Premium users contribute. Free users can download.
- 24-hour music channel called "Nsen" that users can make a request. The contents are mostly from user's contributions. There will also be original programs.
- New version of My Page
- New version of Ranking page of live shows with true realtime stats update
Nico Nico is probably one of the fastest growing services in Japan's entertainment business. It now has more than 27.35 million subscribers and 1.62 million are premium members (paid subscribers). Its offline event, Nico Nico's Chokaigi ("Super Conference"), last month has attracted more than 92,000 attendees in 2 days, not including 3.47 million attendees on the web.
It is becoming the center of Japan's fighting game community as it streams more big tournaments and people use the streams to exchange information or just hang out. Most of the videos (Japan's FGC related) on YouTube nowadays are actually a reupload of the videos on Nico Nico.
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