From left: Manjot Bedi, Jay Gissen, director digital media of the original publisher of the magazine, and Kenichi Yasuoka, Japanese publishing exec pose for the media Monday at the British Embassy.

UK's OK! magazine to be launched online for Japanese market

TOKYO —

1st Avenue Inc on Monday pre-launched the online version of British celebrity and lifestyle magazine OK! with license from original publisher Northern & Shell Network Limited. The official launch of OK!Japan will be in the autumn, the company said.

OK!Japan will publish the online version of OK! magazine, including original content made in Japan. Manjot Bedi, chief visionary officer of the Japanese publisher, said that OK!Japan will connect users and sponsor companies through online content, accumulating their data on what they are interested in. He also said providing its service through mobile phones in Japan will be a good gateway to the content.

OK!Japan will launch OK!Cafe where users can meet up offline and fashion shows and new product events are organized. The company said it will also set up the OK!Girl project in order to create Japanese celebrities who can have an internationally high profile in diversified areas.

According to 1st Avenue Inc, OK! magazine has sold 120 million copies in 19 countries so far. The online version is available only in Japan.

Additional Information:

http://www.okjapan.jp/

5 Comments

northlondon at 02:09 PM JST - 8th July

OK is a cheap and low-quality gossip magazine. You find it in Tesco's and Asda supermarkets (both cheap quality supermarkets) in the UK. If I were a wannabe celeb, I would not want my profile promoted in this garbage. OK would ruin it.
BIJ at 06:54 AM JST - 10th July

But we always say that when celebs appear in OK showing off their homes and kids they are heading for divorce...so it'll be a useful guide to Japanese tarento's deply interesting lives...
Wottock_Hunt at 05:27 PM JST - 11th July

Good lord. I thought nothing could be as tawdry as this rag, but then I imgine it full of local non-entities...I'd rather have a tooth out.
imagawa at 06:29 AM JST - 17th July

I always had the naïve idea that a civilisation grew intellectually as time passed. Now I realise that is very, very wrong, the world is going backwards not forwards. The internet really did create the global village & now we really do have the village gossip in all it’s small minded nastiness. If the medium is the message then imagine what the next ten/tweny years are going to bring us. OK magazine, the Pol Pot of publishing.
frontandcentre at 04:55 PM JST - 17th July

...as long as they never say anything bad about Japanese subjects, however innocuous, I'm sure they'll be fine. Obviously the Waiwai approach brings out the nationalists to defend Japan's perfect reputation for zero crime and complete tranquility