KDDI knows “Syn” is good. Telco makes play to swipe Google and Yahoo’s mobile users.

News broke this morning that mobile carrier KDDI had committed US$120 million to buying two startups and making significant investments in five others. The story made a splash in the startup community but KDDI’s move was actually part of a larger play to take on two tech titans.

KDDI has assembled a Superfriends-level consortium of talent to make a run at upsetting Yahoo Japan and Google to become the most used website in Japan. With 12 other companies by its side, KDDI unveiled a most ambitious project: the Syn Alliance.

The companies comprising the Syn Alliance, all widely-known in Japan, are listed below. Asterisks denote if the company received investment funds from KDDI.

• iStyle – Information site (“Cosme”) for cosmetics
• AppBroadCast – Information site (“Game Gift”) for gaming news and items*
• Weathernews – Information site for meteorological forecasts
  A3 – Information site (“News Headlines”) that constantly updates the top stories of the day
• Jorte – Calendar application*
• Natasha – Two information sites, one for music, one for comic books*
• Nanapi – Life-hacking site* (acquired)
• Navitime Japan – Information site for navigation
• Hatena – Social site (“Hatena Bookmark”) for keeping track of online websites
• Vasily – Social site (“iQon”) for making, browsing, and buying fashion outfits*
• Bit Cellar – Ranking website (“Qrank”)* (acquired)
• Luxa – Flash sale website*

Syn Dot, overseen by these firms, is an attempt to redefine how mobile users in Japan access the internet. Syn Alliance believes it can prevent users from going to Yahoo Japan or Google mobile sites if it can provide a greater variety of content. The number of users who go to the mobile websites of the 12 companies each month is roughly 40 million. That aggregate number is more than Google’s 38 million or Yahoo’s 36 million. It should be noted, however, that Google’s monthly users should be decreasing over time now that most smartphone browsers allow for Google searches without visiting the website.

Syn Dot is going to make its own portal site, made up of its member companies in order to draw all of their users to the same spot. That portal site is not live yet but Syn Dot has initiated step one of its master plan.

The Syn.menu (see below) is going to be attached to the smartphone-optimized websites of every Syn Alliance member. It will be typical smartphone menu, but will act as an access map to the website a user is visiting as well as to every Syn Alliance website. As seen in the image below, the top left corner is reserved for some prime advertising real estate – only for Syn Alliance members of course. The advertising system is called Syn.ad.

Left and right images show the Syn.menu as seen from Navitime (l) and Hatena Bookmark (r). As users scroll down they see the Syn.ad, then the website’s native menu, and finally the Syn.menu at the bottom.

In the Syn.menu, an indicator will appear when there is new information pushed to a member site. This Syn.notification will keep users apprised of every development in the Syn Alliance.

As might be expected of a such a large technical challenge, Syn.menu is not yet live for all the sites. As of JST 19:00 today, Cosme, Weathernews, News Headline, Jorte, iQon, and Qrank mobile sites were not offering the menu. It was accessible on Nanapi’s mobile website but that mobile version did not always appear when the site was accessed via a Google search.

The scale of KDDI’s gambit is impressive. The company announced in its press conference that it wants to hit 100 million monthly users within one year. That ambition suggests the Syn Alliance will be actively recruiting new member companies in the coming months.

The look and feel of the real portal site will go a long way to determining the telco’s success, but it appears well on its way to creating a new generation portal site that puts some of Japan’s young, brash startups on center stage.