A graphic small enough to be hidden under your thumb is expected to bring in millions of yen in revenues for Japan's biggest rental video chain, Tsutaya.
Tsutaya Online is to start making money this fall on advertisements placed on its cellphone Web sites, which can be accessed by i-mode, J-Sky and EZ-Web handsets. One analyst expects the move to help the loss-making company turn a profit in two years.
Results from a test of the ads have surprised the company because they show a high click-through rate -- around 7 percent -- 17 times higher than the average for ads on the personal-computer-accessed Internet in the United States, which is about 0.4 percent.