I started note.

I am Sadaaki Kato, CEO of Piece of Cake. Hello.

Piece of Cake operates a web service called cakes. Our tagline is "Connecting creators and readers." To date, many creators and readers have used our service.

Today, we are launching a new service called note. note is a platform for individual creators to publish content as their own media.

What is note? Let me explain briefly.

I will talk a little bit about history.

Long ago, a creator named Kan Kikuchi launched a magazine called "Bungeishunju" because he wanted a media outlet by creators, for creators. Many creators gathered there and published their work.

As a magazine continues, works by individual authors accumulate. Compiling these into a single volume is what we call a "book." Many wonderful books were born from "Bungeishunju." In the age of paper, there were magazines as media that gathered creators, and books as media for individuals.

Around the same time, many publishing companies were born. The "magazine" + "book" business model was the strongest, and with the addition of printing plants, distributors, and bookstores, it continued to generate profits for 100 years. It was just like today's IT companies, generating enormous profits by bundling information.

However, the wave of digitalization has arrived. Magazines and books are selling less and less by the minute. The reason is not that the level of creators has dropped, but that a good way to sell content suited to the digital age has not been found. Piece of Cake is a company created to solve that.

What cakes aims for is a new form of magazine in the digital age. Many creators write works or have conversations in the same place, and readers subscribe to them collectively. We are proposing what a magazine should look like in the digital age.

note is a service created by thinking about what a book in the digital age—in other words, personal media—would look like. When you say digital books, you might first think of e-books. But we thought that if we make good use of digital, a freer, new place might be born.

The advantage of digital, in a word, is that it is open and interactive. note has taken on the new challenge of combining that with monetization. You can post not only text but also works such as photos, illustrations, music, and videos, and you can not only show them for free but also sell them. You can also connect with fans using the follow function.

From the creator's perspective, note is a place where all creative activities—from daily activity reports and communication with fans to creating works and even business—can be carried out in one stop. We aim to be the most fundamental place for activities for creators in all fields.

This is a place where communication, marketing, and creativity are integrated.Perhaps this is the form of the "book" of the future?

Whether you are a professional creator or an amateur, please feel free to experience it. I believe that doing interesting things is the meaning of human life. I would be happy if I could contribute to that even a little.

April 7, 2014, at the office in Shibuya while watching the sky begin to brighten