Born in Glasgow
Mark is born in Glasgow and grows up in Kilwinning and Irvine, 30 miles south of Glasgow. Mary grows up in Uddingston, a village near Glasgow.
Meet on first day of university
Mark and Mary meet on the first day of studying Manufacturing Sciences and Engineering at Strathclyde University in Glasgow.
Move to Japan
With little job opportunity in Scotland, Mark goes to Japan and initially works as an English teacher and an editor of financial reports before working as a Network Administrator for Jardine Fleming Securities.
After working while at University for Ford as a management trainee, Mary joins Andersen Consulting, where she is a Strategy Consultant. On arriving in Tokyo in 1990 she works as an IT Consultant for Union Bank of Switzerland.
I Pledge Allegiance
0 CommentsMark and Christopher Hall form a band called United Nation and record five songs.
Strobe
0 Comments
Run trance parties under the name Strobe and rent out a laser that Mark had built to other party organizers.
First issue of Tokyo Classified published
After months of planning the first issue of Tokyo Classified is published. Mark designs and lays out the magazine while Mary sells the ads. Classified ads are collected from various noticeboards throughout Tokyo and through a Macintosh-based voicemail system linked to a premium-rate telephone line. The four-page sheet is handed out in about 15 locations where foreigners hang out by a “target team”. Mary:
There was just no information in English.
Start Crisscross Internet
From 1994 Tokyo Classified readers are able to place ads using an online BBS system. As the Internet grows in popularity Mark & Mary start Crisscross Internet, one of the first Internet Providers in Japan. Crisscross’s “Instant Internet” allows anyone to access the Internet by calling a premium-rate telephone number from their modem for an per-minute fee of ¥20 (approx $0.2). The business grows rapidly and gains over 5000 customers.
Asahi Evening News interview
In an interview with the Asahi Evening News, Mark & Mary talk about the magazine:
If you’ve just arrived in Tokyo, you can use the classifieds to find a house, to go places and meet people. You couldn’t do that before.
On the difficulty of selling ads in Japan:
Before we published the first issue, Mary went around trying to sell ads to Japanese companies. We had a bit of a problem because many Japanese companies didn’t know what a classified ad was.
Mary on The Holiday Program
Mary takes Claudia Winkelman on a tour around Tokyo, eating sushi, playing Dance Dance Revolution and singing karaoke.
Japan Today launch
Japan Today is launched as a rival to Japan’s English language newspapers. Over the next year the site will become the most popular news site about Japan in the world, regularly hovering around the top 5000 sites in the world. Japan Today is the first news site in the world to have reader comments directly under the news articles. Before then the readers had always been forced into the forum area of the site.
A tour round the Metropolis office
MX TV’s World in Tokyo program gives viewers a tour of the Tokyo Classified office. Mark:
All these ads came from the readers, so the readers made the magazine bigger and bigger.
About Japan Today:
We want to really promote the idea that foreigners and Japanese people can come together and start to talk about things and make better communication.
Renamed to Metropolis
In 2001, Tokyo Classified had grown to 48 pages/week and was renamed Metropolis. More information was added about Tokyo entertainment and lifestyle. A quarterly city guide for tourists was added.
Business a.m interview
In an interview titled Big in Japan, with the Scottish newspaper Business a.m. Mark & Mary talk about the renaming of Tokyo Classified to Metropolis, how the dot.com bust affected Japan Today and their relationship with Scotland. Mark:
I look up Scottish property websites about once every two weeks and I have a little dream of buying something there…But this place [Tokyo] has a real energy. The last time I returned to Tokyo after a holiday in Scotland I was so happy to be back. Even in that short time, Tokyo had changed. I took a walk down the street and it seemed like new buildings had gone up. Scotland’s a great place but there’s a real energy here. And we’ve still got a bit of work to do.
Arthur C. Clarke joke
On a trip to Sri Lanka, Mark interviews Arthur C. Clarke, who tells him a joke:
Newsweek article
Crisscross Social Network is featured in Newsweek magazine. Mark:
The problem with the expat markets is how you get beyond them. Where do you go?
Launch Crisscross Social Network
Crisscross Social Network is launched. The site uses a sophisticated drill-down search to connect people with the multiple, diverse interests.
The system grows to over 30,000 users, mainly in Japan.
It was not until 2012 that sites like Facebook offered similar “graph search” functions. In 2012 the site was being prepared for relaunch in the U.S. as CRXSS, a social search engine.
Metropolis sale
After publishing over 700 issues, the Devlins sell Metropolis to Lloyd, a New Zealand and Australian dual national, based in Japan. Over 14 years the magazine has grown to over 80 full-color pages every week made by a team of 35 staff from all over the world. The magazine has annual sales of ¥360 million and 20% profit, from hundreds of display and commercial classified advertisers and is, by far, Japan’s No 1 English magazine. A brief history of Metropolis is here.
Japan Today sold
The Devlins sell Japan Today to GPlus Media, a Tokyo-based publishing company known for Real Estate Japan and GaijinPot, a community site for foreigners in Japan.
Move to Sarasota, FL
0 0 Mark Devlin Mark Devlin2015-04-14 19:42:202015-04-14 19:42:20Move to Sarasota, FLStart Kroaky’s Karaoke
The Devlins start Kroaky’s, a private room karaoke club. Private karaoke rooms, or “karaoke box” are a popular concept in Asia and there are a handful of places in America’s larger cities. Kroaky’s is the only such club in a small city. The Sarasota store is to be a model for a franchise business that will take the private room karaoke concept across the U.S. After a few months a public lounge is added.
