What's this? This is an unbiased just-the-facts news timeline ('newsline') about Mark & Mary Devlin, created by Newslines' contributors. Help us grow it by finding and summarising news. Learn more

Mark & Mary Devlin

Mark & Mary Devlin42 posts

Mark and Mary Devlin are media entrepreneurs. After studying engineering in Scotland, they moved to Japan in 1989. In 1993 they started handing out a four-page classified ads sheet on Tokyo streets. Over 14 years that sheet grew into Metropolis, Japan’s No 1 English Magazine. In 2000 they founded japantoday.com, the No. 1 news and discussion site about Japan in English. In 2007 Mark & Mary sold their businesses and moved to the United States where they opened Kroaky’s, a private karaoke room business. In 2014 they launched Newslines, an innovative news timeline site, which was followed by NewsBlocks, a blockchain-based marketplace for news data. In June 2020 they launched The Majority to fight back against Nationalism in Scotland. They have two children and live in Glasgow.

17 Nov, 2008

Start Kroaky’s Karaoke

Opens Store

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.

Jul 2001

Renamed to Metropolis

Design Change

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.

Sep 2000

Japan Today launch

Japan TodayProduct Release

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.

24 Feb, 1994

First issue of Tokyo Classified published

Product Release

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.

What's this? This is an unbiased just-the-facts news timeline ('newsline') about Mark & Mary Devlin, created by Newslines' contributors. Help us grow it by finding and summarising news. Learn more