Putting A Price On Social Networking

[Mulboyne]

Dow Jones: Japan's Mixi To List On TSE Mothers Sept 14
Mixi Inc., a Japanese Internet social networking service operator, has received approval to list on the Tokyo Stock Exchange's Mothers market Sept. 14, the bourse said Monday...Mixi will conduct a book-building for the IPO shares from Aug. 29 to Sept. 4. The fixed offering price will be announced Sept. 5...The company expects to net Y6.9 billion from the IPO. For the current fiscal year through March, the company forecasts a parent pretax profit of Y1.72 billion, a net profit of Y986 million, revenue of Y4.79 billion and an earnings per share of Y14,953.98. Last fiscal year, the company posted a parent pretax profit of Y912 million, a net profit of Y576 million and revenue of Y1.89 billion.

Presumably good news for Mixi's FG co-founder, Batara Kesuma, given the finance world's ever-spiralling valuation of MySpace. Meanwhile, Korea's CyWorld is trying to crack the US market

[Mulboyne]

Nikkei Kinyu article (no link):

[SIZE="2"]Mixi IPO May Reinvigorate Mothers Market[/SIZE]

Light trading and low volatility have accompanied the recent doldrums of the Tokyo Stock Exchange's Mothers market, but social networking site operator Mixi Inc.'s (2121) initial public offering slated for Sept. 14 may entice individual investors back. Mixi's listing is drawing interest not just because of the company's rapid growth but because of its potential to impact the entire market. Since the Livedoor scandal shattered investors' confidence in entrepreneurs, the markets for start-ups have remained largely directionless. They have been more or less following the movements of Softbank Corp, which is listed on the first section of the Tokyo Stock Exchange.
...Mixi's provisional offering price was set Friday at 1.3 million yen to 1.55 million yen. At the higher figure, the company's market capitalization would be 109.3 billion yen -- placing it No. 8 on Mothers based on Wednesday closing prices. With more than 5 million registered members, Mixi's advertising and other income has surged 47-fold in the past year. Netage Group Inc. (2497) holds slightly more than 16% of Mixi's pre-IPO outstanding shares. Debuting Wednesday, Netage Group's opening quote was twice the offering price. "This reflects the anticipated boost in Mixi stock," says a representative of a midtier brokerage.Based on the upper limit for Mixi's offering range, the stock would be priced at roughly 110 times projected per-share earnings for the year ending March 2007. "Such a level factors in profit growth for two to three years," according to a manager at investment information provider Kabutie Inc. Still, "the way in which the current membership base will be parlayed into earnings is not apparent," says an analyst covering Net stocks at an overseas securities firm. Despite such concerns of a potential bubble, investors may be counting on the Mixi IPO to turn around the mood of the overall market.

[Mulboyne]

The Mixi share offering is said to be more than 300 times oversubscribed.

[Taro Toporific]

The Mixi share offering is said to be more than 300 times oversubscribed.

To put it another way, Mixi is the only major Web2.0 service breakthrough of Japan. There's nothin' but nothin' else to throw the sacks of money under the futon that every Japanese needs to get rid of.

[Mulboyne]

[Mulboyne]

Mainichi: Mixi's debut on TSE Mothers' section disrupted by excessive buying orders

The stock of Mixi, Inc., Japan's largest social networking service (SNS) provider, was publicly listed Thursday, but no transactions were carried out in the morning because the market was flooded with excessive purchase orders, TSE officials said...A total of 4,500 newly issued Mixi shares and 2,600 shares owned by shareholders were listed on the TSE's Market of High-Growth and Emerging Stocks (Mothers) section Thursday morning. Investors placed a massive number of purchase orders for Mixi shares as they expect the price will surge because the company has been enjoying steady growth since it launched Japan's first SNS in 2004. The bid price rose to 2.27 million yen from its public offering price of 1.55 million yen. However, as few shareholders offered to sell, no transactions were carried out...more...

[Taro Toporific]

Mainichi: Mixi's debut on TSE Mothers' section disrupted by excessive buying orders
...The bid price rose to 2.27 million yen from its public offering price of 1.55 million yen...

Ahhh, there's a classic example of intersection the "greater fool" theory with greed-is-good. The people who were able to buy shares are wanting to double their money for a couple days of their "work." Sheesh.

[Taro Toporific]

Mainichi: Mixi's debut on TSE Mothers' section disrupted by excessive buying orders

Mixi closes at over Y3 mil after debut
CrissCross.com, Saturday, September 16, 2006 at 01:35 EDT
TOKYO -- Mixi Inc, the operator of Japan's most popular social networking website, continued to enjoy strong popularity on its second day of public trading Friday on the Tokyo stock market, closing at 3.12 million yen, more than double its initial public offering price of 1.55 million yen.....

[Taro Toporific]

[INDENT]Japan's online communities turning from SNS to S.E.X.
MSN-Mainichi, by Sir Marvin Feltcher - September 29, 2006
The country's biggest Social Networking Service, mixi, recently went public, prompting it to purge itself of anything pubic.
The result has been a boon for operators of adult-oriented SNS such as sexii and Private People that cater for people with little more than lust on their minds...With membership already topping 8,000, sexii is so far Japan's largest adult-oriented SNS.
"We're actually an online advertisement company, but when we heard that mixi was cracking down on people who were a bit too raunchy, we decided to step in and fill the breach, and started up sexii in May,"....more...[/INDENT]

• sexii.jp website FAQ
• Typical sexii post (NSFW-explict)
• A googling of any other sexii posts

[GuyJean]

Mixi’] I wonder if Mixi will have the same 'bumps' in the road as Myspace..

Sheriff: School shooter sent letter to say sorry
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/US/09/29/school.shooting/index.html

..Investigators are aware of rumors that Morrison researched his victims by looking at MySpace.com..

Nah. This is Japan; doesn't happen here.

GJ

[Mulboyne]

Mixi is apparently opening a "Mixi Career Information Centre" on Second Life for a limited period during March. People who want to join them can get on a fast track for next year's intake.

Incidentally, the Second Life Japan site still says a Japanese version will be "Coming Soon".

[Mulboyne]

Incidentally, the Second Life Japan site still says a Japanese version will be "Coming Soon".

Mainichi piece on the upcoming launch of the Japanese version here.

Thanks to the imminent release of a Japanese language version, more Nipponjin are set to live a "Second Life," with critics warning the online game could be a danger to those who don't even have a first one..."This is the first large-scale online game where real money is involved. It'll be interesting to see whether the cops will be prepared to deal with disputes that have occurred within the game. I can see all sorts of social problems coming out of this."

[Mulboyne]

[Mulboyne]

A Japan Times piece on a Japanese version of Second Life (link will eventually require registration).
'Splume' -- Japan gets its own world of avatars

..."It has taken us seven years to make 'Splume' and along the way we compared our program to 'Second Life,' " Kajitsuka said. "We really do think that 'Second Life' is made well, but 'Splume' is something separate. We're trying to create a world where everything is interconnected. We want to make it so that the users have to do as little as possible in order to create the world that they want".

While "Second Life" has the advantage of a head-start, "Splume" is currently targeted only at the Japanese market. As we have seen with the social networking site (SNS) sector, which in terms of social interaction is loosely related, language and culture play a major role. So until Western SNS giant MySpace opened its Japanese-language service in November, Japan's Mixi was able to enjoy a local dominance that it will doubtless continue to enjoy for a good while. And while MySpace often descends into aggressive self-promotion, Mixi tends to encourage a more relaxed expression of personality.

"Splume" is targeted at the Japanese not only through language, but also in its softer visual tone, its less commercial sandbox mentality and the avatars' mannerisms, allowing users to bow gracefully when they meet a stranger and so on. It is overall a gentler experience than "Second Life," which is likely to stand it in good stead when it launches officially. Make up your own mind -- head over to www.splume.com to install the Beta version...more...

[Catoneinutica]

""Splume" is targeted at the Japanese not only through language, but also in its softer visual tone, its less commercial sandbox mentality and the avatars' mannerisms, allowing users to bow gracefully when they meet a stranger and so on. It is overall a gentler experience than "Second Life," which is likely to stand it in good stead when it launches officially."

Ahh, the post-1945 Japanese-as-peaceful-pastoralists trope still has plenty o' life left in 'er, I see.

[Mulboyne]

There's another Japanese Second Life wannabe in the pipeline. "Meet-me" is scheduled to launch towards the end of the year. It's a joint venture between Trans Cosmos, Sankei Shimbun and design house From Software. (Japanese PDF press release here)

[Kuang_Grade]

I'm starting wonder if any of those Square/Enix Yankii MMO
http://www.fuckedgaijin.com/forums/showthread.php?t=9971
users have moved over to second life....I can only imagine the fun those users would have there, revving their virtual bikes in their highly detailed, custom Yankii outfits.

[Mulboyne]

[Mulboyne]

Mixi hit a new all-time high today. The stock hadn't done much since listing last year but has now more than doubled since the end of September. This has partly been driven by some reasonable results but mostly by Microsoft's decision to buy a small stake in Facebook which values the whole company at $15 billion.

[Mulboyne]

Forbes: How To Make Friends, Japanese-Style

Social networking is so popular in Japan in that one standing joke says that a Japanese salary man has three online profiles: one that's real, a second that's edgier so he can venture into pages that detail his private obsessions, and a third that is completely anonymous so his wife or girlfriend or boss will not track him down. And that's been great business for Mixi, Japan's leading personal portal and social-networking destination. "In Japan, there's really only one significant network," says Gen Kanai, director of marketing for Mozilla Japan. That's Mixi. Even so, as social networking sites move to mobile phones, Mixi is going to have to run hard to keep its lead...more...

[GuyJean]

Didn't Japan have mobile networking sites before Internet ones?.. What was ImaHima or Asoboo? Were they just meeting sites? No profiles?.. Never used one, myself.

GJ

[Mulboyne]

I didn't see this before but it seems that a virtual bank in Second Life which Linden Labs suspended for fraud was called "Ginko Financial".

[Mulboyne]

[Mulboyne]

Asahi: New technology allows brain waves to move Internet avatars

Researchers said they have developed technology that allows computer users to use their thoughts to control the movements of avatars in a popular virtual world on the Internet. Junichi Ushiba, a lecturer at Keio University's Faculty of Science and Technology, and researchers at the university's Faculty of Medicine announced the achievements on Saturday. The technology is expected to pave the way for people paralyzed by spinal cord damage, incurable nerve diseases and other ailments to enjoy their lives in the virtual world and encourage them in their social rehabilitation efforts. The technology is used with the 3-D virtual world of Second Life, operated by U.S. Linden Lab. According to the team's announcement, a physically disabled person succeeded in using brain waves to move the avatar in the program. Three electrodes were attached to the test subject's scalp to pick up the brain waves. The brain-computer interface system determines what the computer user wants to do by comparing the detected electric brain signals with specific brain-wave patterns of the user registered in the computer. In the test, the subject successfully had the avatar walk straight and turn left and right to meet an avatar controlled by another test participant...more...

[Mulboyne]

Washington Post: Japan's Mixi - A Social Network As A Purely Local Phenomenon

Japan's biggest social network is called Mixi, launched in February 2004 by the company of the same name. Drawing in one in five web users in the country, Mixi now boasts over 15 million members. The site ranks sixth on Alexa Japan and racks up over 14 billion page views monthly. Google Trends for Websites shows the Japan-focused service attracts more visitors than Bebo on a worldwide basis (about 2.3 million daily, see chart below). Compared to leading Western social networks, Mixi is rather scarce function-wise. However, here are the main country-specific differences why MySpace, Facebook or Bebo don't stand a chance in Japan:

Restricted membership to increase the level of safety: Officially, every member must be over 18 years old. Mixi also requires an invitation from a current user and a Japanese mobile mail address to register. Blogging and communication as the big ideas: Next to resyndicating external blogs, members excessively write and share so-called ?diaries? on the site. Instead of focusing on messaging, status updates and news feeds, Mixi established itself as one of Japan?s biggest blogging platforms. The site also offers more than 2.5 million user-generated bulletin boards. Marginal approach to design and structure: It?s almost impossible for users to change the layout and look of the site, which is only available in Japanese. External applications are not allowed. One of Mixi's most striking characteristics is the scantiness regarding functions and features. High level of anonymity: Mixi abides by the preference of Japanese people to generally stay totally anonymous online. The number of members using real names and photos is below 5%. Very important for Japanese users: The so-called ashi ato (footprint) function makes it possible to retrace every visitor on profile pages, improving the feeling of personal security. Tailor-made mobile version: Users accessing Mixi?s mobile version have been clearly outnumbering those going through PCs since July 2007 (ratio of pageviews in March 2008: 60% mobile to 40% PC).

Another point making Mixi stand out is that the service generates relatively robust revenues. As the world?s first Web 2.0 company, Mixi went IPO on the Tokyo Stock Exchange in September 2006. Market capitalization currently stands at $970 million, bringing the company close to LinkedIn?s $1 billion value. Mixi Inc. operates a profitable online employment site called Find Job!, mainly for IT-related job openings. For the fiscal year ending March 2008, sales on Mixi ballooned from $36.5 million to $82.4 million on a year on year basis. Find Job! alone contributed another $11.6 million. Net profits for the company as a whole grew 79.9% to $19 million in the same time frame.

While userbase and financial data don?t stack up against leading Western social networks in absolute terms, Mixi?s performance is still impressive given they operate in Japan only. Revenue per member stands at $5,46 for Mixi, which is 13 times more than Bebo ($20 million) and 3 times more than Facebook ($150 million). Including Find Job!?s contribution, Mixi also dwarfs Bebo in profits per member ($1.26 versus $0,1 for each of Bebo?s 50 million users). Based on the average Internet advertising spend per person, Mixi ranks 8th in the Techcrunch ranking of the real value of social networks. The position as a quasi-monopolist is based on a horizontally and (to a lower level) vertically diversified business model. Users can opt for premium membership ($3 month per month, i.e. to get additional storage space), generating revenues which account for 7% of the total sales.

The lion's share of revenues comes from other sources. Based on a audio player plugin, users can share and buy every song listed in Mixi's music section via iTunes or are directed to online retailers to order the CD. In addition, Mixi Radio was launched this month, a music streaming service that is partly fee-based. Users have also contributed tens of thousands of reviews on books, CDs, DVDs etc. in Mixi's Reviews section. Each of these articles contains affiliate links to online shops.

The site makes additional money with traffic referral to Yahoo! Japan search and targeted display and text ads. Mixi is also frequently collaborating with Japanese companies, which run promotion campaigns on the site. MySpace (Alexa Japan?s No. 81) and Facebook (not in the Top 100) are trailing in Mixi's home market, even though they established translated ? yet not localized ? versions in November 2006 and May 2008, respectively. On the other hand, Mixi's price for success is that it?s Japan-focused approach to design and funcionality renders scaling on an international level next to impossible. The company recently expanded to neighboring China but in its current form, Mixi might be better off continuing to skim the Japanese market.

[Mulboyne]

The WaPo again, raising the same kind points as they did in the earlier article:

Taking social networks abroad - Why MySpace and Facebook are failing in Japan

Sized at an estimated $5.6 billion in 2007, Japan boasts one of the biggest online advertising markets in the world - a huge potential just waiting to be tapped by foreign social networks. The world's two largest social networks, MySpace and Facebook, barely register in Japan. As the Google Trends for Websites chart above shows, local social network Mixi is outpacing both in Japan. On Alexa, Mixi is ranked the No. 6 most popular site in Japan, compared to No. 95 for MySpace (Facebook doesn't even make it into the top 100). MySpace and Facebook are trying - but why are they failing?

Complacency and failure to adopt to cultural differences

Social networks have become integrative elements of modern American youth culture over the last years, shaping social patterns and changing the ways that people communicate. When taken abroad, these services have to deal with a large number of cross-cultural peculiarities by their very nature.

Societal and cultural gaps are particularly evident in the case of Japan. Market entry in this country with a "What works in the US must also work over there" attitude is going awry for both Facebook and MySpace. It's not a stereotype that communication tends to be nonverbal in Japan. The society generally puts more emphasis on the community rather than on the individual. Also, security plays a major role in many aspects of Japanese life.

These cultural distinctions largely explain why social networks from abroad have a hard time winning over Japan's 90 million web users. Mixi, the country's biggest social network, positioned itself as a tool for communicating at a distance through diaries and communities to meet like-minded members. It doesn't primarily exist to make new friends (poking is restricted) or as a platform for public self-presentation.

A perfect example of a cultural misconception: Mark Zuckerberg recently said in Tokyo one of Facebook's unique selling points is the usage of real names and photos in profiles. This may be true but it's exactly what Japanese web users usually try to avoid. And they already have a high-trust, invitation-based social network anyway: Mixi.

Lost in Translation (Without Mobile, You're Dead)

MySpace opened a Tokyo office in 2006, three years after launch in the US. It took Facebook four years to initiate a user-generated translation of their site. Too late - in the meantime Mixi developed into a $1 billion-listed company without the slightest competition from abroad.

Facebook's hands-off approach especially leaves a lot to be desired. The quality of the site's translation is amateurish in parts (at least in the initial version), a challenge MySpace's local team was at least able to master. In addition, due to relatively weak English skills, most of the Facebook applications are pointless in the eyes of Japanese users. Without apps that make sense, Facebook is crippled. Facebook is also missing the function Japanese consumers deem fundamental in a social network: blogging. This paradox may be the site's biggest drawback in blog-crazy Japan.

Perhaps an even bigger problem is that both Facebook and MySpace fail to offer an optimized version for Japanese handsets. Millions of Japanese are accustomed to using one thumb, a dialpad and a jog dial on their phones when accessing the web during their commutes to school and work. In this country, the mobile web is bigger than the PC web.

Success factors in Japan: Get in fast, show some respect, and find a local partner

Offering a country-specific version before a local copycat beats you to it is an obvious key factor for success, and not only in Japan. But being relatively complex entities, social networks face a trade-off between additional risks and potential gains in the course of localization. Overdoing the adoption to local tastes might compromise the big idea and infrastructure of the site (i.e. in the form of cluttered interfaces or fragmentation into culturally and linguistically walled "mini-networks").

Practical experience from the Japanese web industry has shown that partnering up with a local company is the best way to diminish these dangers (see Yahoo Japan, the No. 1 site in the country, which is a joint venture run by Softbank). Japan has embraced just five American web brands which decided to go solo and none of them is a social network: Wikipedia, Google, YouTube, Twitter and Amazon.

MySpace's establishing of a physical presence in Japan was received as a sign of long-term commitment, a move which melds with the local mentality. But in Japan, maintaining your autonomy comes with a price: It's no secret that it usually takes foreign companies years to build up brand identity, trust, industry connections and general market knowledge.

The same is true for complex web products such as a social network - if the company behind it really means it. Currently it seems Facebook and (to a lesser degree) MySpace chose to start working the Japanese market with a minimum of resources. But in most cases, remote management is perceived in insular Japan as second-rate treatment. Apart from M&As, cooperating with an established local partner seems to be the best shortcut option conceivable. It's almost impossible to win in Japan without close interaction with end users, press, developers, potential employees and advertisers.

But the Japanese market isn't lost yet for MySpace and Facebook, despite Mixi's dominance. If millions of Americans don't mind registering to multiple social networks, why should the Japanese? Growth potential, especially for Facebook, also exists in the realm of connecting professionals online, which may be the reason why LinkedIn is currently pondering a market entry in Japan. In that specific field, they and designated partner Digital Garage (which helped Twitter build traction and earn money in Japan), see practically no competition in this country.

The writer's point about a Japanese partner is too simplistic. In fact, the five examples he gives of overseas web brands who found success by going it alone probably serves to undermine his argument rather than support it.

When an overseas company succeeds in Japan with a local partner, you often hear how the idea was good but the partner really made it work. You even sometime hear how the idea was bad but the partner still made it work. If a company succeeds by going it alone then the usual comment is that the product or service was just exceptional and an idea "whose time had come" for the Japanese market.

Whenever an overseas company fails in Japan then there are dozens of people who will give reasons why it wrong. If they didn't use a partner then that will always be near the top of the list but, if they did, you will rarely hear anyone blame the partner. The closest you will get is usually a comment to the effect that the company "couldn't work with the partner" but the implication is that blame for that breakdown lies with the foreign company.

Anyone watching foreign companies operate in Japan will know that this is a very skewed view of local partners. There are plenty of companies who have failed largely because their local partners were a bunch of meatheads. Take the example of tying up with a trading company who assigns a staffer to be your point man. This point man often has no vested interest in your success and, in the worst case, will openly tell potential landlords, suppliers and customers how disappointed he is to be assigned to such a dead-end project and is looking forward to getting something else to do. There are even partners who want you to fail because they fancy doing it on their own when you've gone.

Certainly, the choice of partner is the foreign company's responsibility but it comes a surprise to realize that you might tie-up with someone who actively obstructs your business at every turn. The other problems the writer describes above could just as easily have happened with a joint venture so it's dangerous to see a local partner as some kind of magic pixie dust. Whether to go with one or not is really just an outsourcing decision and should be treated as such.

[Mulboyne]

BusinessWeek: Japan's Mixi Tops Facebook and MySpace

Asuka Kosaka joined Facebook this year to connect with her English-speaking friends. But when the 29-year-old wants to share her thoughts and photos with 70 friends and family members in Japan, she heads straight for another site: Mixi. Mixi may not have the global reach of social networking giants Facebook and MySpace, but in Japan it's king. The Tokyo company had 15 million users as of June, a 40% gain from 10.7 million a year earlier. No other social networking site even comes close, analysts say. Facebook and News Corp.'s MySpace disclose only worldwide numbers. "Most of my friends don't know that Facebook and MySpace have Japanese-language sites," says Kosaka. In June, Mixi accounted for 12.4 million, or 41%, of the 31 million unique visitors for all social networking sites in Japan, according to research firm comScore. MySpace was a distant second, with 1.2 million visitors, followed by Google-owned Orkut's 638,000 and Facebook's 538,000. "Everything Mixi does is tailored for Japanese users," says Nomura Research Institute analyst Hideo Yamazaki, who wrote a book about Mixi. "So I think it's very unlikely that Facebook and MySpace can overtake Mixi here."

Clout with Advertisers
As Mixi draws more clicks, its clout with online advertisers grows. That's important for Mixi because online ads account for 85% of its $92 million in annual revenues. Japan's Internet ad spending is set to rise 20%, to $5 billion, this year, according to Dentsu Communications Institute, a unit of Japanese ad giant Dentsu. By 2011, the figure could top $6.9 billion. Many analysts expect Mixi to benefit. On Aug. 15, Morgan Stanley analyst Naoshi Nema raised his target price to 750,000 yen a share, from 600,000 yen, and predicted that Mixi's earnings this fiscal year would beat its forecasts for a 1.4% gain in operating profits, to $34.5 million, and a 29% gain in sales, to $118 million. (Last year, profits were up 72%, and sales 92%.) For MySpace and Facebook, it will probably be a hard slog in Japan. But MySpace Japan spokesman Daisuke Chikuda says MySpace and Mixi aren't direct competitors. MySpace aims to connect music fans and entertainment buffs, while Mixi is more about staying in touch with old schoolmates or friends, he says. Facebook has a different approach. It doesn't have local staff, and relied instead on volunteers to translate the site before launching a Japanese-language service in May. Mixi's biggest advantage comes from the network effect. As more people sign up for Mixi, its users benefit from an ever-expanding group. That also makes it more attractive to marketers, who want to target the college students, twentysomethings, and housewives who are Mixi's core users.

Keeping It Squeaky-Clean
What is Mixi's secret? CEO Kenji Kasahara figured out how to tap into his country's blogging craze before anyone else, says Waseda University professor Tatsuyuki Negoro, a Web services expert. When the site launched as eMercury in 2004, many early users got hooked on Mixi's easy-to-use online diary and "footprint" feature, which tracks visitors. Kasahara also made the site cell-phone-friendly early on so users could send updates from anywhere. Another reason for Mixi's popularity: its squeaky-clean image as an online hangout. To ensure that Mixi wouldn't be lumped in with the chat rooms and dating sites linked to killings in Japan, Kasahara pledged to keep out troublemakers and young kids who might be easy prey for online scams. Even now, new members must get invited by a Mixi insider, and nobody under the age of 18 can join. And to assuage worries about personal data being leaked to the Net, Mixi let users hide behind a pseudonym or nickname. That appealed to Net-savvy Japanese, who were used to commenting anonymously on bulletin boards that act as rumor mill, news source, and insider-info clearinghouse. Soon many were flocking to Mixi for their daily online fix. By the time MySpace arrived in late 2006, Mixi already had 6 million users.

The Stock Plummets
Mixi is still adding about 1 million new users every three months. And it has plenty of cash left over from a $1.9 billion IPO on the Tokyo Stock Exchange's Mothers section for fast-growth startups in September 2006. But since January, Mixi's stock price has dropped 43%, wiping out nearly $1 billion of the company's worth. One concern is that a slowdown could hit Mixi's ad revenues. Another: Mixi-fatigue. Only 55% of users visit the site at least once every three days, compared with 70% in 2006. Analysts say Mixi users might be defecting to other sites. "Mixi's rivals aren't existing social networks but sites offering unique services, such as those using avatars," says NRI's Yamazaki. That's why Kasahara is pouring money into upgrading the site. On Aug. 20, Mixi announced it would let developers of other Web sites use OpenID tools, so Mixi users only have to log in once to access their accounts with other Web sites and services. Mixi also plans to allow outside programmers to add software applications to the site, like Facebook does. Earlier this month, Kasahara & Co. began testing Mixi Echo, a micro-blogging service like Twitter that's similar to text-messaging except it's limited to 50 characters. Those services are free, but Mixi now charges if users customize their pages with Disney and Hello Kitty characters, music-sharing services, or extra data-storage capacity. In the coming months the company will launch a Chinese-language service. "I want to speed things up and make this company better at creating innovative services," Kasahara says. "We still have a lot of gaps to fill."

[Buraku]

Facebook is broken?

Zuckerberg Facebook is planning to rebrand the company with a new name
https://www.theverge.com/platform/amp/2 ... -metaverse

Facebook is planning to change its name NEXT WEEK to shake off multiple scandals
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... Verge.html