Twitter, mixi join forces to counter Facebook in Japan

Mixi will never be a serious contender to counter Facebook until they start opening up their system to other countries.

Unless registration on mixi has changed you need to have a Japanese cellphone email address to register. So as Mirai has said this eliminates anyone outside of Japan. What then is the purpose of teaming up with twitter? Sounds like they are headed the way of MySpace.

Bu ha ha ha ha ha ha, it' ll never work. Both of you are absolutely correct. Mixi is totally closed to other countries, the outreach is abysmal. Can't see them making any kind of headways now or in the future.

Japanese people are so paranoid about sharing personal information/photos on the Internet! Most of my Japanese Facebook friends have the most boring pages, filled with photos of food and silly dogs in clothes etc...! I don't know why they even bother!

Ah yes...MIXI......made by Japanese ONLY for Japanese. I don't expect I'll see MIXI on the right side of this webpage anytime soon. Segregation is dangerous anyway. Better to include the Japanese. If they tweet, that's their business.

Twitter never caught on with me. I'm not interested in following the lives of other people.

bilderberg_2015.

It is not paranoia, but a different culture, values and thinking. Some of my friends remove their wedding-bands befor they got to work.

They don't like to mix work and social life and preferably as little information exchange between those two as possible.

To be honest some of the facebook people put their whole lifes and info out there for anyone to read and use. No wonder companies use Social networking sites to check out possible new employees, etc.

Japanese use the net to share their hobby/interests NOT their personal info/details.

Personally I like Mixi as the concept is closer to the thinking I was brought up with in the west. I invite and decide who is part of my circle. Using Google+ now and love it.

;)

it'sMe; Your friends who remove wedding bands are most likely cheaters who would not be tolerated or accepted in my circle.

On Facebook you can choose who sees what you write.

For me, one of the downsides of mixi is that some other websites claim that "you have a better chance of 出会 than mixi", which makes people think that mixi is more of a dating site than a social network.

To be honest some of the facebook people put their whole lifes and info out there for anyone to read and use. Unfortunately, this is true, but the same can be said about Twitter. It all depends on what the user is willing to share.

you forget who is who on mixi since 99.9% of them uses "handle name" and pictures other than theirs...

I found mixi annoying. Guys kept hitting on me.

megosaa.

You mean like the posters on JT and other forums. ;) Or is that your real face in your avatar?

I didn’t use Facebook so much time last year. Because around my friends didn’t use it too. But while studying abroad, Facebook was very convenient to communicate people from other countries. So I was using it very often. And after I came back to Japan, I was surprised that a lot of people around me were using Facebook. I realized Facebook is expanding very fast. On the other hands, Facabook has a demerit. It’s their security is not so strict compare with mixi. For example, if my friend tags my picture on the person’s Facebook, the person’s friend who is stranger for me can see it. I like Facebook but the one thing I don’t like it. So I prefer mixi than Facebook.

bilderberg_2015Dec. 01, 2011 - 08:17AM JST

Japanese people are so paranoid about sharing personal information/photos on the Internet! Most of my Japanese Facebook friends have the most boring pages, filled with photos of food and silly dogs in clothes etc...! I don't know why they even bother!

Totally agree.

I found mixi annoying. Guys kept hitting on me.

Me too. And i am a guy.

In my opinion, this is possibility for Japanese social community site's future. I guess Japanese people like mix better than facebook because facebook require real name & privacy. Japanese people is really don't like to show their real name and privacy. This collaboration fit Japanese style. Twitter is only tweet but mix has profile. This collaboration seem to be kind of facebook. Twitter has another possibility. March 11th earthquake, that day cell-phone didn't work because of a lot of access at same time. Cell-phone's line was filled by too many accesses. My cousin who is in north-east Japan didn't mail long hour. She was ok but her mail to me was very late. She sent a mail to me but mail was received 3 hours later. Therefore this collaboration has big possibility.

I really dont see the point of all this digital networking. I don't particularly care what other people are thinking or doing, and I don't care to divulge the same information about myself. If I want to communicate with someone, I will do it directly, either in person or by personal mail. I don't feel this urge to broadcast my life for all the world to see. It seems very egotistical- everyone shouting "Hey, look at ME!".

My mother is 80 and she has a FaceBook account. Weird.

Since I teach, I do not have one nor am interested. To many prying eyes. I prefer the Japanese way. Cute dogs wearing clothes and food.

I talked to some really scummy Japanese dudes and they love Mixi!! Why? To find horny scummy women just like themselves??

THey need to make a mixi movie :)

Isn't Mixi just an anonymous date site anyway?

cactusJack. Well, that would explain why y3chome kept getting hit on.

Mixi had its hay-day and peaked about four years ago. It's pretty much dead these days, hence you have this team up, which won't help. It was fun and a good SNS for a while, but it became far too insular, and check it out these days you never see a person's real name and/or picture, every group requires permission to join, and heck even to make a profile you need to be invited, have a cell phone, use two mail accounts, etc. The same people who use mixi, however, put their real, full names and profile pics on Facebook.

I tried mixi, Facebook is just better

My JT avatar is ME by the way. I have no reason to hide my face, even when I know I am not pretty. but I have some pride and yeah, why not. I've been on MIXI for many yeas now but I started using FB and I like it, I can use my real picture and keep it private. No problems so far.

Cactus Jack, is that you on your avatar? if so, lol (^v^)

So what are they going to call it? TWIXI?

awesome news! yeah take it down Mixi & Twitter!!! hate facebook soo freaken much. -_-

Japanese people do not like to share personal info online because some wacko will find something to criticize about and put it on 2ch. Then it will become some online fiasco. I've had my name and my address posted on 2ch by some crazy saying that they will come and kill me and bury me under the Tokyo bay. I went to the police but they did nothing. They said, the guy probably isn't serious. ok..

Anyhow, I've always felt that SNS site such as facebook and mixi are pretentious and tiring. Either some of your friends will get jealous of you for doing A or not doing B. But it's all subliminal.

To continue from my previuos post, I'm not saying that Mixi isn't a good site. I used it for years in part to buff up my Japanese, which it helped do, and to start up and join some interesting groups. It is particularly useful for said groups and organizing local events, etc. (although FB can do all that and more). The problem is that it is so limited, and instead of growing outward it became, like I said, more and more insular. I think that's what a lot of the appeal for users of mixi that have switched to Facebook is; it's much more universal, you can work in any language, and you can be yourself more.

Anyway, this little merger won't do anything, especially since Twitter and Facebook are already linked.

don't worry, mixi. even given how stupid and vapid Facebook is, it will never be able to approach the level of idiocy you've attained. your niche is safe!

I read this article a couple times and still can't understand what exactly the partnership will do. I mean, how will this change the respective services? Is it like Twitter and FB where a Twitter post will show up as a post on the FB profile? Is that all? Whooptie-freakin'-do.

Mixi only lets Japanese use Mixi...very racist!

Funny there seem to be quite a number of non-Japanese using it. I wonder how we managed that?

Mixi, blah. Nothing but a time waster for teenagers and bored house wives. But so are all other social media sites. Never understood what was so appealing to my wife when she would surf mixi blogs for hours on end. How many pictures of stranger's food and vacations can you browse before it gets boring?

Stephen Jez

Never understood what was so appealing to my wife when she would surf mixi blogs for hours on end. How many pictures of stranger's food and vacations can you browse before it gets boring?

Maybe she wasnt looking at the food and vacations, maybe thats what she let you see!!! ;-)

Stephen, you forgot the cute dogs wearing clothes.

It is easy to sign up for Mixi. I looked at it during lunch. Just need a Japanese address for mail. Your smart phone has one. Overseas people can sign up on yahoo.co.jp

It is easy to sign up for Mixi. I looked at it during lunch. Just need a Japanese address for mail. Your smart phone has one. Overseas people can sign up on yahoo.co.jp

Not true...you need a cell phone address. Free mail will not work, and neither will iphones. Mixi has a VERY long way to go for it to be a global contender. I give it a year before it turns into another MySpace or Friendster

Why is only mixi lowercase in this article? facebook and twitter both use all lowercase letters in their official logotype. Consistency, people!

Jon: "****Facebook lets Japanese use facebook, Mixi only lets Japanese use Mixi...very racist!"

If that were the case I would not be on it. It's simply not true. It has over time changed so that you must have a Japanese cell phone address to send to, which will limit people from joining overseas, but hey.

Mirai Hayashi: "Free mail will not work, and neither will iphones. Mixi has a VERY long way to go for it to be a global contender. I give it a year before it turns into another MySpace or Friendster"

Funny thing is that when the site started you USED to be able to sign up with only free mail, but like I said it's become less 'open' and more insular. I'd say in a way it's already more or less gone the way of MySpace and/or Friendster, save that it will always have a loyal Japanese following, to an extent. The Japanese I know who have switched to Facebook as their main SNS still keep mixi because of the friends directory and certain clubs -- makes it easier to look at local events and what have you.

Well, call me captain obvious but Mixi is for interacting with people you don't know when Facebook is for interacting with people you already know.

It's much easier to search for new people on Mixi than on Facebook.

And personally, I prefer to interact with the non-westernized japanese which are mostly on Mixi.

The communities on Mixi are pretty cool too. I even got jobs offers there!

mixi was great until this year. Over the years I made quite a lot of friends from mixi. It was nice before they put up privacy options. You could easily explore mixi for like minded people. Now everyone (including me) sets their profiles to private.

Years ago I used to get several messages a day from strangers on mixi. Now I get zero. I'm also unnactive.

Facebook on the other hand is great. I enjoy keeping my Japanese social life and my family and old friends at the same place.

I hate how you can't see a single page on Mixi without having an account and logging into it (including news). That, I think, is mixi's greatest downfall, and why it will eventually go under. The ashi-ato thing is also discouraging. I don't want to let everyone know that I've looked at their profile! I feel like it makes me look like a stalker, when in reality I just only have a few friends on there that I actually care about, so I look on their page rather than sifting through tons of tsubuyaki that I don't care about. Well, I look when I think it's been "long enough."

One thing I do love about Mixi is their communities. The only English site that's similar is livejournal, that I know of. But it seems that lj was never really that popular. Too bad. To be honest, I think they should combine with Facebook.

I also want to state that I got constant (nearly daily) emails from men asking for a date, until I erased my picture from my public profile. I still get them, though, based on the groups that I'm in. It's awful! Even when I made it a point to write that I was happily attached to someone, I still got them.

It's the same on Ameba, actually. Which is the reason that I mostly have left the site now. It's really frustrating, I'm not out asking for a date, and it's a big bother to have mails constantly coming in from crazy guys. (because seriously, what guy would expect a girl who doesn't know them to accept a blind date from a stranger?)

Why is only mixi lowercase in this article? facebook and twitter both use all lowercase letters in their official logotype. Consistency, people!

HumanTarget, Facebook and Twitter have the good sense to remember that whatever goofy layout they might use in their logos, when writing in plain text you stick to the rules of plain English, which is capitalization for the initial letters of proper nouns.

It's disheartening to see news media slavishly follow Japanese companies (and individual celebrities, for that matter) who invent their own eccentric capitalization rules and then expect others to follow them even if it detracts from readability. The article should have had "Mixi" all the way through, along with "Gree". I don't know what "DeNA" stands for, but I assume that the "e" is the second letter in the first word, so I suppose that it looks OK.

Come on, JT. Your articles are hard to read when you disregard the rules of the language you're writing in. I enjoy reading about Mixi; I don't want to read about mixi.

100 years too late

@BlueWitch: yes, my avatar is my face with surgically augmented beard and crown implant.

bwahahahaha! cactus >.<v

Having used both Mixi and Twitter, you could add them together a million times and neither one of them will ever have the potential that Facebook does.

Can I use Mixi now? or do I have to have a phone number from Japan?