Now that Myspace has a Japanese
interface I had to think about if it will take over as the leading SNS for Japan
. Thinking
about it I realize that there is no way it could take over. I’m a user of both & know why Japanese like Mixi so much. I could easily see why many will like MySpace also.
Myspace screams American style, & Japanese get a chance to chat for free with native Americans. This is a huge plus for those studying English. Japanese that I’ve seen using Myspace are not there trying to link up with other Japanese. This is why it won’t be for everyone.
Mixi does the task well of letting Japanese link to people who interest them. You feel funny on Myspace not having your own picture on your profile. But on Mixi also 90% of the profiles have a completely random icon. These are uploaded & selected by users, most who feel they just want to be on the net without someone knowing exactly who they are. Being American I also find it extremely hard to remember who is in my friend’s list. I have to close to 1000 people & because no one uses their real pictures I always forget who my actual real friends are too.
Mixi has provided solutions for this lately letting users write memo’s on their friends profiles so they can remember who’s who.
Not everyone is going to want to speak to non Japanese, it’s going to be hard to compete. One advantage that MySpace does have is the music technology, Mixi only recently added video support & that’s only for subscribed members at around 500 yen a month.
Anyway let’s see how it goes next year, I could be wrong.
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