Mixi looking to expand globally
On August 26, BusinessWeek published an article with the curious title Japan’s Mixi Tops Facebook and MySpace. Of course, this is only true in Japan; Mixi has 15 million users - mostly in Japan, while MySpace boasts 150 million users globally. Mixi, however, wants to change that ratio.
The article begins by telling us about Asuka Kosaka, who joined Facebook in order to communicate with her English-speaking friends, but uses Mixi exclusively to socially network with her Japanese friends and family members.
This is exactly the divide that Mixi is apparently seeking to resolve. According to a Reuters article published yesterday, Mixi’s CEO announced earlier this week that the firm “is seeking partners to help widen its appeal as it eyes an expansion drive in North America and Europe.”
This could make things interesting. Mixi is apparently not averse to capital tie-ups, and rolled out a version of its website in China this June. After that, Mixi intends to introduce an English language version of its website.
Mixi’s 32 year old CEO Kenji Kasahara echoed what’s on the minds of many Japanese business leaders when he said, “The Japanese market is limited. Potential is far bigger worldwide” at a news conference this week.
Electronics, automobiles and web services? Could Japan’s web services sector break big in overseas markets before the restaurant and retail chains manage to establish global brands?
Great blog Ken. Certainly very timely. More and more companies are seeing the value and beginning to utilize social media in their marketing mix. I read a very interesting article the other day in MarketingVOX. It had to do with the cultural differences in Japan and America and how that translates into the way people interact on social media sites. The article described how many people in Japan tend to use an alias on Japanese social media sites to keep their privacy and only socialize with people online that they have actually already met in person. The article then went on to describe how those same people however will use their real names when interacting on an English language social media site and be more open to communicate with people outside their personal circle of friends. Of course the author wasn’t trying to generalize all Japanese social media users, but the article made for a great philosophical discussion on what companies should keep in mind when marketing through cross-cultural social media.