twitter goes into Japan assisted by Digital Garage

Posted on January 8th, 2008 by Akky Akimoto

Digital Garage Inc. announced its capital and business tie-up with Twitter inc..

Digital Garage makes some disclosed amount of investment not more than 100,000,000yen(about $915,000), and also helps Twitter’s localization development in Japan. Digital Garage and Twitter will launch Japanese microblogging service for both PC and cellularphone browsers by this spring 2008.

# It is not told whether it is Twitter with Japanese UI, or another new service based on twitter technology.

Twitter founder Evan Williams revealed that they have 20% Japanese users in November.

Although Twitter does not have Japanese interface, it is holding the biggest user share among microblogging in Japan, leaving other followers far behind, which including Mogomogo, Wassr, Timelog, Haru, feecle.

Like YouTube got succeeded without Japanese menu, Twitter is going well because microblogging service does not require much English skills to use, as far as users are limited within early adapters. But to encourage wider users to join, Japanese menu localization is must.

Digital Garage incubates internet technology companies including Technorati Japan with Technorati. The company co-founded by Joi Ito.

[update 2008-01-20] official Twitter Blog mentioned about this news over a week later, then TechCrunch followed.

Tags: Japan, News //

No Responses to “twitter goes into Japan assisted by Digital Garage”

Gen Kanai weblog // Jan 8, 2008 at 1:59 am

I saw this earlier in the Japanese press but Asiajin covers the fact thatDigital Garage has invested in Twitterand will be bringing a Japanese interface to Twitter in the Spring. One of the market differences Twitter faces in Japan is that Japan does not use SMS on mobile phones. There is no SMS in Japan. Email is used. However, mobile phone email is a complex
Uberbin.net | Un simple weblog // Jan 15, 2008 at 12:47 pm

Pese al affaire Terra Twiiter, algo que no termino de entender porque Terra es de telefónica que sería un socio ideal para Twitter, hoy se conoció queDigital Garage va a invertir casi un millón de dólares para llevar Twitter a Japóny lanzarlo, a mediados de 2008, con la posibilidad de actualizar vía SMS e interfaz móvil algo que ahora no tienen en ese mercado. Un detalle interesante de Twitter, el 20% de sus usuarios son japoneses y, hace un tiempo, un 10% era de Madrid que
The killer attitude // Jan 17, 2008 at 8:32 am

Twitter is about to launch in Japan later this year according tothis source. Also mentioned here. This seems to be a localized version. The first non-english one. Twitter.jp is already registered, but it doesn’t look like it belongs to Twitter? Or does it? Do you know japanese? As the text on Twitter.jp is enclosed as images
Welcome to CenterNetworks - The New Standard In Web Technology News and Opinions // Apr 23, 2008 at 3:21 am

for the Language drop down menu), and was already displaying the first first banner ad set up by Twitter. It will be interesting to watch how audiences react to having ads placed on the highly popular social networking site. Digital Garage hasalready investedabout 1 million US into having their partnership with Twitter.

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