Today Mixi, Japan’s biggest social network, sent out a press release (J), announcing some of the biggest changes the site has seen in recent months. The company of the same name also held a press meeting today. And they are opening up pretty radically for Mixi standards.

Here are the details:

New age limit

- starting December 10, users aged 15 and up can register on Mixi (the age limit was 18 before)

- it will not be able to look up users aged 15 to 17

- these users will not get to see “inappropriate” display or text ads

Changes in the registration process

- in spring 2009, the invitation system (new users need to be invited by existing members) isn’t mandatory anymore (but will not be abolished completely)

- as under the existing system, self-registered members must acquire another member for Mixi quickly or they will get banned

- a Japanese cell phone number is still needed for confirmation of the registration

- the terms of use will be changed accordingly

Opening up to outside services

- starting December 11, the site will offer “Mixi Appli” (beta), an open service for developers to create apps for the platform (in Facebook style)

- in spring 2009, Mixi will start “MixiConnect”, which provides users’ friends network information to outside services and applications

Mixi didn’t disclose details about the particularly interesting MixiConnect and Mixi Appli initiatives.

The site currently boasts around 16 million members (in a nation of 90 million web users) and seems to have hit a ceiling as far as membership base growth is concerned. Mixi was always known in Japan as being a notoriously closed platform. But this seems to have changed quite significantly now.

Tags: Japan by Serkan Toto
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Google today came to an agreement with the JASRAC (Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers), Japan’s largest music copyright administration body to pay royalties for music protected by local copyright and used in YouTube videos.

YouTube members are now free to upload video clips containing JASRAC-protected music (the organization controls over 1.5 million pieces of music).

Japanese copyright holders are known for their rigidity in protecting their content. Google has been forced to “clear” YouTube of Japanese content several times in the past.

Tags: Japan, News by Serkan Toto
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A ward in the residential area of the Tokyo Metropolitan Special District, Suginami Ward Authority started introduce on the ward’s newsletter and the website how to request the deletion of Google Street View images to Google.

Google Street View started last August here in Japan, it is convenient to find the route to the destination, but some critics point out problems in terms of protecting privacy and preventing crimes on the other hand.

Suginami ward said, they got several complainments from the citizens of fearing about violating privacy by Google Street View, the ward proposed to Google some image deletions last August and this month.

The ward recommends the citizens to request and submit image deletion directly to Google if required.

In similar case, the municipal assembly of Machida City or a Tokyo’s surburb also passed an opinion for encouraging the country government to make a regulation of free image uploading.  At the general affairs comittee of Japan’s lower house this month, there was a question to find the situation caused by Google Street View in foreign countries.

(via Asahi Shimbun (JP))

See Also:

Suginami Ward Authority told Google some security concerns on Google Street View [J]

Tags: Cellular Phone, Japan, News, Service by Masaru IKEDA
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After having drawn 15 million members to the site (or approximately 1 in 6 Internet users in Japan), Nippon’s biggest social network Mixi now thinks the time has come for some offline cross-promotion.

What you can see above is Mix Fruits & Calpis, a special version of Calpis, a popular Japanese soft drink that normally has a milky, yogurt-like flavor to it ( the brand name is Calpico outside Japan).

But the collaboration between Mixi and Calpis Co. Ltd., the company behind the soft drink, isn’t just an ordinary example for cross-promotion in Japan. Mixi actually established a Calpis project community on the site (which doesn’t exist anymore) and asked its members to come up with ideas for flavors for the drink.

Mixi also let users decide which catchphrases would be used to promote sales. Even the final design of the bottle was determined this way. Not a bad idea to boost customer and user involvement.

A 500ml bottle of Mix Fruits & Calpis costs 147 Yen (1.50 USD / 1.20 Euro) but there is also a 1.5l bottle available for 347 Yen (3.60 USD / 2.80 Euro).

Mixi also tied up with Osaka-based noodle maker Acecook [JP] to get its brand name on a number of noodle cups (see picture above). The Mixi noodle community [only accessible if you are a Mixi member] currently boasts over 4,000 people who contributed ideas that resulted in four different products. Mixi noodles with bacon, egg and vegetable flavor, for example, cost 190 Yen (2 USD / 1.50 Euro).

PS
Yahoo Japan also seems to have a soft spot for the noodle industry [JP].

Tags: Company, Japan, News by Serkan Toto
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18th November 2008, Japanese web hosting company Paperboy (J) (JASDAQ:3633) announced that the company will be listed to JASDAQ stock market on December 19th. Paperboy runs services like Lolipop (J), Heteml (J), and Jugem (J). Kazuma Ieiri started the business in October 2001 in Fukuoka. Paperboy is providing hosting services for consumers with very low prices.

Web hosting service ‘Lolipop’ offers a web space for 263yen ($2.6) per month. Domain name reseller ‘muumuu domain‘ (J) is providing dotcom domain with 950yen ($9.5) per year. Paperboy is a subsidiary of a global registrar GMO Internet.

In March 2005, Paperboy raised 128 million yen (1.28 million USD) from GMO Internet group with a 597 million yen (6 million USD) post-money valuation. GMO Internet group is one of the biggest Japanese Internet companies. In 2006, Ieiri sold 10% of Paperboy stocks to the GMO group.

Paperboy reported a revenue of 1.7 billion yen (17 million USD) for a FY2008. Its post-tax profit was 200 million yen (2 million USD). [1]

GMO Internet is the biggest shareholder of Paperboy, and has 59.6% of its shares. Ieiri has 38.4% share of Paperboy.

Kazuma Ieiri is known as a very funny person who is doing many funny projects. He released some web gadgets, including a Flash gadget which introduces items from his shopping site by a computer generated voice. Also Paperboy is operating a cafe called HI SCORE Kitchen (J) in Shibuya.

[1] FY2008 pre-tax profit was 356 million yen (3.56 million USD).

See also:
* A prospectus (J) (PDF)
* Kazuma Ieiri’s blog (J)

Tags: Company, Japan by Shunichi Arai
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