Mixi Goes Facebook (I): “Mixi Check” Is Facebook’s “Like”
Facebook announced (and rolled it out) earlier this year, and now Japan's biggest social network, Mixi, announced it, too: A function to share what you "like" on external sites with your friends. On Mixi, that function is called "Check". As you can see on the screenshot of my Mixi profile below, Mixi Check is now featured quite prominently on the top menu (which Mixi almost never changes).
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By clicking on that button, you can see what your friends (and yourself) have checked on the web (on the sites that feature a Mixi Check button, that is) and on Mixi itself in list form.
Sure, it's just a copy of one of Facebook's functions, but provided the "Check" button spreads on the web (and it probably will), the new feature can mean a significant boost in traffic for Mixi. It worked well for Facebook, at least.
For Check, Mixi has scored partnerships with a a handful of services already. Japan's biggest price comparison site, Kakaku.com, for example, already features the "Check" button on all of its product pages (see screen grab below for a video game page).
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Author Information Dr. Serkan Toto is a German based in Tokyo. Like us, he is passionate about introducing Japanese IT to the rest of the world.
Full-time, Serkan works as an independent web industry consultant for hedge funds, venture capital companies and start-ups worldwide. He is also a writer for mega tech blog network TechCrunch, covering Japan-related technology and web trends.
This is Serkan's website.
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