January 25, two of Japan's largest social networking service companies, DeNA(who runs Mobage) and Mixi announced their new alliance on social commerce.

On the release, it is said that "Mixi, who holds networks of close friends" and "DeNA, who has plenty of knowledge on e-commerce and has been running Bidders (mobile shopping service)" are going to construct a new social commerce service in this growing sector.

Planned in late March, a mall-type social commerce service will be opened in Mixi. There are already some major companies, including Lawson HMV Entertainment, Sanrio(=Hello Kitty) and Cecil McBee decided to have their shops. Other companies are encouraged to contact them to join.

Whilst Gree, the rest of the big three, has been competing severely against DeNA's Mobage on social game platform (1, 2), Mixi and DeNA seemed to have friendly relationship by using phrases co-existence of "social graph" and "virtual graph".

But still, they are common in having social games on their own open platforms. The release does not have single word of "Mobage".

See Also:

Mixi's release [J]

DeNA's release [J]

Tags: Japan, News by Akky Akimoto
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2011 is over - reason enough to take a look at some of the key trends that shaped Japan's web, mobile, and gaming industries last year.

I could think, in no particular order, of five major developments that made a significant impact last year:

March 11 Triple Disaster
The triple disaster that hit Japan on March 11, 2011, highlighted the power and importance of social media and the web at large when it comes to communicating and sharing information with others - especially as the phone networks went bust immediately after the earthquake and made voice communication impossible.

Challenges remain, such as the digital divide (young vs. old people, users who are web-savvy vs. those who aren't, etc.) or the danger of mass-distributing false information through social media, but the web's "reputation" has clearly risen in Japan.

Internationalization
The list of Japanese web, mobile, and gaming companies that started expanding across borders (or bolstered their efforts) in 2011 is long: Rakuten, DeNA, GREE, Dwango's Nico Nico Douga, and CyberAgent are just the most prominent examples.

Quite a few startups are now creating services that are multi-lingual from the get-go (i.e. Sumally, Beatrobo, Crowsnest, etc., etc.).

The tech industry is maturing, Japan's population is greying, and entrepreneurs need to deal with saturated markets: expect internationalization to only pick up speed in the next years.

Android Revolution
The smartphone revolution started earlier than 2011 (mainly driven by the smash success of the iPhone), but it was during the last year that Android really started gaining a foothold in Japan. Just one example: SoftBank's winter 2011 cell phone line-up includes just one feature phone - but nine Android handsets.

Feature phones are still king in Japan, but market research companies like Tokyo-based MM Research are expecting smartphone shipments to outnumber those of traditional handsets next year.

Americanization
2011 is the year that Facebook started to become popular in Japan even though it will take at least another year to determine how sustainable the growth really is - not too few people think it has the potential to eventually throw market leader Mixi off the throne. Twitter has seen another massive boost in popularity after March 11 (see above).

In mobile, Google's Android and Apple's iOS are set to dominate the market in the next years - local mobile platforms have no chance in the foreseeable future.

• the removal of sim-locks in Japanese cell phones
• the termination of analog TV (and rise of connected TVs) after 58 years
• major Japanese video game makers going social,
• or ebooks slowly (but surely) gaining popularity in Japan.

Tags: Japan, Trend by Serkan Toto
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As we reported on 25th, Twitter Japan and Mixi had a press conference today at 14:00 November 30.

The two of Japan's top social networking services are jointly to develop new services, as well as advertising products. Mixi's current services will have Twitter-support, too.

One example already started is seen on Mixi Xmas, a Mixi app provided by Mixi itself only during Winter holiday season, has "also to tweet" function after suggesting users to send a message on Mixi Voice. The two networks will collaborate on other seasonal events. My guess (Mixi threw away its microblog Mixi Voice and replace it with Twitter) was incorrect.

As the press conference beginning at 14:00, before the market close, shows, the announcement turned out to have small impact.

It could have been disappointing announcement that not much real changes and integration seem to be happening, however, Mixi users' sentiment on Twitter seems that people are satisfied that Mixi did not bring in any big change.

Tokyo market also showed some expectation before announcement, drop by disappointment after that.

[Update 15:50] No official announcement are posted on their website, yet. On Mixi's corporate site, the announcement has been posted [J].

See Also:

Internet Watch [J]

ITMedia [J]

Tags: Japan, News by Akky Akimoto
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ITMedia reported [J] today that Twitter Japan and Mixi, Japan's largest social networking service as a Facebook-kind-of, will held a joint press conference next Wednesday, November 30 with Twitter Japan Country Manager James Masaakira Kondo (@jameskondo) and Mixi CEO Kenji Kasahara (Mixi profile [J]). It is not disclosed what will be announced there.

Mixi is running a Twitter clone Mixi Voice inside, but it is not so successful if you compare Twitter's huge popularity in Japan. Although there are no clue yet, I guess it could be replacing Mixi Voice with Twitter and cooperate against their common imaginary enemy, a challenger Facebook. If it is so, Twitter may get more fruit but I am not sure what Mixi can get from it.

Tags: Japan by Akky Akimoto
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Japanese (orthodox) large social network Mixi is trying to expand their apps experience on more devices.

On September 21, Mixi released [J] an Windows Phone app. (Windows Phone 7.0 or above. 7.5 recommended)

image: Mixi Voice short messages on Windows Phone's Panorama user interface

image: your friend's posts page

The app can be downloaded on the official Windows Phone Marketplace, search by "Mixi".

On October 5, they released [J] iPad application.

image: the top page of the app

image: a single post page

This iPad version is available on iTunes App Store

Mixi released iPhone app on July 30, 2008, Android app on Christmas Eve 2010.

Tags: Japan by Akky Akimoto
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