Thursday evening we reported that Facebook released a new application to put your updates on Facebook into its local rival Mixi.
2 hours later, 9:15 p.m. 28th (Japan Time), Nikkei reported [J] the news with a title “US Facebook allied(Teikei, in Japanese) with Mixi, shares information on social sites”. Nikkei said that Facebook announced their alliance with Mixi.
On Friday, Tokyo Stock Exchange, Mixi’s stock rose 5-6 % and hovered for the full day, likely by the Nikkei’s report.
By seeing how the app worked with my own accounts, I thought what the Facebook app do with Mixi are limited, and it gives advantages only for Facebook side. So I concluded (tweeted in Japanese) Facebook Japan makes this on regular Mixi’s developers program which is public to anyone. (You need a Japanese cellphone to register the program but it is doable for Facebook.)
At 10:30 a.m. Morningstar Japan reported this “alliance”, but also got Mixi side’s comment, “(They) participate to use our API (a kind of development technology). The expression of alliance is too exaggerated”. Mixi is not planning any release on this.
Most other Japanese media used the word “Renkei”(linkage, interfaced, cooperation, etc.) instead of “Teikei”(ally, affiliate, partnering, cooperation, etc.). “Renkei” means alliance but it can also mean that two things are just connected.
Probably because of Nikkei’s strong influence, Mixi’s stock hovered high for all Friday, to the weekend market closing. The closing quote was 468,000 yen, 28,000 yen/6.36% up. We will see if this trend continues soon on Monday morning.
If this application’s link is not favored by Mixi, Mixi is possible to shut off or interfere the API usage. @agektmr gave me a good tip [J] that Facebook once shut down access to their open API from Google Friend Connect.
