Yomiuri Accuses A Cook Uploads Cooking Photo On Facebook

Yomiuri Shinbun, the world’s largest newspaper, today reported a new culprit who played over food and social media photo [J]. It is the latest one on the series of the stupid social media users. This bad guy carried in his own smart phone at his workplace, a school lunch center in Nagano prefecture, took photos… Continue reading Yomiuri Accuses A Cook Uploads Cooking Photo On Facebook

How Facebook Crossed the Chasm in Japan and Lessons for Other Platforms

Important note: Most of these statements are qualitative in nature. For some statements there’s not enough supporting data. Please read this post with a pinch of salt. In the summer of 2004, a new file sharing platform, named wirehog, was in the works. This platform was not that successful and it gave us a very… Continue reading How Facebook Crossed the Chasm in Japan and Lessons for Other Platforms

What to do if an earthquake strikes? LINE is the answer

We recently conducted a survey among college students and found that LINE is their most favorite social media platform. Most interestingly when we asked what they would do if there was an earthquake, they listed LINE as their preferred type of communication channel after the phone, email and the internet. This is a topic I… Continue reading What to do if an earthquake strikes? LINE is the answer

Japan`s First Social Media Focused Competition Kicks Off

KOBE, September 16, 2012. After successfully holding the 2011 Marketing Competition Japan (MCJ), in which 24 teams from 12 different universities participated, the MCJ committee officially launched MCJ 2012. The organizers of the event expect more than 150 teams from 30 different universities (mostly from Global COE institutions) to compete in MCJ 2012.The competition will… Continue reading Japan`s First Social Media Focused Competition Kicks Off

One Social Network, Two Different Stories: Qualitative Analysis of Facebook Users in Japan and the US

Since we are getting ready to conduct a large scale cross-cultural survey about social media, as a first step, we qualitatively analyzed how Americans and the Japanese use Facebook. Although qualitative studies are sometimes overlooked because of the small sample size, they tend to provide a deeper understanding of the phenomenon that is studied. To… Continue reading One Social Network, Two Different Stories: Qualitative Analysis of Facebook Users in Japan and the US

Fakes On Annular Solar Eclipse So Buzzed

Last week, Japanese Twittersphere had much debate on the topic how Twitter and social media are weak against disinformation, as a false news site Kyoko-shimbun was criticized by publishing a fake news with a real politician’s name and photo. The big astronomical event on May 21 morning gave us lots of moving photos, but it… Continue reading Fakes On Annular Solar Eclipse So Buzzed

A Summary of the Latest Studies about Japan & Social Media

2011 was not only a year that changed the geography of Japan but also a year that drastically altered the way Japanese people use social media. Facebook came out of nowhere and increased its user base more than 200% (Socialbakers) , Twitter became mainstream  (Study 4) and a Comscore report claimed that Mixi is not #1 social… Continue reading A Summary of the Latest Studies about Japan & Social Media

Japanese Government Opens Social Media(=Twitter) Guide Site For Public Organizations

Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry(METI) opened “Public Organization Social Media Portal” [J] to educate national governmental sections and local governments on how to utilize social media. The portal shows several guidelines for 1. citizens to see social media and 2. government workers to send information via social media. Interesting thing is, on this… Continue reading Japanese Government Opens Social Media(=Twitter) Guide Site For Public Organizations

[Update: recording now available] January 20: Ustream discussion panel “Social Media Predictions 2010”

Quick announcement for a Ustream event that’s going to take place this week: Tokyo-based Beat Communication, widely regarded as being one of the pioneers in the Japanese social network industry, is organizing a discussion panel (in Japanese) on the development of “social media” in 2010. Beat Communication CEO Ryo Murai asked me to be one… Continue reading [Update: recording now available] January 20: Ustream discussion panel “Social Media Predictions 2010”

Mixi Adds New Friends-Making Feature For Shy Japanese

Mixi, Japan’s largest social network service, introduced a new feature around Mai-Miku(=My Mixi, my friends) management, called My List. Your new “My List” is completely private for you, no one can see who is on it. You may add other Mixi users by random browsing, or from recommended users list. Without letting them notice, you… Continue reading Mixi Adds New Friends-Making Feature For Shy Japanese