CyberAgent Exports Social Avatar Community To English, Ameba Pico

As pre-announced last November, CyberAgent Inc., a Japanese big web media/advertising company, launched their popular social avatar community, constructed on Flash technology, Ameba Pigu‘s English version Ameba Pico. Based on Ameba Pigu’s avatar cloths-changing, communication chatrooms and casual games, English Pico provided more avatar items for oversea cultures, adds gift and message boards features which… Continue reading CyberAgent Exports Social Avatar Community To English, Ameba Pico

Japanese Social Network Wars: GREE Overtakes Mobage-town, Is Now Japan’s No. 2

Mobile social gaming platform GREE‘s CEO Yoshikazu Tanaka repeatedly said in the last weeks he wants every Japanese to use GREE eventually (yeah, right). He also said he wants to beat direct rival Mobage-town in terms of user base in six months, and Mixi in twelve months. That was in September. And today, at the… Continue reading Japanese Social Network Wars: GREE Overtakes Mobage-town, Is Now Japan’s No. 2

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

See You, CU

Even Japan’s Web Colossus Yahoo! Japan can easily fail if trying to force real name to Japanese users. The social business networking service Yahoo! CU, which launched November 2008 is announced to cease on October 19th, before its first anniversary. CU encourages users to register their real name and organization name which they belong, to… Continue reading See You, CU

CyWorld Pulls Out From Japan

CyWorld Japan [J], a Japanese localized version of the most successful social networking service in Korea, CyWorld, announced its withdrawal from Japan in August 2009 [J]. According to the announcement, the direct cause of this shut-down is the operation failure of periodical site maintenance on May 26th. It is explained that the unstable errors after… Continue reading CyWorld Pulls Out From Japan

Democratic Party Opens Social Network For Tokyo Citizens

Japan’ opposition Democratic Party (DPJ) Tokyo branch has launched a new website “Tokyo Life”. Tokyo Life has two main sub-sites. One is “Tokyopedia” which is a wiki about topics around Tokyo metropolitan assembly and local administrative information. The tool used for the Wiki part is MediaWiki. It is said that the wiki editors are young… Continue reading Democratic Party Opens Social Network For Tokyo Citizens

Pu-pe Girl/Poupeegirl – Online Dress-up-doll Community

Pu-pe Girl is a fast-rising Japanese social community site targeting females, currently 99% of its users are women. The social network is for a certain speciality, having barbie-like dress-up avatar of your own. Pu-pe Girl is a 100% subsidiary of CyberAgent, one of the biggest Japanese web conglomerates. Luckily, and exceptional for a web service… Continue reading Pu-pe Girl/Poupeegirl – Online Dress-up-doll Community

Mixi Intoduces New Features of “MyMixi of MyMixi” and “Footprint of My Own”

  Japan’s most popular SNS “Mixi” introduced new two feature deployments today, especially on so-called “footprint” feature. You may have your own site on Mixi, and Mixi’s footprint feature allows to show you on the list when and which other Mixi users have visited your site.   With today’s system renewal, new icons are prepared for “My Mixi of My Mixi” etc., that… Continue reading Mixi Intoduces New Features of “MyMixi of MyMixi” and “Footprint of My Own”

Lang-8: Multi-lingual social network service for learning foreign lanugages

Lang-8 is a unique social network service started by a young entrepreneur Youyou Ki who lieves in Kyoto, Japan. Language Exchange SNS Lang-8 It works in this way. 1.First join to the service. 2.Then write a diary in the language you’re learning. 3.Native spekers of that language who are aslo users of Lang-8 will correct… Continue reading Lang-8: Multi-lingual social network service for learning foreign lanugages