Twitter goes mobile in Japan
2009-10-15 18:00
Tokyo - Twitter Inc is turning Japanese. Or at least trying to.
The popular microblogging service launched a Japan-based mobile version on Thursday, hoping to penetrate a country where other US social networking sites including Facebook and MySpace have failed to capture much ground.
Japanese is Twitter's sole foreign language platform so far, and the company's efforts here indicate it's serious about making it in Japan.
Twitter teamed up with Tokyo-based Internet firm Digital Garage Inc in early 2008. It launched a Japanese-language platform for cell phones and other mobile devices in the spring of 2008, and hired a Japan country manager earlier this year.
The company is experimenting with making money from features it doesn't use on its English language site, such as banner ads.
Going mainstream
While early adopters were mainly male tech geeks, the messaging service is finally gaining some traction in mainstream Japan. Between January and June, the number of users jumped almost fourfold to 783 000, according to Internet research firm NetRatings.
Japanese celebrities and politicians are starting to sign up. So are traditional media outlets like newspapers and radio stations as well as municipalities and companies eager to take advantage of Twitter's marketing potential.
Lawmaker Kenzo Fujisue first heard about Twitter from a friend in Silicon Valley and now tweets regularly throughout the day. He has more than 5 400 followers, and his 140-character messages - all in Japanese - range from serious policy issues to the more mundane, like what he ate for dinner.
"People don't really know what politicians do," he said. "Twitter helps me give people a glimpse of the lawmaking process."
Mixi has 17 million users
Still, Twitter remains a mystery to the vast majority of Japanese Web users. Mixi, the country's top social networking site, has 17 million users and is aiming for 30 million within four years.
The key to expansion in Japan is to go mobile, Digital Garage's Rocky Eda said in June.
A survey the company conducted earlier this year showed that 95% of Japanese Twitter users accessed the service via cellphones. Mobile-based writers account for some 40% of regular blogging in Japan, and about a quarter of Mixi users rely on their cellphones to update their pages.
While Twitter already operates a mobile site in English, many of its features are incompatible with Japanese language usage. Instead, many mobile users in Japan had been relying on third-party platforms like "movatwitter".
The new Japanese mobile version was jointly developed by Twitter and Digital Garage, and is compatible with Japan's major mobile carriers and the quirks of the local market. Emoticons can be imbedded into messages, and users can directly update their profile without having to turn to their PC.
Yukari Matsuzawa, Twitter's Japan country manager, says that growth will also depend on users themselves.
"As Japanese people creatively start to use Twitter, it will help define what the tipping point will be," she said. "It will be a combination of excellent innovative users in Japan as well as more celebrities, as well as influential people."
- SAPA