Facebook in Japan: Will It Blend?

It is rumored in Japan that Facebook will be establishing an office in the island nation sometime in 2010.  This comes after Twitter successfully launched their Japanese operations in 2009 and now supposedly have more than 2 million registered Japanese users, more than it is estimated that Facebook has in Japan.  If this is true, Japan is one of the few countries where there are more than Twitter users than Facebook.  So, Facebook in Japan: Will it Blend?

MySpace actually entered the Japanese market back in 2006, but it was never able to gain popularity.  Facebook launched its Japanese user interface back in 2008, and has had a slow organic growth since then.  Unfortunately, Facebook still lags way behind the leading Japanese social networking site with less than 1/10 of their membership.

Of course, still the leader in the Japanese social networking scene is Mixi, which currently boasts more than 25 million predominantly Japanese Gen Y users (note: you need to have both an invitation from a present user as well as a Japanese mobile phone to register, which limits the Mixi demographic to those residing in Japan).  If you can read Japanese, this site actually gives the real-time number of present Mixi users.  Although other sites such as Ameba, a predominantly blogging site, as well as Mobage Town and  Gree, social networking sites with lots of games (and plenty of virtual currency!) that are used primarily over the cell phone, are also very popular, Mixi is still King of the social networking sites in Japan much as Facebook is here in the United States.

If Mixi didn’t exist in Japan this would be another story, but how can Facebook compete against this predominant player in the Japanese market?  Not to mention there are some serious cultural differences awaiting this American company as they embark on their Japanese journey:

1.) Mixi Users Tend to Use Nicknames

Japanese social networking users tend to like their privacy and therefore will tend to use a nickname instead of their real name.  Facebook requires you to use your real name.  This is going to be the first wall that new Facebook users in Japan will have to overcome for it to become popular.

2) Who’s Viewed Your Facebook Profile?

We don’t know who’s viewed our Facebook profile.  Mixi users feel safe in using Mixi because they can see who has viewed their profile with the “ashiato” (“footprint”) functionality.  This is not a for-fee service like LinkedIn: it is a fundamental part of the Mixi platform that is guaranteed for all users.  Will Facebook create this functionality for the Japanese market?

3) Mixi is Community-Centric

Aligned with using nicknames, Mixi users join a lot of communities where they can learn new information all the while keeping their anonymity.  Facebook has its share of Groups, which are similar to Mixi communities, but again, there is no anonymity in Facebook.  This could potentially make it harder to create the same types of strong communities that are one of the cornerstones of Mixi.  The below quote is good food for thought here and difficult to imagine in a Facebook-scenario:

“In using the Internet to anonymously talk about their troubles, or show off their strong points, or make people laugh,” he said, “people in Japan can now interact based on what is actually being said, without worrying about who is talking.” – Tetsuya Shibui, Writer

Note that Mixi boasts more than 1 million communities among 25 milion users.  Facebook has 1.6 million “pages” among 350 million users [Facebook didn’t have an official number of Groups statistic].  This should give some indication as to the relative popularity of the Mixi communities.

4) Facebook is Culturally Direct

Anyone who has done business in Japan knows that communication is done a bit more indirect there than in the United States.  Want to turn away a potential vendor?  Telling them that you’ll “think about” their proposal is the same as turning them down.  Have a guest in Kyoto who has stayed too long?  Bringing out the tea will signal that it’s time for them to go home.  You get the picture.

What is the problem with Facebook then?  From the minute you log on you are barraged by pictures of “people you may know” or social ads.  Furthermore, considering the privacy cloak of a nickname that is used on Mixi, Japanese users will wonder how often their pictures are being shown to others.  It’s one thing to search for someone that you know to connect with; displaying a picture without searching, however, may seem a bit abrupt to the average Japanese user.

The interesting thing is that the popularity of Twitter in Japan has brought two of its competitors, Ameba and Mixi, to create their own “Twitter-like” functionality.  Furthermore, as famous Japanese celebrities and politicians flock to Twitter using their real names, maybe that will set the stage for Facebook to become successful in Japan.  Will FB blend in Japan?  Only time will tell…

For an interesting read on the Japanese social networking environment and cellphone usage, please check out this excellent Slideshare presentation (note that some of the usage numbers are dated by several months):