Comments on Tokyotronic: Facebook is now available in Japanese, CEO Zuckerb...

Very interesting what you mention about the cultur...

2009-03-30T20:33:00.000+09:00

Very interesting what you mention about the cultural differences such as the "real identity" concept. I think it's very true in Asia including Vietnam my country.

Would appreciate it if you'd write some update on how it goes after nearly a year now. I couldn't read Japanese however very curious about SNS-development in Japan.

Facebook Mobile works on Japanese phones too (in H...

2008-06-02T11:33:00.000+09:00

Facebook Mobile works on Japanese phones too (in HTTP mode). I find the lack of applications to be its best feature!

Actually, Facebook has a mobile version that makes...

2008-06-01T16:26:00.000+09:00

Actually, Facebook has a mobile version that makes it possible to do just about everything (aside from applications). For me, I access it from an iPhone (www.iphone.facebook.com). Not too sure about other mobiles, though!

I personally find Facebook a lot better than Mixi because I am able to search for my friends and use my contact list to find every single friend I have. On Mixi, I have to know the pseudonyms my friends use.

This is great. Now, we can communicate with the Ja...

2008-05-29T05:32:00.000+09:00

This is great. Now, we can communicate with the Japanese exchange students that visit every year at my school.

Facebook does seem to be widely used by Japanese s...

2008-05-22T10:31:00.000+09:00

Facebook does seem to be widely used by Japanese studying English, however, who more or less seem to use it in a usual manner from my experience.

Came to visit or just happened to be passing throu...

2008-05-22T10:30:00.001+09:00

Came to visit or just happened to be passing through? If those rumors of him taking a global vacation to escape the negative environment of his VC backers getting rid of some of the management who are also his friends have any basis in reality, who knows.

It is an interesting cultural point as to whether japanese internet users are ready for and wanting a Facebook style "real person" SNS. How much of this is tied to desires for pseudo-anonymity and how much will be a backlash aginst the problems caused by pseudo-anonymity will be key. Also, the image/data intensive nature of Facebook does not lend itself well to a mobile version, unless the user cutoff point is keitai with 3G/HSPDA capabilities. The assumption that users will have that capability may become true in the next 6-9 months however.

One plus for Facebook in Japan is that it should a...

2008-05-22T10:30:00.000+09:00

One plus for Facebook in Japan is that it should attract a (significant?) number of English speaking Japanese users which are extremely in demand with recruitment companies (see giant banner from CareerCross on Facebook).

LinkedIn is already somewhat established with this demographic as well though, and there will probably be a large overlap in users.