Mixi (mixi.jp) is the third most popular social network in Japan after Facebook and Twitter.
Such data was presented in June 2012 by researcher Vincenzo Cosenza, who annually compiles a global map of social networks. The number of network users exceeds 20 million people. What is the secret to the success of the national social network? Let's try to give an answer. The social network Mixi emerged in February 2004 . Initially, like VKontakte, it was popular among students, but over time it went beyond this scope.
Mixi users , in addition to traditional communication through personal messages and in communities, publishing photos and videos and maintaining their own blog, have the opportunity to leave reviews about books read, films watched, music albums listened to, or computer games played. Moreover, each page with such a review contains a link to the Japanese version of Amazon, where the product under review can be purchased. It is these reviews that are one of the important sources of income for Mixi - the Japanese write them often and willingly.
When registering, you must link a mobile mailbox registered in Japan to your account, or read a special QR code. Initially, becoming a Mixi was only possible by invitation, but they were later cancelled.
Numerous experts, such as those from Mashable, note the simplicity of the Mixi . For example, this is what the user page looks like:
A characteristic feature of the network is that most of its users prefer to install other pictures and photographs instead of their own images - for example, their favorite movie and cartoon characters. Mixi administration does not interfere with such attempts. The core audience is people aged 20 to 30 years. They make up more than 60% of the total number of users.
As in Odnoklassniki, users can see who visited their page. The information posted by the user in the profile is available only to those who are registered in Mixi ; it is not indexed by search engines.
In June 2006, users were able to share information with friends about what music they listen to. To do this, you need to install the application from Mixi (the Japanese analogue of the Last.fm scrobbler).
Another feature of the social network is that a new user must add at least one friend within 3 days. Otherwise, his account will be deleted. The world of Japanese social media is ruthless .
The Mixi social network was founded in February 2004 by young Kenji Kasahara, who was not even 30. Even though the amount of money spent on advertising was minimal, the project was gaining popularity and in 2006 brought in $14,000,000 in net profit.
Social networks suddenly crashed into our lives and, realizing their advantages and popularity, they began to take root, grow and develop. There are more and more of them, variations are appearing - they are big and small, informative, media, entertaining.
Japan has its own social network, Mixi , which in its region is more popular than the notorious Facebook. By limiting the access of foreign Internet users, the social network Mixi is categorically Japanese in nature. For example, to register in Mixi you need an invitation from an already registered participant (invite). Also, registering on the site requires entering a postal address on your phone in Japan, which makes it almost impossible for guests from abroad to register.
If after registration a “friend” does not appear within three days, then the account must be deleted. Messages are only stored for 60 days, but you can bypass this rule by purchasing a paid account. By purchasing a paid account, the user is provided with more disk space and many other goodies.
Mixi pages are very similar to each other, the reason for this is the restriction of uploading your own material. The Japanese almost never put their own photos on their avatars. Their place is taken by anime and manga heroes. And yet, with a sufficient list of cons, this social network is overly popular and important for the people of Japan.
From Wikipedia: mixi (Japanese: ミクシィ, mikushi) is the largest social network in Japan after Facebook, the number of users in which, according to recent data, exceeds 8 million people. Participants in this project have the opportunity to keep their own diary (blog) and read the diaries of other people, publish photographs and videos, participate in numerous communities, exchange messages and leave reviews about media products. Working with mixi services is free, but it is possible to upgrade to a paid account (315 yen per month).
A distinctive feature of this, as well as some other Japanese social networks, is the lack of free registration in the system. In order to create your account, you must receive an invitation from one of the already registered users.
Registration on the site requires entering a postal address on a phone in Japan, which makes it much more difficult for users outside Japan to register. The only possible way to complete registration is to find a friend in Japan who has a cell phone that has not yet registered with Mixi. The fact is that a letter with an automatically generated activation link is sent to the address specified during registration, through which you need to go to the Mixi website from your phone. You cannot access it from a computer. When logging in from a phone, an individual handset number is determined, therefore you cannot register twice from the same phone.
Audience[ | ]
The core mixi audience is represented mainly by people aged 20 to 30 years, which is approximately 60% of the total number of users, with the number of men and women being almost equal. Audience activity is quite high, for example, about 67% of users visit the site at least once every three days[10].
Many Mixi users note the extremely friendly and trusting atmosphere that accompanies communication on this social network[7]. Unlike open projects, in mixi personal information is more private, since its viewing is available only to registered users, and the participant himself can monitor the dissemination of information about himself through the “footprint” mechanism. All this allows you to make the dating process consistent and more consistent with the Japanese mentality.
General information[ | ]
The social network mixi was founded in February 2004 by Kenji Kasahara (Japanese: 笠原健治Kasahara Kenji
), who at that time was not yet 30 years old [
how old exactly?
]. The origin of the name is believed to be the English words “I” (I) and “mix” (to communicate), together symbolizing the idea: “I can communicate with other people.” Initially, this service was popular only among students and computer specialists. Advertising costs during the formation of mixi were minimal, but despite this, the popularity of the site grew rapidly. Already in 2005, the number of users came close to the half-million mark[5], in July 2006, 4.8 million participants were registered on the site[6], and by February 2007 their number exceeded 8 million. September 14, 2006 mixi, inc. conducted an initial public offering on the Tokyo Stock Exchange (ticker TYO:2121), during which it was able to raise significant funds in the amount of 6 billion yen ($50 million), and revenue from advertising sales in the same year amounted to 4.8 billion yen ( 40 million dollars)[7]. Thus, currently mixi, Inc. is one of the most successful Japanese companies whose business is concentrated on the Internet.
According to many users and observers[6][8], mixi stands out from other social networks due to its user-friendliness and ease of use. In most cases, to start fully using the service, a person who knows Japanese simply needs to register. Further development is easy and straightforward thanks to intuitive controls. In addition, facilitating the perception of information is largely achieved by unifying the page design. Unlike many similar sites, mixi does not have the ability to modify the design or post additional materials; all user pages look the same, and for personalization purposes, only the uploading of three small images is allowed.
Registration in Mixi
In order to register with Mixi, you will need not only knowledge of the Japanese language at a serious level, because social. the network does not work in other languages, but also a Japanese SIM card, which will receive a message to confirm the user’s identity. It's also worth noting that this site is quite private. Therefore, to start using social media. network, you will have to receive an invitation from an already registered user. At the moment, the design of "Mixi" is very minimalist. Its distinctive feature from other sites of this kind is its white and yellow color design.
Functionality[ | ]
Personal page and user profile[ | ]
User profile
After registering in the system, the user receives a personal start page and profile page, where he can leave information about himself and place his image. Most mixi participants use photographs of movie stars, anime and manga characters, animals, or simply abstract figures for these purposes; they rarely upload their own photographs. The profile page, like all other materials, is available for viewing only to registered participants, and after each visit the user automatically leaves a “trace” (Japanese: 足あとasiato
), allowing the owner to keep track of who got acquainted with information about him.
The personal page of the user “my mixi” is accessible only to him and contains messages from other members of the social network, entries from selected communities and friends’ diaries, links to services, as well as information from external blogs obtained through the use of a web syndication mechanism. User messages are stored on the server for 60 days, but this limitation can be circumvented by upgrading to a paid account. To add a member to your friends list, you must obtain their consent. Mixi rules require at least one friend, otherwise the user account is subject to deletion within three days.
Diaries[ | ]
Each mixi user has the opportunity to keep his own online diary (blog), the entries of which can be commented on by other users. In addition to text, up to three images can be attached to each entry, for which all users are provided with 100 MB of disk space (or 300 MB for paid account holders). The author has the ability to edit the diary, delete comments, and assign different access levels to each entry. In general, this service is similar to most classic online diaries.
Communities[ | ]
Starting from April 1, 2004, mixi users were able to create communities for thematic communication, in which communication between users takes place in web forum mode. It is allowed to organize communities on any topic, although duplication of topics is not encouraged. The user who created the community becomes its curator and performs supervisory functions, also having the opportunity to transfer them to another participant.
Communities have become a real highlight of mixi, their number is so large (over 700,000 [9]) that it is very difficult to find a topic not covered by them. Cities, neighborhoods, schools, universities, clubs, and even metro stations all have their own communities where heated discussions of local news or topical conversations take place. From time to time, members of some communities organize real meetings outside the “off-kai” network (Japanese: オフ会ofukai
)[8].
Reviews[ | ]
This service allows members to leave their feedback and reviews of various media products on the site, such as music, movies, manga, books, games, computer programs and much more. Each review page contains links to the corresponding pages on the Japanese version of Amazon.com where you can purchase the product in question. As practice shows, this function is in demand by users and brings mixi, Inc. significant income.
Music[ | ]
On May 22, 2006, for users with paid accounts, and later (June 28) for all others, the ability was introduced to publish information about what music is currently playing on the participant’s computer. In order to use this function, you need to install a special program Mixi Station on your computer, which receives information about the current set of music tracks from popular Windows Media Player or iTunes and places it in a special mixi section. The user can see what music his friends or community members are listening to and, if desired, purchase the songs he likes using iTunes.
Social networks in Japan
Social networks have firmly entered our lives, and many simply cannot imagine their own existence without them, and every free minute they go to their personal page, monitoring individual messages, viewing the latest news and rating photos of friends.
The Japanese, regardless of the peculiarities of culture and mentality, also failed to avoid the craze for social networks.
In the Land of the Rising Sun, the three most popular social networks are Facebook, Twitter and Mixi. The first two are well known all over the world, but Mixi is an exclusively Japanese social network.
Poster for the Japanese social network Mixi.
The social network Mixi (ミクシィ mikushi) was created in 2004 by a young Japanese man, Kenji Kasahara (笠原健治), and he is now ranked 37th on the list of the richest people in Japan. Initially, the social network was popular among schoolchildren and students, similar to the Russian VKontakte, but over time it spread among the older generation.
By the way, if after registration the first “friend” does not appear within three days, then the account must be deleted. Messages are only stored for 60 days, but you can bypass this rule by purchasing a paid account. And for a paid account, the user is already provided with more disk space and many other “goodies”.
All Mixi pages are very similar to each other due to the limitation of uploading your own material. The Japanese almost never put their own photos on their avatars. Their place is usually taken by anime and manga characters. And even with such a list of cons, this social network is extremely popular and important for the Japanese.
It is curious that no significant funds were invested in the promotion of the project, but just 2 years after its final launch in 2006, advertising revenue amounted to about $40 million, and $14 million of which became annual net profit.
A characteristic feature of this network is that it only has a Japanese version, so it is impossible to create an account in Mixi without knowing the Japanese language. Otherwise, this social network resembles something between the Russian VKontakte and Odnoklassniki.
In Mixi, in addition, there are communities to which you can invite friends, just as invitations are sent to a VKontakte group.
In addition, like in Odnoklassniki, in Mixi you can see who visited your page, and in addition there is a “trace mechanism” that allows you to track the dissemination of information about yourself.
In addition to traditional communication through personal messages and in communities, publishing photos and videos and maintaining their own blog, Mixi users have the opportunity to leave reviews about books read, films watched, music albums listened to, or computer games played. And each page with such a review certainly contains a link to the Japanese version of Amazon, where the product under review can be purchased. These reviews are one of Mixi’s important sources of income, and the Japanese write them willingly and quite regularly.
Previously, it was possible to create a page on Mixi only at the invitation of an already registered person, but then this rule was wisely canceled.
Among Mixi users, a social phenomenon has been repeatedly recorded, which later became known as “mixi-fatigue” (mixi疲れ mikushizukare), which consists in the fact that young people who are overly addicted to online communication begin to feel tired of it, so they break off all contacts and, ultimately, As a result, they delete their account.
According to Hideo Yamazaki (山崎英雄), a senior researcher at the Nomura Research Institute (野村総合研究所 Nomura Research Institute or NRI), Mixi is a very powerful communication tool that encourages you to respond to all comments that come in. Gradually, this becomes an addiction, and a person begins to strive with all his might to follow new entries and leave his comments on them as early as possible. As the number of friends and communities he follows increases, the flow of messages increases, and eventually exceeds the person's ability to follow them. In turn, this causes a feeling of powerlessness and a gradual fading of interest in Mixi.
Audience
The core mixi audience is represented mainly by people aged 20 to 30 years , which is approximately 60% of the total number of users, and the number of men and women is almost equal. Audience activity is quite high, for example, about 67% of users visit the site at least once every three days.
Many mixi users note the extremely friendly and trusting atmosphere that accompanies communication on this social network. Unlike open projects, in mixi personal information is more private , since its viewing is available only to registered users, and the participant himself can monitor the dissemination of information about himself through the “footprint” mechanism. All this allows you to make the dating process consistent and more consistent with the Japanese mentality.
Functionality
Personal page and user profile
After registering in the system, the user receives a personal start page and profile page, where he can leave information about himself and place his image. Most mixi use photographs of movie stars, anime and manga characters, animals, or simply abstract figures for these purposes; they rarely upload their own photographs. The profile page, like all other materials, is available for viewing only to registered participants, and after each visit the user automatically leaves behind a “trace” (Japanese: 足あと asiato), allowing the owner to keep track of who has become acquainted with information about him.
The personal page of the user “my mixi” is accessible only to him and contains messages from other members of the social network, entries from selected communities and friends’ diaries, links to services, as well as information from external blogs obtained through the use of a web syndication mechanism. User messages are stored on the server for 60 days, but this limitation can be circumvented by upgrading to a paid account. To add a member to your friends list, you must obtain their consent. Mixi rules require at least one friend, otherwise the user account is subject to deletion within three days.
Diaries
Each mixi user has the opportunity to keep his own online diary (blog), the entries of which can be commented on by other users. In addition to text, up to three images can be attached to each entry, for which all users are provided with 100 MB of disk space (or 300 MB for paid account holders). The author has the ability to edit the diary, delete comments, and assign different access levels to each entry. In general, this service is similar to most classic online diaries.
Communities
Starting from April 1, 2004, mixi were able to create communities for thematic communication, in which communication between users takes place in web forum mode. It is allowed to organize communities on any topic, although duplication of topics is not encouraged. The user who created the community becomes its curator and performs supervisory functions, also having the opportunity to transfer them to another participant.
Communities have become a real highlight of mixi , their number is so large (over 700,000) that it is very difficult to find a topic not covered by them. Cities, neighborhoods, schools, universities, clubs, and even metro stations all have their own communities where heated discussions of local news or topical conversations take place. From time to time, members of some communities organize real meetings outside the “off-kai” network (Japanese: オフ会 ofukai).
Reviews
This service allows members to leave their feedback and reviews of various media products on the site, such as music, movies, manga, books, games, computer programs and much more. Each review page contains links to the corresponding pages on the Japanese version of Amazon.com where you can purchase the product in question. As practice shows, this function is in demand by users and brings mixi, Inc. significant income.
Music
On May 22, 2006, for users with paid accounts, and later (June 28) for all others, the ability was introduced to publish information about what music is currently playing on the participant’s computer. In order to use this function, you need to install a special program on your computer Mixi Station , which receives information about the current set of music tracks from popular Windows Media Player or iTunes and places it in a special mixi section. The user can see what music his friends or community members are listening to and, if desired, purchase the songs he likes using iTunes.
