A spokesperson for leading Japanese online social networking service Mixi said that Mixi was currently in the process of searching for local Chinese operators and staff with the goal of entering the Chinese market as soon as possible. At the same time, Mixi is also engaged in secret discussions with a number of local Chinese SNS sites, with the hopes of entering the Chinese market through a partnership arrangement. It has already been in discussion with several sites, including mobile social networking service TX.com, for several months, and may ultimately purchase a stake in TX.com for USD 20 mln. The source said that the two companies would cooperate primarily on a multiform wireless internet advertising model.
While the success and appeal of Facebook are well documented it is, of course, not the only SNS out there. Of the many hundreds of variants available around the world, one of the most popular is Japan’s Mixi.
Although the publicly listed mixi has a mere 10 million users (compared to Facebook’s 26 million in the US alone), that represents one in seven of all internet users in Japan. On top of that mixi users currently spend 1.2 billion minutes a month on the site – a figure that dwarfs the 726 million minutes YouTube attracts there or the 292 million racked up by Google in Japan.
Those statistics are doubly impressive when you consider that membership is by invitation only and that most users access the site exclusively by mobile phone.
As described in more detail in this excellent piece by Martyn over at Network World, among the many reasons for the success of mixi, one of the most significant has been the ability of users to control who sees their personal information within communities.
Another exmpale of impressive entry to the market is 360qun.com . Within a year 360Quan.com became Officially China’s 2nd Largest Social Network, and the fastest growing website in the history of online China. In addition, it is ranked Largest Friend Finder Website, 8th Largest Community-based Website, and nominated in the overall Top 5 most popular online destinations of China. Owned by Koolanoo Group, the company is launching several new products in 2008, mail, browser and mobile applications.
