JapanForum.com  


Reply
 
LinkBack Thread Tools
(#1 (permalink))
Old
maye (Offline)
New to JF
 
Posts: 8
Join Date: Jun 2010
Twitter a hit in Japan as millions 'mumble' online - 06-27-2010, 08:27 AM

TOKYO —
Twitter is a hit in Japan, succeeding where other social networking imports like Facebook have foundered as millions “mumble”—the translation of tweet—and give mini-blogging a distinctly Japanese flavor.

The arrival of the Japanese language Twitter service in 2008 tapped into a greater sense of individuality in Japan, especially among younger people less accepting of the understatement and conformity their culture is usually associated with, analysts say.

A mobile version of Twitter started last October, further fueling the Twitter boom in a nation where Internet-connecting cell phones have been the rule for years.

These days, seminars teaching the tricks of the tweet, as the micro-blog postings are known, are popping up. Ending Japanese sentences with “nah-woo”—an adaptation of “now” in English—is hip, showing off the speaker’s versatility in pseudo-English Twitter-speak.

A TV show features characters that tweet. A Tokyo bar has screens showing tweets along with World Cup games. And pop idols, a former prime minister and plain regular people are all tweeting like crazy.

The proportion of Japanese Internet users who tweet is 16.3% and now surpasses the ratio among Americans at 9.8%. Twitter and Japan’s top social networking site, mixi, have been running neck-and-neck with monthly visitors between 9 million and 10 million but in April Twitter squeaked past mixi, according to ratings agency Nielsen Online.

In contrast, only 3% of Japanese Internet users are on Facebook compared with 62% in the U.S., according to Nielsen. MySpace has also failed to take off in Japan, at under 3% of Net users versus 35% in the U.S., according to comScore Inc.

Twitter estimates Japanese write nearly 8 million tweets a day, or about 12% of the global total. Data from Tweet Sentiments, a website that analyzes tweets, show Japanese are sometimes tweeting more frequently than Americans.

“Japan is enjoying the richest and most varied form of Twitter usage as a communication tool,” says Daisuke Tsuda, 36, a writer with more than 65,000 “followers” for his tweets. “It’s playing out as a rediscovery of the Internet.”


(source: Twitter a hit in Japan as millions 'mumble' online <--read more)

This goes to show the new arising popularity of Twitter in Japan and also the power of virtual micro-blogging~ (Y)
Reply With Quote
Reply


Thread Tools

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

vB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Trackbacks are On
Pingbacks are On
Refbacks are On




Copyright 2003-2006 Virtual Japan.
SEO by vBSEO 3.0.0 RC6