A recent Japanese TV drama features the Twitter phenomenon in Japan. Written by a famous screenwriter and starring popular Japanese actors, this show is about a group of youngsters who met each other through Twitter and grew their friendships and relationships in real life. This TV show shows that Twitter has gone mainstream in Japan, and makes me feel curious about how Twitter got its popularity there.

The total number of Japanese Twitter users is impressive: it passed 5 million in February and is expected to reach 10 million by the end of this year. (source) In contrast, most international social networking sites have had difficulties attracting users in Japan. For example, Linkedin and Facebook have less than 1 million users in Japan. (source) The number of registered members of the local social networking site, Mixi, is 10 times greater than Facebook. Twitter is the first foreign brand to break through and obtain success in Japan.

Launched in 2008 in Japan, Twitter didn’t establish a local office; instead, it partnered with a Japanese internet service company, Digital Garage. Using Twitter is very similar to sending text messages. Since the Japanese are heavy users of text messaging, they were able to easily adopt the Twitter service. In addition, Japanese people very often use mobile phones for web services, and Twitter Japan provided official mobile access. Furthermore, while the Japanese market was full of social networking services, there were no services in existence that were similar to Twitter.

Twitter has been implemented differently in Japan than in the U.S. Some applications and functions are only available in Japan, like video sharing and ads on each page. Twitter Japan also built a business model in January, earlier than Twitter in the U.S. Users are charged to access certain types of content, images and videos from businesses, and then Twitter shares the revenue with those companies. This model is different from the “promoted tweets” model in the U.S, Twitter’s version of keyword ads.

It is always interesting to see how culture affects technology adoption. An article from Techcrunch shows the reasons why the business model of Twitter Japan might work. Twitter obviously understands the importance of localization and how to win local customers’ hearts. Every other international web service could learn something from Twitter’s actions.

According to the IFPI, an organization representing the recording industry worldwide, 99 percent of music downloads in China are illegal. In such an unfriendly environment, how can record labels survive?

Google’s answer to the question is its new Music Search feature. Chinese users of Google Music Search can download free tracks and preview music from the partner, Top100.cn, while Google profits from ads on search results. According to The New York Times, “About 84 percent of China’s nearly 300 million Internet users download music over the Web, and most of it is used for cellphone ring tones.” Read more…

In the MCDM program, we study many positive examples of digital media. Now I would like to share information about the shutdown of Cyworld, a negative example of brand management and customer service in social media.

As the largest social networking site in South Korea, Cyworld started reaching an overseas market in 2006. Local offices were launched in the U.S., Taiwan, Japan and China. However, Cyworld’s big dream of globalization crashed in 2008. Most local offices were closed, but those services were still maintained by Cyworld headquarters in South Korea. Then in early November this year, an announcement of the closure of the Cyworld U.S. service was posted on its U.S. website and mailed to its American members. The content was poorly written and full of grammatical errors, as reported by TechCrunch. The same embarrassing thing also happened with the closure notice for Cyworld Taiwan: inappropriate phrases, grammar errors and bad layout. For loyal Cyworld users, the shutdown notices were rough and thoughtless.

Read more…

“Don’t steal my plants from my farm.” “Have you watered your farm today?”  These daily greetings about farming are getting popular in most offices in Taiwan recently. For many Taiwanese, the hot flash game called “Happy Farm” is their motivation for Facebook usage.

“Happy Farm” features social networking and gaming. Each user owns a virtual farm for cultivation. Users have to check their farms, and water and weed from time to time. Friends on Facebook are able to steal plants and send gifts, which are the most interactive and fun parts of the game. Furthermore, it’s easy to play and kills employee boredom in the office. As a result, the game’s popularity has grown amazingly. Several similar games were also developed to attract users.

Read more…

Typhoon Morakot caused serious mudslides and floods in southern Taiwan. Those scary and heart-breaking scenes have been broadcast to the world through the news. Whole mountain villages were destroyed and people lost their beloved homes and families. Bridges collapsed and traffic to the city was cut off. The situation demanded rescue services, food, supplies and medical treatment.
Read more…

Cyber violence is a serious problem in South Korea. Nearly 200,000 cases were reported in 2007, which is 50% increased than in 2006. Several celebrities committed suicides because they were too depressed about the serious criticism on the Internet. For example, Choi, a 39-year-old actress, was a national sweetheart in South Korea. Bloggers criticized her about her personal life, loan scandals and divorce.  She suffered from depression and ended her life in 2008. The government in South Korea has enforced the real-name verification law this year to prevent irresponsible messages. From April 1^st, 2009, websites which have 100,000 unique visitors per day have to verify users’ identify before they post any content on the websites. Read more…

The recent highlighted entertainment news in Japan is that, a famous celebrity, Tsuyoshi Kusanagi, was arrested for public displaying nudity when he got drunk on April 23th. Kusanagi is a member of the most popular boy band “SMAP” in Japan and his agency “Johnny & Associates, Inc.” is famous for promoting male idols. Kusanagi has a positive image featuring with his gentle personality for years. His ability of speaking Korean fluently also promotes his popularity in Korea. He is not only an actor, singer, host, but also a frequent guest in different culinary programs on Japanese TV.

The news was broadcasted widely in Japan, Korea, China and Taiwan. Because of his pervious good image, most people were surprised by his scandal. He apologized in a news conference after finishing the inquiry from the police. The ratings of TV news were increased a lot because of the live broadcasting. Then all the advertisements related to Kusanagi were removed and the estimated loss for his revenue is 3000 billion US dollars. Kusanagi is also the spokesperson for national digital TV. Even Kunio Hatoyama, Minister of Internal Affairs in Japan, blamed him seriously as, “disappointing person.” Besides, Kusanagi will stop working for several months. The scandal brought Kusanagi the most serious crisis in his career life. Read more…

Cyworld US website is still live, but the office may quit from USA and back to South Korea. The company will focus on Korean operation more in the future. I still remember when Cyworld US launched in 2006, how CNNor other media described the power of Cyworld in South Korea and considered it as a strong competitor of MySpace. Now Cyworld pulls its plug from US market. What happened? Read more…