Read the story here : Twitter launches Japanese language version

I am working on more about the topic of foreign services moving into Japan and also about the nature of social web success and failure in Japan. Stay tuned.

Of course you can always follow me on Twitter with @mikesheetal

I write about one of the methods for URL referencing in Japan. We have several interesting ways to refer toURLs here in Japan. I have written about QRCodes before, there is also a large number of advertisements in Japan that simply show the word you should search for.

In this article, I have discussed the othe common URL reference in Japan for the mobile web, menu navigation paths.

Check it out!

You can read it in today’s (March 19th) Japan Times print version or online here : http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nc20080319a1.html

Still hungry for more? I also have a new article on The Next Web today about the new interface changes from the Japanese Google top page. Check it out!

As the world opens up, Mixi (Japan’s biggest SNS) starts a content ownership lockdown.

Dependent Records followed up with an arguably justified attack on the bloggers who republished the story (which originated from Torrent Freak) because of their lack of fact checking.

From Dependent Records news blog :

“The reaction of Torrentfreak.com founder and correspondant “Ernesto” was to note that since he has a full-time job, “doing extensive research is not always an option”. He had apparently read news of the label’s closing on the Dependent web site and taken the Pirate Bay story at face value; the facts that the person pretending to be Stefan Herwig misspelled the name of the label in the original announcement, and that the official label website made no mention of this unusual offer, failed to raise any red flags with either Torrentfreak.com nor any of the other Internet sites which reprinted the story verbatim.”

Dependent Records founder, Stefan Herwig, is justifiably angry about the mis-reporting (stated by Herwig to be upwards of 15 blogs, but chances are it is a lot more than that), but how much can we expect in terms of accuracy from blogs in the first place?

As blogs gain a larger and larger role in the reporting of events around us, it is more and more important to understand who is behind the blogs and that they are not necessarily professional journalists. Often a blogger is someone who has an area of interest that they keep up with to some level, feel they have a few things to say about it, and start writing. It is not a restricted medium (although access to some form of computer does seem to be pretty important) and so you will see various levels of professionalism. That is the nature of the medium.

Loading expectations on to the blog world for journalistic integrity is flawed logic in my view. The medium is not a medium of journalism, but of expression. What confuses this distinction in some peoples minds is the that some blogs such as New York Times, Tech Crunch and yes, maybe even The Next Web, are produced by organizations or groups of individuals who choose to present theselves as serious journalists. Sometimes the a large following for a blog can catapult them in to the same expectations as the journalism based sites as seems to be the case with Torrent Freak. Although Torrent Freak would have a hard time arguing against being held to the standards of a serious news source with this from their “About” page :

“… TorrentFreak aims to be a credible news source. …”

Still I have a hard time taking things I would read on Torrent Freak as fact. It is just the nature of blogs.

For instance, this blog is not a serious attempt at journalism, it is opinion, it is things I learned that I think are interesting enough to share. It certainly doesn’t undergo the same research depth I would use when I write for the Japan Times or The Next Web. And I think that is fine for this particular medium.

Blogs are forums for small bits of information from various sources being passed on. They are mediums of personal expression and of organisational expression. By nature they are tainted by the experience of the author, for good and for bad. Those sources can be reputable or not and from a variety of opinion points. It is the strength and weakness of the medium and we should make sure not to give them the same criticism or the same skepticism that we give traditional media forms. They deserve their own standards completely. … and that is another blog post.

Livedoor is coming out of some hard times after the very public and very dramatic securities fraud convictions that led to sentences for four executives in early 2007. Most notoriously, founder Takafumi Horie (aka: “Horiemon”) was famous for his brash and aggressive business style and bore the brunt of the blame for the charges brought against the company. Even so, Livedoor still has its sights on going public in 2008. The Fon deal would appear to help their expansion. Fon, launched its wireless network in Japan in late 2006 and is currently the biggest wifi network globally.

The deal lets Livedoor customers connect to Fon’s 31,000 access points around Japan (they also have 240,000 globally) and also for Fon users to connect to Livedoor’s network which is primarily centered around the inner Tokyo area and currently has about 2,200 access points. The combined service will be free until at least the 4th of August, 2008, but there are plans to continue the service as free after that time as well.

The catch for the general user is that you have to be a member of either the Fon network or Livedoor. But from my initial checking, it doesn’t seem to be such a big deal to join. To become a Fon network member you need to buy a base station and share a wifi signal yourself (thus extending the network). However, the simple way to access now seems to be through Livedoor where it looks like a regular login account to the Livedoor portal should get you in.

Some useful links :

• Livedoor Registration form (Japanese)
• Livedoor Wireless page (Japanese)
• Fon in English and Japanese

This is the 7th most popular site in Japan after just 1 year of existence. Many of the funny jokes and comments are in Japanese, but I have still had a lot of people asking me to show them how to access the site.

When navigating a foreign language site you always have a few challenges but you can usually get by with a few guesses and some lucky clicking. For Nico Nico Douga, this is a bit more difficult than usual because you need to register first before you can see anything.

So, in order to help more people understand what this phenomenon is, I have put together this handy guide to registering and getting to the fun stuff so you can all benefit from my 6 years of clicking through Japanese websites.

1) Getting to the Register Form

The first thing is actually knowing you need to register to see something, but I have implied that, so lets get started.

From the home page, click the Registration button as marked in the screen shot below.

2) Registering

Registering becomes a lot easier when you know what all the fields are. I have tried to give a basic breakdown of all the important parts of the registration form. Follow the following screen shot for a guide on what to enter and where.

Fill out all the fields, because in typical Japanese style, EVERYTHING is a required field.

If it sends you back to the same page after you submit, that means you had an error somewhere. The most likely error is someone has chosen the same username, so the first thing to do is try a very obscure username. If you still have troubles, go through each field and double check you don’t have too many or too few characters (I have included limitations in the translations) and also make sure your age is something believable (ie. not this year).

3) Confirm Registration Details

The registration confirmation page is much easier than it looks. If you got this far, you have passed the main tests, so all you need to do is pass the human check and hit submit.

The human check is the common read the text in the image trick. It is all in western characters, so you shouldn’t have any problems. If for any reason you can’t read what is in the image, click the button next to it and you will get a fresh image.

The submit bottom is underneath there, but note, it is not the bottom button (that one will take you back to edit your details). Refer to the image for locations of where to press.

You should now see a message telling you that an email has been sent to your registered email address and you should click the confirmation link inside within 24 hours to complete your registration.

4) Check your email

You should now receive an email with the confirmation link. The mail will come from “info” and have a Japanese title.

There is only one link in the mail so not much to get confused with. Click it!

And you should get to a confirmation page like this…

You can now start to explore. The Nico Nico Douga link on that page will get you to the start with the latest news page, and you can then start clicking through the tabs on the page to check out what recent videos are available.

5) You are in!

Now that you are in you will need to explore a bit by yourself. I will give you one more screen shot as a guide, but it is up to you. It is a site where the adventurous will be rewarded.

enjoy!

As we wind down on 2007, it’s a good time to look back and see how much the Internet landscape has changed in the last year.

Internationally there have been some big shakeups, led by the dramatic effects of the meteoric rise of Facebook to prominence, both good and bad. On these shores, too, there has been plenty of online action, so we’ve rounded up some of the events that have reshaped the Japanese Internet landscape this year.

The big hit

Nico Nico Douga

Any discussion about the top Internet stories of 2007 starts and finishes with Nico Nico Douga. This video-sharing site is uniquely Japanese, blending online video-sharing with user-created, short chat-like text comments that are synced to the movies, allowing whole conversations to flow across the frame. The type of content has ranged from the crude to the incredibly insightful and inventive, and some users have even subtitled music videos with the song’s lyrics. The videos themselves are a geek’s paradise, consisting mainly of anime, video-game footage and videos of young ladies. The unique format and addictive nature of the Web site has millions tuned in, giving it one of the most dramatic growth surges ever as it went from a January launch to become the seventh-most visited Web site in Japan as of December, according to global site-ranking service Alexa.com.

[ NB: I wrote a follow up article about how to register so you can see Nico Nico Douga content ]

Mobile gaming gets the big company treatment

Disney Wonder Days

Following in the footsteps of the innovative 2006 avatar-based mobile-gaming platform MobaGe-Town, this April Disney threw in its hat with a big press push and its own avatar-based game and social-interaction platform. Disney Wonder Days capitalized on the brand popularity and makes its money from monthly subscriptions. The range of games is pretty slick and offers Disney fans a healthy selection of characters. What it represented mostly was media giant Disney jumping into the mobile social media space to capture the hugely lucrative children’s market. You know the scene is changing when the big names get involved.

Ad campaigns

Uniqlock

Japan’s most successful online ad campaign this year was arguably the “Uniqlo Clock.” The campaign consisted of a Flash-based clock, a rhythmic beat and ballet dancers moving to the clock’s rhythm. A simple idea got nationwide attention, joining television and Web seamlessly. Part of the success was due to the engaging execution and the blog widgets Uniqlo provided, so that any blogger could implement the ad on their own blog — something that thousands chose to do freely, greatly expanding the exposure of the campaign into the “blogosphere.”

PepsiNex Dance

This great use of new Flash technology let users draw their own character and then watch it dance on a stage in the middle of the screen in 3-D. When you visit the Web site you get to see characters that other people have created earlier, too — a great example of consumer-generated media blending with advertising, and a banner-bearer for advertisers the nation over.

Nike Cosplay

The Nike Cosplay campaign was one of the most joyful virals of the year. Picture a bunch of skintight body-suited ninja chasing a lone salary man down the street through the middle of Tokyo’s electronics district, Akihabara. The campaign managed to blend a bit of Nike cool with some fun and an infectious video on YouTube. That this viral wasn’t shown on other media (such as television) says a lot for the quick uptake of YouTube in Japan.

The foreigners invade

YouTube

YouTube, the biggest user-generated video site on the planet, finally made an official entrance into the Japanese market this year. After a troublesome 2006, when Japanese TV networks ganged up on YouTube with a huge takedown order on television programs that Japanese users had been uploading en-masse to the English-language version of the site, the move into Japanese language could be considered incredibly successful. There is still a lot of TV content on YouTube, but the relationship with the networks seems to be improving and it looks like the site has created a good base in Japan.

Twitter

Why do people feel the need to post micro messages about what they do at every single moment of the day? Answer that and you will understand Twitter’s success. Initially launched in 2006 in the United States, Twitter found that after launching a mobile interface in early 2007, it experienced a strange user-base shift. While the interface was still entirely in English, the posts on Twitter started to become very quickly dominated by Japanese-language posts. The simplicity and accessibility of the Twitter interface and the mobile Internet-friendly Japanese market seemed to overcome the usual extreme reluctance of the Japanese to go into foreign-language territory, and put Twitter and microblogging on the map for Japanese users.

The dinosaurs wane

Mixi

Mixi has dominated the SNS (social network services) market for a while now in Japan, but with upstart networks and blogging platforms such as Gree making some new moves, and a lot of investors to please after it went public in late 2006, Mixi made some changes to its aging platform in 2007. These cosmetic tweaks were minimal and didn’t include the changes that many were waiting for, but it was a good first step. It tidied up the interface and improved several usability issues. Are the changes enough, and are they happening fast enough? Probably not, but, in fairness, they haven’t had time to really have an impact yet. For now the waning traffic on Mixi in 2007 (down almost 40 percent since January, according to Alexa.com), can be seen as symptomatic of its inability to keep fresh.

2Channel

2Channel has long been the place to vent frustrations online in Japan. Its forums have always had a steady stream of anonymous complaints or gossip pouring in to spill the dirt, mostly on posters’ companies or pet hates. That early Web popularity has now started to become one of the downfalls of “Ni Chan,” as many large corporations have begun to block the site on their local network. The other thing fighting against 2Channel is the antiquated and hard-to-use interface. It really is a dinosaur of the early 2000s, when it grew to prominence, and is in dire need of a face lift. Since January the site has been shedding users, and it’s likely that 2008 will bring a bigger downslide if some things don’t change.

Yahoo Japan

Of course, Yahoo Japan still dominates the Japanese online market with the search, auctions, mail and other features driven from its portal. It is by far the No. 1 site in Japan, handling more traffic than the No. 2 and 3 sites combined (FC2 and Google Japan respectively). But in 2007, Yahoo Japan’s fortunes dropped to the tune of almost 20 percent, continuing a trend from 2006.

Yahoo Japan is not part of the global Yahoo brand and as such has missed a lot of the new innovation coming from outside Japan. The site is certainly geared toward the Japanese style of having lots of little text links everywhere on a page. To Western eyes this looks cluttered, although it generally gets a positive response from the Japanese public. But do the falling traffic numbers over 2007 represent the beginning of a backlash against this style and a focus on usability in Japan?

2007 has seen the beginning of exciting changes in the Japanese Internet industry, with the rise of new faces and the old faces coming back down to reality — if only just a little.

There will doubtless be new steps taken gingerly or boldly in 2008. Likely growth areas for the industry are in interaction between Web services and Web applications, such as sharing weather information and the like; more focus on taking Japanese ideas international; and, with a new range of mobile handsets recently released and more on the way that are increasingly capable of Web trickery, perhaps the mobile Internet will come a step closer to performing seamlessly with the regular Internet.

Either way, it’ll be fun finding out.