Twitter Has Gone Mainstream in Japan

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.

New in Lafayette.

Well, I know I haven’t updated  this blog for two month. I moved to East Bay in California in the middle of Feb, and went back to my hometown, Taiwan for three weeks. Now I’m still getting used to everything here.

This city is Lafayette. It’s a place with the population of 2,3000, a place that is most quite and peaceful city I have ever lived in. I’m so surrounded by threes, flower and hills. Good for my eyes? I know!

This public is the first place I like. It was remodeled and reopened in Nov, 2009. This is a corner in the build with a special installation on the ceiling.  Lights reflect on the wall and floor whenever sun light moves. I could see rainbows underneath the table and on my feet. One more cool thing about the library is that, there is a used bookstore. All the books are donated by others, so prices for each book are really cheap. I only spent 2 bucks to get Seth Godin’s book.

Another places got media’s attention in Lafayette is the hillside memorial. The land owner built a collection of crosses in 2006 on his land near the BART station. Each cross presents  U.S soldiers’ death in Iraq.

Honestly, I’m not used to the broadness of this place. It’s not so city to me. Hopefully, I’ll find out more interesting spots of Lafayette soon. =)

Postcard Stories- Janis Joplin

I have a collection of postcards. Some came from friends, others were bought by myself. I decided to blog about those postcards, since each of them has its own story.

I got this postcard in 2008, while I was visiting my family member in San Fransisco. That city is famous for hippies. Nowadays, those flower kids became all kinds of souvenirs, for tourists like me to think of hippie culture.The postcard is one of the examples. Singer/ songwriter Janis Joplin, who was active in the 60s, was photographed in front of the Palace of Fine Arts with her Porsche 356.

Last year, I visited SF again and went to Palace of Fine Arts particularly, just for imagining the scene when Janis Joplin was here 40 years ago. I miss her and years of hippies which are already gone.

My Name is Jimi Hendrix

“My Name is Jimi Hendrix” is a song from a Taiwanese band, Wonfu. It was also my first experience with Jimi Hendrix. I’m glad that I have the chance to live in a same city with Jimi, so I enjoy finding him somewhere in Seattle. For example, the architecture of Experience Music Project was designed based on the shape of Jimi’s guitar. There is also an ongoing exhibit of Jimi Hendrix in the museum. In the neighborhood of Capitol Hill, a statue of Jimi is located in front of Everyday Music Records. Recently, I finally visited his grave in Renton.

Even Jimi Hendrix is a Seattle-ies, his music career didn’t relate to Seattle that much. He joined army after he dropped out from high school, then he moved to New York for his music career. He was found died in London in 1970 and his body was returned to his hometown, Renton.

The grave site was re-built in 2002 with three pillars and his autograph. In the center of the site locates his original gravestone. His father and grandmother’s grave sites are also nearby.

The grave is surrounded with flowers and marks of kisses on Jimi’s autograph are visible.  I believe that many people come visiting Jimi that he hardly feel longly. I should sing the Taiwanese song to him there.

Book Review: Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody

Clay Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody is my first book required in MCDM program, but also the last one. I chose this one as my optional book because I know that I’ll learn something different from the first time I read it a year ago. In the book, Clay Shirky talks about a new model of group formation. With the development of social media, formation of collective action has been evolved, too. Now people are able to participate in group action without being organized formally. Websites like Wikipedia and Flickr are platforms that motivate people to contribute spontaneously. As a faculty of Interactive Telecommunication Program at NYU, Shirky doesn’t present his opinions from a technical part, but rather from social and economical perspectives. He affirms the new model of group formation and believes that it brings benefits to the society.

This book is informative by providing many familiar cases that are happening in our daily life. Shirky is good at telling stories and showing his statements from extension of each story. Therefore, the book is quite readable and enjoyable.

I did have different thoughts from my second time reading. I read the book when I just started the program fro the first time. Social media and social production were still new to me. Therefore, I couldn’t interact much with the book since I didn’t know much about social media. One year passed, and I’m graduating in two weeks. I’m thinking about that, as a MCDM student, what can we react differently with people who are not studying in social media?

The first thing comes to me is that the collapse of existing organizations. As Shirky discusses in the book, professional groups, market-orientated firms are all influenced by the new model. How about education system? We’re adopting social tools in the classroom already. I love using Twitter to see classmates, instructors and guest speakers’ conversations keep going on and on. Media Space is an ideal tool, but I feel more obligated than spontaneous to use it. What can we do to help students learning more efficiently out of a classroom? Students’ engagement in designing our curriculum is one idea. Students can decide which specific perspective they want to hear from the class by recommending guest speakers or suggesting topics for discussion in each class. I also expect students to work on projects with people not only from our program. A more collaborative work generates more thoughts to stimulate unexpected but amazing results.

Second, since we’ve known the power of social media from the program, how can we utilize it? I found personal brand becomes more important. Collective action happens more easily and frequently. Personal specialty and recognition are required for a social production project. For example, people might find a job through Twitter or Facebook. Their reviews on Yelp or Amazon might be shown in social search results. When they are talking online, that conversation becomes a part of personal brands. Since most of MCDMer’s jobs relate to social media. Our performances on social media might bring us more chances for our career life.

Third, MCDM students have responsibility to educate others about new group formation and social media. It will be challenging to convince our bosses or colleges who have been relied on the old model for many years, even decades. Moreover, the new model of group formation is shifting our structure of society so fast. But people’s adoption to the new model seems much slower. If a firm couldn’t keep updating the way it organizes people and work, it will be eliminated through out the competition, which is resulted from the new model.

I’m convinced by Shirky’s statements in the book. However, there are some questions I would like to ask. First, Shirky affirms the benefits from the new model of group formation. I’m wondering are there any features in traditional group formation couldn’t replaced by the new one? Is the new model so perfect?

Second, Shirky uses open source as a successful example because it’s failure for free. I doubt that if “failure for free” is more positive than negative. In a market-based firm, making profits is their first priority. The firm can’t afford trying and invest the product which is potential to make profit. An open source project has no restricts on budgets or profits. There are many projects failed to make one case to be successful. “It is not an organization, it is an ecosystem, and one that is remarkably tolerant of failure. Open source doesn’t reduce the likehood of failure; it reduces the cost of failure.” (P246) In my opinion, although failure for free encourages people to try everything, it also brings more opportunities for failure. People who work under the structure of traditional firms might try their best to success because they get paid from the job. When it comes to open source project which isn’t profitable, people becomes less stressful about the results. Therefore, I doubt the effectiveness of failure for free. This issue also shows my concern about the transition. While both of the models coexist in the society, how can we transfer from one to the other?

I enjoyed reading Shirky’s book. It’s hard for me to argue with him. This is a best introduction for MCDM new students, who are eager to know what’s happening. The book is also highly-recommended for people who are going to engage in the new model as a professional. Just like me now. People can learn a lot about new group formation from and book and get ready to use the power of organizing without organizations.

References:

Shirky, C. (2008). Here comes everybody: The power of organizing without organizations. New York: Penguin Press.