Recently in SMO Category

Lifemedia has conducted a survey on the usage of Facebook in Japan.
The study was conducted on people between the age of 10~69, 100 users per decade per gender (i.e. 100 male teenagers, 100 women in thirties, and so on.)

Of all the participants, 13.3% are signed up for facebook and 14.4% didn't know what facebook was.

22% of women in their twenties and 12% in their thirties are registered facebook users compared to 20% of men in their twenties and 8% in their thirties, seem to show that women are more proactive in participating in new media activities.

On the other hand, 41.1% of women, compared 29.4% of men, haven't signed up for a facebook account because they don't want to register under their real names.

In Japan, Facebook hasn't spread as fast as it did in other countries. The reasons why people sign up for a facebook account is to get in touch with / keep in touch with distanced friends and relatives. From the survey, it seems that people were unsure of the benefit for using facebook.

From the survey, it seems that people are already aware of facebook. It may just need good promotion schemes or reasons to seep in.

A Japanese SNS site mixi has released a new application for smart phones called 'Social Phone'.

Similar to other SNS mobile applications, you can edit your status, upload pictures, write diaries, review the status of your friends, and so on. It's a great update from its predecessor with simple functions to view updates and write diaries on its platform.

In the near future, mixi is planning to add functions for users to view their friends on the map, and using the felica supported phones, users will be able to make mixi friends on the spot by bumping their phones.

Added features will help users connect in the real world as well as in the digital universe, but would you want your online friends to know where you are?

On February 28th, a major Japanese Advertisement Agency, Dentsu has announced that the agreement was made between Dentsu and Facebook for Dentsu to become the official ad sales representative of the Facebook advertisement in Japan.

With this agreement, Denstu will have the exclusive rights to sell the Facebook Premium Advertisement, located on the right side of the page, and will have priority access to Facebook's latest technology and news.

Already famous Japanese clothing company, Uniqlo, is amongst the companies which already utilizes Facebook for its promotions. Will this agreement help other Japanese companies to promote their presence in the international market?

News site, Mycom Journal has published an article about the social media usage trend amongst Japanese Corporations.

The market study was conducted by NTT Resonant and Looops Communications and published on January 20th, 2011.

The survey was conducted on the personnel, in charge of Comapnies' Twitter accounts. Since the last survey, conducted in July, 2010, the usage of YouTube grew by 19.6% and Facebook by 9.6%.

The main aims of the social media usage are, 'branding' and 'PR'.

The companies which allocate more than 3,000,000 yen for Social Media budget grew from 31% to 50% of the total answers.

Large corporations are beginning to create social media guidelines. The main concerns amongst the social media personnel of the corporations are the lack of human resources and the hardship of measuring the effect of the social media.

NTT Resonant and Loops Communications, have conducted a market research on Corporations' Usage of Twitter.

Out of 315 effective study participant votes, more than 60% of them said they started using Twitter in 2010.

33.3% of the corporate users actively comment on consumers' tweets about their products, thus monitoring feedback of the customers and actively communicating with customers.

65.5% of the study participants answered that the access numbers to their official blogs increased since they started using Twitter. 47.6% of them said that new customers increased after they started using Twitter.

But, more than 40% of them answered that it is difficult to measure the effect of Twitter usage.

More than 90% of the study participants answered that their company is either keeping or increasing the Staff number & budget for their Twitter accounts.

When asked, which Social Media they are planning on utilizing actively, 74.6% of them said Twitter, followed by Blog at 59.7% and only 15.2% of them said Facebook.

It seems like Twitter is getting more popular in the Japanese corporate world. The current challeng is to set the right KPIs and guidelines for those who are new to the Twitter world.

A writer blogging about other bloggers in Japan: blogger matrix.

This list only concerns business book review blogs, but if you are interested in finding Japanese blogs, you might find it useful.

On April 13th, Mosokanri-Iinkai (delusion management committee) has released a SNS service called Self SNS for individuals who aren't looking to network with people online. 

This service, which seems to defeat the definition of SNS (Social Networking Service), offers individuals with delusions to have their personal spaces online.

On the sign up page, you can choose your fantasy roles from the list including, "almighty god," "a girlfriend/boyfriend of a star", and "nnnnnot a virgin." 

There is also a pull down menu which asks you whether or not you'd want to meet other delusional people with similar interests.  It seems that Self SNS is not completely about isolation.

Viewing a member's page, you can see that it is not so different from other SNS services.

Bottom left is your delusional friends' list.
The big list on the right is your profile. 
Top left box with the picture is your picture.

[Thoughts]
So, what really are differences between Self SNS and the other SNS services?  I am still trying to find out.  Perhaps it is the open invitation to be who you want to be online?