Japanese mumble much on Twitter
Source: Agencies |
June 19, 2010, Saturday
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Print Edition
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TWITTER is a hit in Japan, succeeding where other social networking imports such as 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.
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.
The proportion of Japanese Internet users who tweet is 16.3 percent and now surpasses the ratio among Americans at 9.8 percent. Twitter and Japan's top social networking site, mixi, have been running neck-and-neck with 9-10 monthly visitors but in April Twitter squeaked past mixi.
In contrast, only 3 percent of Japanese Internet users are on Facebook compared with 62 percent in the US. MySpace has also failed in Japan, at under 3 percent of Net users versus 35 percent in the US.
Twitter estimates Japanese write nearly 8 million tweets a day, or about 12 percent 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."
One reason is language. It's possible to say so much more in Japanese within Twitter's 140 letter limit. The word "information" requires just two letters in Japanese. That allows people to relay complex views, according to Tsuda, who believes Twitter could easily attract 20 million people in Japan soon.
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.
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.
The proportion of Japanese Internet users who tweet is 16.3 percent and now surpasses the ratio among Americans at 9.8 percent. Twitter and Japan's top social networking site, mixi, have been running neck-and-neck with 9-10 monthly visitors but in April Twitter squeaked past mixi.
In contrast, only 3 percent of Japanese Internet users are on Facebook compared with 62 percent in the US. MySpace has also failed in Japan, at under 3 percent of Net users versus 35 percent in the US.
Twitter estimates Japanese write nearly 8 million tweets a day, or about 12 percent 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."
One reason is language. It's possible to say so much more in Japanese within Twitter's 140 letter limit. The word "information" requires just two letters in Japanese. That allows people to relay complex views, according to Tsuda, who believes Twitter could easily attract 20 million people in Japan soon.
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