I finally joined http//mixi.jp in Sept. 2006 just to see what the fuss was about. It just had an IPO, making the founders millionaires/billionaires. 

mixi is a social networking site (SNS) all in Japanese. If you don’t know what an SNS is, Google it and find out. The most famous one outside Japan is myspace.com.

It is free to join mixi which currently has over 5 million members. This is small compared to myspace, but for Japan it is huge. And it’s a closed system, which means you cannot access it unless you are a member. To become a member, you must receive an email invitation from a current member. mixi says that current members can only invite people whom they know personally, and not random strangers like you sending requests for an invitation after reading about it at a BBS. Members must also be at least age 18. However, I don’t see any way how mixi can enforce such rules.

When you join, you have to decide on a nickname. It’s interesting that your nickname need not be unqiue. There are multiple people with the same mixi nicknames, which can make things confusing.

When you agree to the terms of service, you receive your own profile page and URL. This is where you can set and enter your profile. As little or as much personal info as you want. A small profile image is also displayed. You have to upload your own profile image (up to 3).

When people want to know more about you, they will access your profile page. And when they do so, they leave an automatic “footprint” (ashiato) or a record of their visit. You can see this footprint or profile access log. It shows who came to see your profile and when. It logs the number of visitors to your profile page as well. So whenever you access someone’s profile page, that person will know that you’ve been there. Such a thing cannot happen at myspace since it is an open system where non-members can view profile pages.

Besides your profile page which is accessible by mixi members, you also have your own personal home/top page. This is accessible only by you. When you are logged in, your home/top page is where you can see messages from other members and messages posted at the communities you’ve joined (more about this later). There is also a box showing graphic icon links to your mixi friends (called “my mixi”) and another box showing graphic icon links to the communities you’ve joined.

If you can read Japanese, you will find the layout and controls, buttons, etc., simple and quite easy to use. You don’t have to read the manual to learn how to use mixi. It’s quite intuitive and quick to learn.

But what will eat away your hours (or days) are the numerous communities which are special interest groups much like Yahoo Groups. First you will want to browse and search to see what’s there. You will soon find out that there is a LOT. Quite overwhelming. There are communities for almost everything.

There are communities for every prefecture, city, town, and village in Japan. And many neighborhoods also have a community. Almost all the primary, junior, and high schools have a community. All the universities have one, as well as their sports clubs and teams.

There seems to be a community for almost all the train and subway stations (and lines) in Japan. They talk about new shops or restaurants which opened near their station, etc., etc. There may even be a community for your local pool, gym, and shopping arcade. The communities also sometimes hold offline meetings (called “off-kai” in Japanese) for face-to-face parties.

It’s incredible.

Any mixi member can start and join a community. A community is essentially a BBS. Member can post messages which will appear on the community’s Web page as well as on the home page of all the members. Communities can also be public where any mixi member can join or private where approval is required to join.

Many members tend to join numerous communities, making it impossible to keep up with all the messages. However, your message inbox can be expanded or contracted so it doesn’t mess up your home page layout. Instead of joining all the communities I’m interested in, I just bookmark them instead. I join only the most favorite communities.

Having a lot of mixi friends is another ego trip among many members (like at myspace.com). Anybody you invite to join mixi automatically becomes your mixi friend. And anybody who wants to be your friend will send a message and ask you first. You can then either accept or reject the request. Having a lot of friends looks good on your profile page, but it will only increase the number of messages in your inbox. The latest blog entries of all your friends will appear in your inbox. But this is manageable since it does not affect the page layout unless you expand the message list. It will just make it harder to find the most important messages.

Although mixi is free to join, they also offer a “Premium” account for only 315 yen/month. The biggest advantage of this is that you can create your own online photo albums. Your home page will show a box listing your photo albums. And you will also see a “Make photo album” button on your home page. Your photo albums can occupy up to 1 GB of server space. It has a commenting system as well. Your blog will also have 300 MB of space instead of 100 MB. And your mailbox messages will be saved permanently instead of being deleted automatically after 60 days.

The demographics of mixi members seem to average in the low and mid-20s. I have come across many college-age people and many of the communities have been started by college students.

The vast majority of communities are run by amateurs or unofficial people. I don’t see mixi communities run by local governments or government agencies and organizations. mixi is really becoming like a second Internet in Japan. There are so many people on it that I don’t think local governments and other official people can keep ignoring it. Of course, it took a long time for many local governments just to make their own official Web sites. So I’m wondering how long it will take them to join mixi. I think they would really miss out if they don’t have a presence on mixi. Perhaps they hesitate because mixi is a private company. But then, all the utilities in Japan are provided by private companies. So it shouldn’t be an issue.

I think the bottleneck is that it is a closed system. Non-members cannot see what the fuss is about. They cannot see how much information is there, the incredible diversity, the community spirit, and the huge numbers, and the opportunities and benefits of the site. People who don’t know remain ignorant. I see no reason why it should be a closed system. They should let anybody access and view mixi pages, but only allow members to have a profile page, join communities, and post messages. With a larger audience, the ad revenue would increase, and more people will be enticed to join. I really hope that they decide to open it.

I have also noticed a substantial foreign segment at mixi. Many are outside Japan (many Japanese members are also outside japan). There are a few English communities so they can thrive there if they cannot read/write Japanese. I would think mixi would someday at least provide an English translation of their Terms of Service and other basic info.

I have to conclude that mixi is great. If you are a member, you can find me by searching for philbert or PhotoGuide Japan.

Soon after I joined mixi, I soon started my own mixi community called “Shiga in English!” It is to talk about Shiga Prefecture in English. Hopefully it will help the Japanese community members to improve their English. I’ve been pretty active in keeping the community going by posting a variety of messages. Unfortunately, if you’re not a mixi member, you cannot view these messages. Therefore, I created a mirror blog for it here. Most of the messages I posted on my mixi community will also be posted here.

So please visit this blog when you have time and see what we are talking about at mixi.