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Japan: Internet Landscape
On this page:
- Statistics
- Internet usage
- Search engines
- Social networking
- Microblogging
| Statistics Japan is the third largest broadband country in the world, after the US and China, with 27.7 million broadband lines in place as of September 2007. The BBC's 2008 study on broadband quality worldwide ranked Japan at the top, declaring that Japan's broadband network alone has the capability to support next-generation internet applications. The Japanese population on cyberspace has consistently been increasing (see figure below), and as of March 2008, Japan has an internet penetration rate of 74.8%, which translates to a staggering 94 million users. Essentially, these figures indicate that businesses in Japan have the potential to reach and engage almost 75% of the Japanese population in a cost-effective manner. Source: Internet world stats: Japan White paper on the internet in Japan 2007 IT white paper |  | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Internet Usage
| According to the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC), 73% of all internet users use both personal computers and mobile terminals to connect to the Internet. In 2005, the number of wireless users in Japan accessing the internet, surpassed the number of PC users. According to "The Face of the Web," a study by market researcher Ipso Insight, Japan is the world's foremost Internet-based economy, with nearly nine in 10 people using the Internet every 30 days, and users averaging nearly 14 hours per week online. In a survey conducted by ComScore in 2007, the following sites were ranked the top 10 most visited websites in Japan. A look at the number of visitors on these sites reveals the sheer reach of social media in Japan. Source: Top 10 most popular websites in Japan | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Search Engines Search engines form an integral part in determining the accessibility of users to websites. The accompanying graph depicts the popularity of search engines in Japan. According to Motoko Hunt, who provides Japanese search marketing services in the US, Europe and Asia, online search has become the primary source of information in Japan and everyone goes online to research products and services that they consider purchasing. In contrast to other countries, however, many Japanese people use mobile search. It is important to note that the Japanese search using the language of the country of origin, while generic terms are searched using Japanese characters in most cases. Japanese brands such as Sony and Panasonic are typed in Japanese characters, whereas a search for white paper in English will be done using English keywords. Read an interview with Motoko Hunt on search engine optimization. Source: Motoko Hunt on search engine optimization in Japan |  | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Social Networking
| Social networks are an essential component of the online experience, especially in a conformist country like Japan. The table below shows the most popular social networks in Japan, along with the user growth from 2007 to 2008. However, unline other popular western social networks, most profiles and identities on social netowrking platforms in Japan are purely virtual. The early promises of a new, open social frontier, akin to the identity-centric world of Facebook and MySpace in the U.S., have been replaced by a realm where people stay safely within their circles of friends and few reveal themselves to strangers. People rarely give their first names to those they don't know well, changing the entire scope of SNS in Japan. This penchant for invisibility in the Japanese social media scene has made it hard for Western social networks to establish themselves. Belated forays into the Japanese market by Facebook Inc. and News Corp.'s MySpace, for instance, have failed to generate much of a buzz. However, Mixi, which blended itself into this closed Japanese culture from the very start, by keeping itself a closed, by invitation-only, friends-only network, ranks foremost in popularity and usage in Japan. Source: Japan's online social scene isn't so social | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Blogging The Washington post described the Japanese as "blog wild", given their dominance of the blogosphere. Although English speakers outnumber Japanese speakers by more than 5:1, slightly more blog postings are written in Japanese than in English, according to Technorati, the Internet search engine that monitors the blogosphere. By some estimates, as much as 40% of Japanese blogging is done on mobile phones, often by commuters staring cross-eyed at tiny screens for hours as they ride the world's most extensive network of subways and commuter trains. Blogging in Japan, though, is a far tamer beast than in the United States and the rest of the English-speaking world. Japan's conformist culture has embraced a technology that Americans often use for abrasive self-promotion and refashioned it as a soothingly nonconfrontational medium for getting along. Bloggers in Japan shy away from politics and barbed language. They rarely trumpet their expertise. While Americans blog to stand out, the Japanese do it to fit in, blogging about small stuff: cats and flowers, bicycles and breakfast, gadgets and TV stars. Compared with Americans, they write at less length, they write anonymously, and they write a whole lot more often. As Technorati puts it, "In Japan, it is not socially acceptable to pursue fame." According to the Technorati 2007 "State of the Blogosphere" report, Japanese is the #1 blogging language in the world, accounting for 37% of all blog entries posted on the Internet. English accounts for only 36% of all blog posts. Source: Japan's bloggers: humble giants on the web Japan market intelligence: Taking blogging to the streets |  | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Microblogging The advent on Twitter in 2006 saw Japan latch on very quickly to micro-blogging. Microblogs allow short posts, usually up to about 140 characters, somewhat like instant status updates. They are designed to give people following your posts a quick insight into what you are up to and have more of a feeling of a public conversation than a blog post. When Twitter noticed the heavy number of Japanese users on Twitter, they decided to launch an exclusive Twitter Japan webpage in 2008. Today, Tokyo is the most active city in the world for this microblog market leader. In fact, Twitter entered Japan with a different business model than its English webpage.Twitter Japan features an innovative advertising space and encourages companies to create Twitter profiles, Twitter feeds and Twitter fanbases. In the accompanying video, Joi Ito from Twitter Japan talks about Twitter's foray into the Japanese market. Source: Understanding the social media landscape in Japan Twitter actually makes money in Japan | | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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shivya |
Latest page update: made by shivya
, Nov 22 2008, 1:50 PM EST
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