SNS for Enterprise: “Business” more than “Entertainment”?
Only a few years ago, people speculated the possibility of Facebook and Twitter succeeding in Japan. With strong domestic competitors such as Mixi and other social platforms (such as online forums) in a country already highly literate and connected to the cyberspace, people doubted that “Western” SNS can take roots here. Additionally, the strong Japanese, and indeed East Asian, obsession with “cyber-anonymity” largely conflicts with an equally strong obsession for the opposite shown by the likes of Facebook. Then, in what seems like a quick flash of time, the potential dominance of both Facebook and Twitter has become a foregone conclusion. While domestic social platforms still lead in absolute numbers of visitors, the what-used-to-be “foreign novelties” from Silicon Valley have become household names. Their growth rates in the country have become the envy of all other dot-com firms in Japan, both foreign and Japanese in origin. Yet, a closer observation shows that the increasingly