I have a mixi account. I don’t have a lot of contacts but I blog there nearly everyday, about random stuff mostly but I use it mainly to practice my Japanese writing. I use a nickname and I use an avatar for a picture. Nothing personal is ever published, I get feedback from my Japanese friends and it’s been really pleasant.
Just today, I came across this article on Asian Offbeat about Japanese bloggers. It reminded me of a conversation I had with a Japanese friend. I was asking her how often she blogged on her mixi and if she read others people’s blogs. While she claimed to be really into her blogging, even checking her page several times a day on her phone, she hardly ever read stranger’s blogs. She said she kept to her network of friends, often commenting on their posts. It was a total breach of privacy to be reading a strangers blog, she told me. I wondered at that time if she meant just her, or Japanese people in general.
Update: There is also an article in the Japan Times about Japan being the number one blogger.
See Mobile phone-based blogging statistics from What Japan Thinks
Photo via: Asian Offbeat (Qullevek, +Oden+)
All of my friends have their own personal blogs / websites that they painstakingly update from their cellphones, and will absolutely not share their URL with anyone not in their immediate group of friends; so yes, people rarely read strangers’ blogs.
That being said, these “blogs” are nothing more than an archive with text links to all text entries. They almost never have any pictures, and in the rare case that they do it is almost always Purikura.
While they may make up 37% of the worlds blog entries, they are for the most part not nearly as sophisticated as blogs in the rest of the world.
Thanks for the comment, Alex!
Since I’m not Japanese, I have read Japanese stranger’s blogs…
I agree that a lot of them don’t have pictures of themselves, but some do have pictures taken with their cellphone cameras of meals, flowers they grow on their balconies, their pets, trees, etc.
I used to wonder what people did with the pictures they took, since a lot of them stop walking to take photos with their cameras. Just yesterday, I saw a woman take a photo of a sky writer jet with her phone. I guess she might have blogged about that…
About the sophistication of their blogging tools, yes they have a long way to go… but then blogging here might not be heading in the same direction as blogs in the West.
very interesting, but I don’t agree with you
Idetrorce
Thanks for leaving a comment, Idetroce!
Please share with us what you do think… would make for an interesting discussion.
Add me to Mixi if you like Marie. My nickname is “Ahiru” … i have a legit photo up so you’ll know when you’ve found me.
Thanks, Neil Duckett!
Do you blog in Japanese, too?
I follow Mixi without contributing …. my Japanese isn’t that good yet, i’m lacking Kanji! I have only a handful of friends on there but regluarly attend a Mixi night out, the last one was the second Sunday in January, we had about 80 people show up!
I’m actually just getting my site redone now to be dual language among other things. I will eventually get there though.
Wow! Were the 80 people all foreigners? That’s pretty impressive…
Good luck with your Japanese blog! I’m not nearly that good, either. But my Japanese friends correct my written Japanese on mixi.
1 foreigner, the rest locals.
That’s cool!
That’s v cool!