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Answerman - What Social Networks Are Used In Japan?


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CatSword



Joined: 01 Jul 2014
Posts: 1489
PostPosted: Wed Nov 29, 2017 12:18 pm Reply with quote
Isn't Twitter popular in Japan because of an advantage of the Japanese language against the character limit? At least that's what I've always heard.
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Zerreth



Joined: 16 Mar 2006
Posts: 207
Location: E6
PostPosted: Wed Nov 29, 2017 12:37 pm Reply with quote
CatSword wrote:
Isn't Twitter popular in Japan because of an advantage of the Japanese language against the character limit? At least that's what I've always heard.


That doesn't quite make sense. It isn't as if Japanese speakers are using English for social media and then proceeding to use Japanese for Twitter because they can communicate more in fewer characters. Nor is it that other forms of social media have smaller character limits than Twitter does.
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HeeroTX



Joined: 15 Jul 2002
Posts: 2046
Location: Austin, TX
PostPosted: Wed Nov 29, 2017 12:55 pm Reply with quote
Twitter's popularity is probably in part due to the aforementioned "anonymity". (ie. not AS "intrusive" as facebook) But I agree on the LINE notation, that's the big one in Japan, and all things considered, LINE and Discord (for the US) might be the future for "social" networking. I know my niece and nephew are more into SnapChat than FB, and I wouldn't be surprised to see FB be the next LJ or MySpace in a few years.
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princess passa passa





PostPosted: Wed Nov 29, 2017 1:00 pm Reply with quote
CatSword wrote:
Isn't Twitter popular in Japan because of an advantage of the Japanese language against the character limit? At least that's what I've always heard.


I would say the article is spot on about LINE. EVERYBODY uses Line in Japan more so than anything else. But in terms of "traditional" social media, I think Twitter would be a close second because you can use whatever username you which and have a sense of anonymity as well.

Quite a few seiyuus use Twitter regularly but I think there a few that post on Line as well (don't quote me on the last part though). Only few people asked if I was Facebook here in Japan and their pages are pretty stilted and not very interesting.
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Ushio



Joined: 31 Jul 2005
Posts: 630
PostPosted: Wed Nov 29, 2017 1:15 pm Reply with quote
HeeroTX wrote:
Twitter's popularity is probably in part due to the aforementioned "anonymity". (ie. not AS "intrusive" as facebook) But I agree on the LINE notation, that's the big one in Japan, and all things considered, LINE and Discord (for the US) might be the future for "social" networking. I know my niece and nephew are more into SnapChat than FB, and I wouldn't be surprised to see FB be the next LJ or MySpace in a few years.


People keep saying that but that's not how it's been working. Kids use other social networks then when in the last year of college/university go back to FB to allow them to network easily with those in the industries they want to enter.

FB is still growing in every way which makes me depressed I didn't buy shares when they dropped after the IPO.
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relyat08



Joined: 20 Mar 2013
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Location: Northern Virginia
PostPosted: Wed Nov 29, 2017 3:04 pm Reply with quote
CatSword wrote:
Isn't Twitter popular in Japan because of an advantage of the Japanese language against the character limit? At least that's what I've always heard.


That's what I was told by Japanese friends as to why they think Twitter is so popular. There isn't really much of a need for Facebook when you can easily convey your thoughts within the character limit. I'm surprised, a little, maybe, that the number is less than Facebook, but at least within the anime industry, the people I communicate with or follow seem to heavily favor Twitter over Facebook. The introduction of 280 characters on Twitter has only made it better for JP speakers and English speakers.


Zerreth wrote:

That doesn't quite make sense. It isn't as if Japanese speakers are using English for social media and then proceeding to use Japanese for Twitter because they can communicate more in fewer characters. Nor is it that other forms of social media have smaller character limits than Twitter does.


That's not so much the issue as that there simply isn't as big of a need for a social media platform that allows longer form posts. There isn't much of a point in signing up for Facebook if you can say everything you need to on Twitter.
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Zin5ki



Joined: 06 Jan 2008
Posts: 6680
Location: London, UK
PostPosted: Wed Nov 29, 2017 3:08 pm Reply with quote
If my (extremely limited) perspective is relevant here, the Japanese individuals I follow on Twitter tend to use Ameblo for sharing much of their content. It appears to be a simple hybrid of Facebook and Blogspot, but with a focus on photographs.
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mangamuscle



Joined: 23 Apr 2006
Posts: 2658
Location: Mexico
PostPosted: Wed Nov 29, 2017 3:42 pm Reply with quote
Zin5ki wrote:
If my (extremely limited) perspective is relevant here


I I can blow my own horn here, Pixiv can be considered a social network where one can follow or share drawings or stories. Guhehe.
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luffypirate



Joined: 06 Oct 2006
Posts: 3186
PostPosted: Wed Nov 29, 2017 3:53 pm Reply with quote
I love LINE I have some pretty awesome stickers! I wish I had more friends that used it.
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Stuart Smith



Joined: 13 Jan 2013
Posts: 1298
PostPosted: Wed Nov 29, 2017 4:05 pm Reply with quote
A lot of artists have abandoned Pixiv over the past few years due to foreigners. They've moved onto Twitter and blog sites to share their art. Pawoo and Nijie are also popular since the former has less censorship than Twitter and the latter is specifically tailored to R-18 art. Fantia is another popular platform, with the option of Patreon-like donation tiers to support artists and doujinsoft creators. I support a few personal artist friends of mine on there.

-Stuart Smith
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Shay Guy



Joined: 03 Jul 2009
Posts: 2131
PostPosted: Wed Nov 29, 2017 5:52 pm Reply with quote
relyat08 wrote:
The introduction of 280 characters on Twitter has only made it better for JP speakers and English speakers.


As I recall, CJK characters count double under the new system, so if you're Japanese, it doesn't make much of a difference. Part of the motivation was that CJK speakers effectively had twice as much space anyway, since they could do roughly twice as much with 140 characters, so this levels it out.
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HeeroTX



Joined: 15 Jul 2002
Posts: 2046
Location: Austin, TX
PostPosted: Wed Nov 29, 2017 6:18 pm Reply with quote
Ushio wrote:
People keep saying that but that's not how it's been working. Kids use other social networks then when in the last year of college/university go back to FB to allow them to network easily with those in the industries they want to enter.

FB is still growing in every way which makes me depressed I didn't buy shares when they dropped after the IPO.

My niece just started high school, so I'm talking the NEXT generation. FB became the thing BECAUSE "everyone" was on it, but I'm just not sure whether or not that will maintain for successive generations. The younger sets are mostly dodging it (also) BECAUSE everyone (read: their parents and older) are on it and the dire warnings of "your online actions are "forever" seem like it might push more and more to "ephemeral" options like SnapChat. I also just don't see "networking" being a big option, since I don't feel like LinkedIn has ever really caught serious traction. People joined it for networking, but then I feel like most people don't really see the "benefit" long term. If your "networking" plans shouldn't be public, then people don't use social media and if they can be public, then what are you really "gaining" that you can't get from books, webpages and random blogs/youtube videos.

FB doesn't really provide any unique "service" that can't be hacked from another application. The only benefit is volume of users, and there's already push back on THAT benefit since FB has already turned itself (away from Net Neutrality) into a "pay for play" model YEARS ago.
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Sakagami Tomoyo



Joined: 06 Dec 2008
Posts: 940
Location: Melbourne, VIC, Australia
PostPosted: Wed Nov 29, 2017 7:09 pm Reply with quote
Shay Guy wrote:
As I recall, CJK characters count double under the new system, so if you're Japanese, it doesn't make much of a difference. Part of the motivation was that CJK speakers effectively had twice as much space anyway, since they could do roughly twice as much with 140 characters, so this levels it out.


I'm pretty certain that CJK characters counted double on the old system too; CJK characters in computing have been 2-byte for a very long time, and I really don't see them artificially coding around the differences there. And I'm fairly sure that Japanese and Chinese manage considerably greater than double information density per character compared to English overall.

At some point I might do some test-tweeting in Japanese to double check.
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DerekL1963
Subscriber



Joined: 14 Jan 2015
Posts: 1115
Location: Puget Sound
PostPosted: Wed Nov 29, 2017 7:21 pm Reply with quote
Why not simply refer to the horse's mouth?

https://blog.twitter.com/official/en_us/topics/product/2017/tweetingmadeeasier.html

Quote:
Japanese, Korean, and Chinese will continue to have 140 characters because cramming is not an issue in these languages.
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crosswithyou



Joined: 15 Dec 2007
Posts: 2892
Location: California
PostPosted: Wed Nov 29, 2017 10:07 pm Reply with quote
Ahh, mixi... Because of this article, I just tried logging into my account for the first time in who knows when. I joined before I moved to Japan, back when it was still invitation-only and didn't require a phone number. Just checked to see if any of my friends still post on mixi and nope! Not a single entry... This totally used to be the social site in Japan. For anime fans, it was where they did all their event ticket transactions, but no more.

Most people I know have a Twitter and/or Facebook account, and pretty much everyone uses LINE.
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