in Japan

MIXI, Japan’s MySpace

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Mixi in Japan

Want an invite to Mixi?With the big names in Social sites being Myspace and Facebook here in the USA, you may be wondering what does everyone in Japan use. While many Japanese are starting to venture onto Myspace, since they have a global version in many different languages (including Japanese), the majority of people use MIXI as their social network of choice.

WhatJapanThinks.com posted an article on Japan’s SNS (Social Networking Service) usage, and an overwhelming 90.3% of the people polled used MIXI. The other 10% were scattered between GREE, Myspace, and a few others. If you have gone ahead and chosen not to finish reading my article, and clicked on the MIXI link, you may have noticed 2 things that have stopped you in your tracks.

  1. The site is invite only.
  2. It’s in 日本語!

The first one is a very interesting. With the whole premise of social networking sites being social, why would they be an invite only community. WhatJapanThinks.com also has another article that states nearly 2/3 of everyone on MIXI has never invited someone else to join. I find that so weird. But then again I hear that it many places in Japan, its common to not see foreigners. Peter over at JList.com always talks about how he is usually the only foreigner around during his day. So the fact that MIXI is invite only doesn’t really surprise me. Plus, in some abstract way I guess you could say that everyone on MIXI is connected to each other somehow.

I was lucky enough to be invited by a friend when I first found out about MIXI from a co-worker that used to live in Misawa. The main reason I joined MIXI was to help me with learning Japanese. One of the biggest hurdles in learning any foreign language is having someone to practice with. What I found out after joining MIXI was that there are a lot of Japanese looking for English speakers to practice their English on. So its a mutual relationship. Plus, I have even made a few friends on MIXI that live here in the Tampa Bay area.

So, if you are interested in checking out MIXI for yourself, just email me or leave a comment, and I will send you an invite. If you use FireFox, you may want to check out the plugin Rikaichan. It allows you to put your mouse over Kanji and see a translation of it. The plugin has a large dictionary and works really well for navigating MIXI.

One last interesting big about MIXI: When MIXI went public on the Tokyo Stock Market, Kenji Kasahara founder of MIXI, became a USD billionare! Yea, MIXI is that huge.

April 8th, 2008 UPDATE

After doing a bit of research into a few people that I invited not being able to get past MIXI asking for a mobile number, it seems as though if you use a disposable email account (Yahoo, Hotmail, Gmail, etc), MIXI requires you to use a Japanese mobile phone number upon registering. So if you do want an invite from anyone, you must use your real ISP email, or a less used service so MIXI thinks its a real address.

April 21st, 200 UPDATE

Seems its more or less official now. You have to have a mobile phone address thats Japanese in order to sign up for MIXI. Sorry everyone. Sad day for those wanting to learn Japanese. I will keep everyone updated here and with a new post if things do decide to change.

Japankeitaimixi inviteMixi Postsmyspacerikaichansnssocial networking

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Written by xorsyst

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192 Comments

  10. hi there, i m trying to subscribe to mixi, a friend sent me an invite but i don t know how to finalize my subscription ! I got a mail from mixi, went on the link and then i received a message on my phone but my pre paid card don t allow me to go on the mobile internet… What else do I have to do ? Thank you in advance for your answer.

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  12. thank you for your fast answer ! in fact in the mail of confirmation i received they put that sentence :

    様の仮登録を受け付けました。以下のURLをクリックして登録を
    完了させてください。
    ※登録を完了するには携帯電話にて受信されたメールもご確認いただき認証手続きを行って下さい。

    What i understand is that i have to validate the link sent on my phone… From the link in the mail when i validate it i have that information :
    xxx の操作を完了しました。
    xxx@softbank.ne.jp の確認待ちです。
    xxx@softbank.ne.jp の確認後、登録が完了します。

    So I cannot go further T.T
    No one had that problem amoung the people you invited ?

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  16. hey, can you send me an invite? i plan on moving to japan after i graduate in about a year, i know the basic structure of japanese but don’t know how to type or read japanese, i would love a tutor too! lol probably shouldn’t have put that there, hope this reply doesn’t get deleted!

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  24. I’m actually on Mixi on the moment (on this other account )but never thought about using the Rikaichan plugin (had un-installed it) before. Thanks for the tip!

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  26. Hi There, thanks so much with the invite, however i face a problem, they keep asking me to put the mobile address which i dont have since i’m not staying at japan. Is there anyway that i can pass the screening?

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  27. Someone else had this problem earlier, and I did a bit of research on it. Seems as of March of last year if you use a disposable email address (such as yahoo, hotmail, etc) it requires you to put in a mobile phone number. The only way around this is to use a more “permanent” address. Or a Gmail account seems to work too.

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  31. No way!
    There’s no way to register a new account without a Japanese keitai email address! I tried Gamil too and does not work.
    「尊王攘夷」みたいね？

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  39. I have invited those who didn’t have disposable email addresses above. Could you please let us know by leaving a comment if it asks you to enter your keitai (mobile phone) number. I have recently heard that you HAVE to have a mobile phone number upon registration. Thanks.

    @jessica: Sent.

    @james: We have tried and a Yahoo account wont work unless you have a Japanese mobile phone #

    @diane: Sent. However you said you live in Japan. You must use your mobile phone # during registration.

    @WMO: Gmail accounts don’t work either without a Japanese mobile phone address.

    @jason: Sent: please tell us if it doesn’t work.

    @fgifriday: We discovered that GMail accounts don’t work either. Sorry.

    @jenn: Sent

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  40. Hmmm..Ithey still require the mobile phone registration…can you kindly send another invite to this new email address? I’ll see if they accept this one..thanks in advance^^

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  48. @jennifer: Without a Japanese mobile phone number, I do not think so. Its a recent change MIXI implemented. We are still testing it but so far it’s not looking good for Americans and anyone else not in Japan.

    @fgifriday: Sent. Do you have a keitai number, or are you just trying to see if a .jp email address works without the keitai?

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