In June of 2009, the number of mixi users reached to 1.72 million, and the president of the company which operates mixi, Mr. Kenji Kasahara, said in an article that he tries to increase the number of users to 3 million in two to four years. Thus, he has introduced "new functions" such as mixi voice and mixi applications.
The mixi voice is very much similar to "twitter," but users can express their feelings or update their status in 150 words so that "my mix friends (that's what we call friends on mixi)" can see what they are doing right now.
The mixi applications are much like mini games for users to learn second languages or to compete their best scores among my mix friends. The applications include "English vocabulary tests," "National flags test," "Music tests," "Japanese language tests" and so on.
In addition to those game applications, the HR company (Minnade Shusyoku Katsudou Nikki Unei Iinkai) introduced the new application of giving updated information about new job opportunities for newly graduates.Those application systems are introduced as interactive activities to attract non-mixi users to create an account.
Since mixi is very popular among younger citizens such as high school and college students, musicians or actors/actresses use mixi as one of the tools for communication such as creating an exclusive event for mixi users that become members of that certain artist. Therefore, mixi is one of the great business opportunities for certain business industry.
However, the more mixi gets popular, some problems come up such as too much open information to random people that can lead crimes, or mixi addiction.
The first prblem is that crimes that are related to mixi have been increasing rapidly. When mixi users update mixi voice, they tend to write information such as "I am going on business trip for three days so my apartment will be emptied out." On top of that, those users tend to upload their pictures that show the home addresses. By seeing those information, thieves or other criminals come to home and commit crimes. Therefore, mixi users as well as other social networking users have to be careful what information they will upload on their profiles or diaries.
The second problem is that people tend to be addicted to updating mixi. According to ITmedia News, a lot of people begin quitting or eliminating their account from mixi because they got tired of following what's going on with their friends on mixi. The mixi beginners tend to feel "joy" if they get comments from friends on thier entries in the beggining, and they feel enjoyment to reply those comments. However, after a while, they begin to feel "uneasy" if there is no reply back from anyone after updating their dairy even in 5 minutes. According to Hideo Yamazaki, psycologist, he mentions that that is a "mixi addiction." In order to recover from those addictions, people should (1) make their own rules; for instance, updating mixi diary once a week; (2) limit their friends on mixi; (3) try to meet friends on mixi to see if they can get along in the real world as well.
Even though mixi has some downsides/disadvantages, mixi is the greatest innovation for Japanese society. The mixi certainly does expand our possibilities in network as well as in job opportunities. In order for us to use mixi or other kinds of great social networking sites, we have to learn and analyze downsides of the social networking sites.
Sources:
- http://mixi.jp (mixi)
- http://news.ameba.jp/trend-news/2009/09/45889.html
- http://bb.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/20090924_317445.html
- http://internet.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/news/20091001_318755.html
- http://news.pia.jp/pia/news.do?newsCd=200909100009
- http://jp.reuters.com/article/topNews/idJPJAPAN-11191620090826
- http://www.itmedia.co.jp/news/articles/0607/21/news061.html
1 comment:
I have to say no, I do not know Mixi.
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