Facebook faces language, privacy fears
As previously blogged here on JP, the social networking site, Facebook has recently been translated from English into various languages including Japanese. Lisa Katayama reports at the Japan Times on the details of the by-users-for-users translation, and notes the obstacles the Japanese version faces against long-reigning Japan-based service, Mixi:
One of Facebook’s biggest challenges will be competing against the native social networking site Mixi. With over 10 million users and the loyalty of more than 50 percent of citizens in their 20s, Mixi is a social networking site made by the Japanese for the Japanese. Newcomers can join by invite only, which provides the degree of privacy and safety that users feel they need in order to divulge their identities online.
. . .MySpace, LinkedIn and Cyworld are just some of the global SNS that have a presence in Japan already, but so far, no competitor has succeeded in making a dent in Mixi’s dominance.
Katayama cites the possibility that a crowd-sourced (in this case, user-based) translation may damage the credibility or usability of the service, but the very “open to everybody” nature of Facebook may be an even bigger deterrence, in light of certain events which led to Mixi stock taking a dive shortly after its hugely successful IPO in 2006. [link to herro flom japan podcast mp3, warning -- contains language that some may find offensive]
Still, Takuya Oikawa, a Japanese technology adviser quoted in the article, chalks it up to the Japanese fear of the English language:
“Most Japanese don’t use English on a daily basis . . .They could get confused by seeing English messages in their inboxes from people they don’t know.”
Given that the Japanese landscape is pretty much littered in English and/or Engrish advertisements, signs, directions, random ephemera — somehow Oikawa’s comment doesn’t quite square with this reality. My take is that unless Facebook implements an easy-to-use cell phone based user interface, its sheer omnipresence the world over won’t mean a thing on this island nation.
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Lisa Katayama doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Very few mixi users give any real information about themselves online. Fake names, fake photos, etc. Facebook’s privacy features are lightyears ahead of what mixi has to offer. And in the case of facebook, probably 99.9% of accounts use real names, photos, phone numbers, jobs, etc.
Mixi is the new hotmail. Everyone has an account but rarely uses it like they use to. I think facebook will be successful enough here when people start discovering what it has to offer.
Mixi is popular but i have no idea why … it’s just a cult following and compulsory for every kid to have an account. The sheer lack of truthful information, the lack of real profile pictures, the nicknames only … it’s hard to see any truth on the site. People breeze in once a day and write something meaningless and that’s about it.
I’m sure when the facebook following gets bigger in Japan it will be like a domino effect ….. and they’ll all follow.
I never saw the benefit of facebook in the beggining but now it really does put you back in touch and keep you up to date with friends so much more easier than email and other online means.
Your description in the first paragraph sounds exactly like what myspace is, which, of course, is very popular because it does have a cult following: “It’s not great, but what the hell, I’m going to make an account because everyone is on there”.
I always use facebook on my phone. Through the ezweb browser it’s a little limited in functionality, but certainly easy to use. Through the Opera browser it is capable of a bit more.
Japanese friends, and friends of friends, seem to be joining facebook at a steady pace these days. It doesn’t feel like it’s going to explode, but I’d wager it’ll be more successful than myspace.
ah, so is the japanese version also on the small screen? maybe when i get my iphone next month i’ll check it out
Oikawa is WAY off. Japanese users drove a big chunk of YouTube and Twitter growth before they had Japanese versions.
Katayama is also off. Facebook was developed in the US, where privacy laws are stricter and carry real penalties. Japan’s personal information law has no teeth.
Oikawa has a point – many a time have I tried to speak to a Japanese person only to have them look back in absolute terror giving me the side-to-side hand motion gesture presumably meaning “I don’t speak English!”. (Of course I was addressing them in Japanese, but hey, I guess my accent is so bad they thought it was English).
Oops. I meant to quote:
I think Facebook is actually TOO private, compared to Mixi and Myspace. With Facebook, you don’t have the option to set your profile open for everyone — only to people in your networks. I guess that’s great if you’re in the “Japan” network, but since you can only have one “location” Network (aside from educational/professional networks), it severely limits the ability to stumble upon new friends.
With Mixi I can see people posting in their journals and if I find them interesting, message them and progress from there. With Facebook, I have my friends added, but I rarely see what I’m supposed to do with it other than that. I don’t feel I have any way to meet new people like I do with Mixi (or even MySpace).
I installed the translation software, but I found that facebook didn’t really apply as much to Japanese culture as it does to American culture. Some of the translations were off (granted there are differences in interpretation by those who translated), but the ones that were correct didn’t really appeal to the Japanese.
The reason why mixi is so popular is because it’s built by Japanese people who are marketing to Japanese. When you translate facebook word-for-word into Japanese, it isn’t as marketable (and thus, far less popular). Unfortunately, the team at facebook said they wanted the translations as close to the English version as possible, so that results in cultural errors.
Just my opinion though.
“culture misinterpretation errors”, or whatever. You know what I’m trying to say!!