How to Become Popular in One Easy Click!

Judging from my Facebook and Twitter accounts I can say that I must be one of the most popular people in the entire world. I have a massive amount of "friends" and "followers" (note religious connotations) and believe that I must be more popular than 97.4% of all people reading this blog right now. Bwa! Ha! Ha! Ha! Someday I will rule the world!

 EVERYBODY WANTS TO RULE THE WORLD

Yeah! I've made the big time! I have almost 1,000 friends on Facebook (OK, only 850 or so, but who's counting?) and over 1,000 friends on Twitter. Woo-hoo!


But, gee, I sometimes really wonder who these people are. I also wonder how many of those people I have actually met in person in my life? Also, I wonder how they got my Facebook address... Surely we must be friends. Facebook says so. Of that 800 or so, I reckon I must have met at least 500 of them, right? No? 400? 250? 50? 

Would you believe, two of them and their vicious canine walking in the neighborhood?


I have a very hard time with people's names. I've always had a hard time remembering names all my life. I think most people do. But it is especially difficult for westerners in Japan (and China, Korea, etc.) It's really difficult especially for people like me because of my work; because I meet lots and lots of people. I might go to a meeting at some company and there will usually be me and I'll be introduced to 13 Japanese staff at these meetings. After the meetings, I won't remember anyone's name excepting the pretty girls - and I even have a hard time with that.


The introductions will go something like this: I'll meet my contact. He'll take me into a meeting room and there will be 13 Japanese people there waiting for me. They will all stand up and get in a line to give me their business cards. My contact will say, 


"Mike-san, this is Mr. Yamada....Mr. Yamamoto... Ms. Sugimoto... Mr. Sugimura.... Ms. Murakami... Mr. Kamimura....Ms. Kawamura....Ms. Yamamura...Mr. Muraoka.... Ms. Sugiura... Mr. Tanaka....Ms. Takasugi...." and, of course, there will also be a token Suzuki or Kobayashi thrown in there....


(I think it is a Japanese law or something that every company must hire at least 10% of their staff being people with names like Suzuki or Kobayashi...)  


After getting all these people's names cards and bowing my head, I will sit down and, being none for the better, will have remembered not one single person's name excepting: "Mike." 


It's like those paintings of Jesus at the last supper. You know the name of the guy in the middle but no one knows the names of the other 12 dudes.

Author's rendition of the Last Business Meeting at 

Japanese Company. That's me in the middle.

It's kind of like my Facebook or Twitter accounts. Who are these people?

Fact of the matter is that I'm having a hard time dealing with Social Media such as Facebook, Twitter and a group discount coupon service that is local here in Japan called Pompare. 


You might wonder why I join things like Facebook and Twitter. Well, my lame excuse is that because I work in marketing and the Internet business, I have to know what I'm talking about, so I joined these services. It's a sort of study. I need to know what they are all about and how to use them. I always bend the rules and see how far I can go before the suspend my account. Facebook has suspended me twice. Twitter hasn't suspended me ever (but that's OK as Twitter service is down and often unreliable anyway!) But I often find myself wondering why I even bother. 


From using these services, I often wonder what the reason is that many others joined too. Excepting that they are more interesting than TV... But that's nothing to brag about. I can get more entertainment out of a piece of bread and my toaster oven in one evening than I can get out of watching TV.


But, as usual, I digress...


First let me tell you about Pompare. Pompare is a crappy SPAM mailing system kind of like Groupon. Their business model revolves around sendng people SPAM in the hopes that they buy something. I think SPAM is a crappy way to do business and it shows with Groupon but at least Pompare has a portal where people can gather. That's why they will blow away Groupon in this country and why they aren't quite as bad as Groupon, but they still are a bit sucky.


They seem to be trying very hard to irritate me. 


Pompare, the group discount coupon service isn't really all that much trouble, I suppose. The problem is that no matter how many times I try to quit, they keep sending me emails. I've cancelled my membership now three times, but got another mail from them this morning.


Then there's Twitter. Why do people do Twitter? I think lots of people use Twitter like I do. I use Twitter to send out notices of original content and notices about stuff I've written at Lew Rockwell or this blog, or, perhaps for events. I see other people using Twitter to sell stuff and other junk.


I think a lot of people use Twitter and send out Tweets but does anyone really read Twitter? I doubt it. I also wonder what the value is of having, say, 35,000 people you follow and 35,003 people following you. It certainly cannot be a proof of popularity (especially since there's ads all over the place selling, "1000 Twitter followers for $14!" and things like that). Also, I mean, jeez, how could anyone be reading the Tweets of the 35,000 people that they are following? I can't even keep up on answering the emails from the 4 or 5 people who write to me everyday...

CLICK ON IMAGE FOR LARGER VIEW

Here is my Top Ten referring sites to this blog. 

Do you see Twitter? Nope. Neither do I. 

Maybe I don't understand how this works? Help!

To make it clear, I believe many people use Twitter to send out messages and sell and promote, but I don't think very many actually take time to read Twitter. If people want to waste their time and read junk, then they'll use Facebook (actually, in Japan,  Facebook is an "also ran". The most popular of those sites in Japan are, Mixi, Gree, Mobage Town, etc.)  


Facebook also makes me scratch my head for many reasons. One, far too many people use Facebook far to often to link to some news article or editorial that they read on some other site. They don't link to some original content that they created or even pictures of them and their kid at a picnic or something. Why do they do that? I don't know. Can people's lives be so boring that they have nothing to write about? Since when was Facebook designed to use as a news aggregate site?


I use Facebook exactly like I use Twitter: To promote and draw readers to my useless blog. That's it. I don't want people knowing about my private life. I don't want to send people pictures of my son and me eating food at some festival in Japan. I only have only a handful of real friends in my life and that's it. I don't know where in the world all these people came from who are my "friends" on Facebook.


Maybe it was because of my job. When you work in the mass media and you intentionally work to build a cult of personality for yourself and your show and the members of your team and you want to "sell" and "promote" then, when you get requests from people to become "friends" then I have a hard time saying "No!" So, I always accept; it's just easier that way and I don't want to offend anyone....


But darned if almost every time I want to "add friend" (those few times) I get a message that says, "Do you know this user personally?" I even get these messages when I am recommended by someone who is my friend to become friends with that person.

This happens all the time. What's the point? If the receiver

doesn't want to "friend" me, then they deny or cancel, right?

Though, I must say, that the friend requests from girls who pose in their avatars showing lots of cleavage that look like they are selling prostitution services, well I always ignore them (of course, though, after checking their page!) I mean, what's the use in being a friend of a prostitute on Facebook fer chrissakes? I can understand being the friend of a prostitute in real life but in virtual world? I don't get it! Talk about blue balls!


So, now, if you look at my Facebook and Twitter, it looks like I am an extremely popular guy. Heck, I even have friends in Columbia and Brazil and the closest I've ever been to those places was Tijuana Mexico or the San Diego Zoo. I think I met a guy from Brazil once but he was a world famous soccer star named Zico or Rico or something like that so I doubt that he'd send me a Facebook friend request. (Heck, most soccer stars are too illiterate to even know how to use a keyboard or do the alphabet for that matter.)


I laugh when I see where on Facebook it says something like "you and so-and-so have ... mutual friends" and it shows a number. I think it should be more specific. It should be "mutual friends" and "real friends." It should say that "you and so-and-so have ... actual friends." And there would be a drop-down tab that would scroll up to five people in total and that would be it.


True friends will drop anything and travel to your side if you were in trouble and in need of help. Ninety-nine percent of all "friends" on Facebook, well on my Facebook at least, I don't ever recall meeting. You can bet that if you see someone's Facebook and it is like mine with several hundred friends, that we haven't met even a fraction of them and, if we walked past them on the street, or they us, we wouldn't recognize each other in a million years.


Facebook should have different categories: "Real Friends" (up to 5 ~10), "Friends" (maybe 20 or so), "Acquaintances" (maybe a few hundred), "People living on the same planet as you" (That would engulf 97.8% of all Facebook's current "Friends" category).   


I'm looking forward to the day when I can have my very own Facebook where no one can find me and I am the only one who can invite people into my own little world. I'd have about 4 or 5 dear friends and we can communicate heart to heart... Oh, wait a minute, we do have that. It's called email, the postal service or, even, that high tech wizardry know as a telephone. 


I'm wondering what is the purpose of this narcissistic Facebook type of nonsense that brags to the world look at me! I'm somebody! I have hundreds of friends!...


...Of which, 90% of those I don't ever remember meeting...


I am somebody. You are too. 100 ~ 5000 Friends on Facebook (the limit) means nothing. I'd rather have a core of 5 good friends who I can depend on in my life than 500,000 people whose faces I don't even recognize or they, me.


Instead of getting 100 virtual friends, get out of the house and try to make one real friend. Life is more important than sitting in front of a screen be it a TV screen or computer screen. 

Facebook & Groupon in Japan? "It's Too Late?"

There is an old Japanese saying, "There is nothing scarier than something for free." Not understanding this saying, as well as other Japanese peculiarities, might ensure that Facebook will not be successful in Japan. There's more on Groupon below and I've written extensively on that here. Today, a Japanese user (a woman) chimes in (below).

CORNELIUS BROTHERS & SISTER ROSE - IT'S TOO LATE

No matter what either of these do now, they may never capture the market share they need to be more than an "also-ran" in Japan. The Japanese, especially the women, have already fallen in love with the other Social Networks like Mixi, Gree and Mobage-Town. Is it too late for Facebook?

Facebook and Groupon are the old story of a successful foreign company coming to Japan expecting that their product will be a hit without taking the time to bother with learning how the Japanese think or the quirks of an enigmatic, old country like Japan.


Japan is over 2,700 years old... Who'd a thunk it would be differ'nt from the good ol' US of A? Funny, that.


Facebook started off very slowly in Japan by not bothering to make their software more "Japanese friendly." They made the old mistake that many foreign companies make when coming to Japan; they didn't bother to learn the intricacies of the Japanese market so they lost a huge chance in this country. In Japan, having a successful debut is critical in getting sympathetic press and publicity. 


This is one of the most literate countries in the world, the press and the people have a voracious appetite for information. If you blow your debut and do not get the "fire of imagination" going immediately, then people (and press) lose interest in your very quickly. 


Big Japanese companies are backing Mixi, Gree and Mobage-Town. Big Japanese companies own mobile operators in this country. Big Japanese companies own the media and buy advertising. Mixi, Gree and Mobage-Town have about 60 million + users in Japan. Facebook has 2.93 million. You do the math.  


At the start, many Facebook functions were poorly translated into Japanese and they didn't make any sense at all to the locals. On top of that, the program wasn't mobile ready.

In a country of over 120 million cellphones users and with over 90% of those users not having a PC at home, not making your service mobile ready is a sure-fire recipe for failure. A big company like Facebook should have spent the money and time not to make these mistakes. 


             Here are some figures about the mobile market in Japan in 2008
*€10 billions (3.5 for paid content and 6.5 for the m-commerce) – 17% increase since 2008
*91.5 million people use internet through their mobile (94% through 3G)


Like I said, in Japan, if you blow your debut, that's usually "it" for you; you are through in this country. There is usually no second chance. Good examples of companies that failed by making the mistake of not understanding the Japanese market are, Pepsi, Carrefour, E-Bay, Universal Studios, just to name a few.


I think you can add Groupon to that list and, perhaps, Facebook is coming soon too.


Besides not setting up their software to be more Japanese friendly, Facebook didn't launch their software as mobile ready. That's a big, big, (well actually stupid) mistake in Japan. In Japan, 90% of all cellphone users do not have a personal computer at home. 


Facebook has finally gotten their program cellphone ready, but I think it might be too late.  Already, Mixi, Gree and Mobage-Town dominate the market. Count up the users from these three and you have almost 1/2 the population of Japan and more than 20 times the number of Facebook users in the country.


Why would the Japanese switch to Facebook? I don't think they will. Time will tell.


Not to mention all of the problems I've listed above Facebook doesn't protect people's privacy enough. I think this has to do with the American attitude towards more freedom in sex. That's fine for the west, but, still the Japanese are quiet people about their sexuality and do not seem too eager to broadcast to the world. I've written about that here before. The other Japanese Social Network systems allow the Japanese to use fake names and they do not pry into family affairs and relationships. Facebook does... In fact, Facebook does it way too much.


I recently got a letter from a Japanese woman regarding my article; Japanese People Like Their Privacy, So Facebook Will Be An Also-Ran. She says that she, too, is suspicious of Facebook. Here is her letter:


"I'm Japanese and recently I felt the same for Facebook... I completely agree to your opinion. Now many Japanese people who does not speak English have started to use Facebook and it seems like a merrymaking! But I've started to doubt how many people understand Facebook collect their personal information to sell as their products. There's a saying in Japan as "Tada yori kowai mono ha nai. (There is nothing that is scarier than for free. )

When I've started to use Facebook I thought it was really useful for me to keep in touch and find my old friends in abroad. I could actually found an Australian boy who was 5 years old when I stayed his house as the exchange student...He was there on Facebook as 35 years old man! And I found another friend I lost contact for 20 years. So Facebook has worked for me to let them know I'm still alive in Japan. Then around November of last year, many of my Japanese friends or unknown Japanese suddenly sent me the friend request. Since then they are in a merrymaking. I feel it's because of the business depression in Japan and they seems to find exit for this long business depression tunnel. But you know what behind this party in Japan on Facebook, big enterprises scrimp and save their personal information. Many Japanese magazine issues feature article how to use Facebook though there isn't mentioned about the gimmick for them. Some Japanese have started to realize it.. so it will to be toned down soon." (sic)


I think you get the gist of her message. I agree. In my experience and in my work, I know many movers and shakers. Just a few of these people have started using Facebook. It is not really a deluge at all. I've also spoken with some of them and they tell me that they do not like the personal information part and they really dislike getting messages from people to join "this cause" or "that cause."


I think they don't like these invitations because if you click them, Facebook asks if this cause can access your personal information. Aha! Once again that privacy problem occurs. 


Anyway, only time will tell about Facebook in Japan. The only thing I can tell you at this very moment in Japan is that the buzz on the street for Facebook (and Groupon) are not good...


Well, that's not fair. The jury is still out on Facebook... In Japan, no one has anything good to say about Groupon. I haven't heard a good word about Groupon yet.... Just excuses.

Japanese People Like Privacy So Facebook Will Always Be an Also-Ran

As I wrote long ago, I seriously doubt Facebook can surpass Mixi or Gree in Japan. The Japanese like their privacy and Facebook doesn't address these concerns nearly enough. 


I suspect that if Facebook cannot dethroned either, it will be a failure in this country.


Actually, with how much of a problem hacking and stealing identities is these days, I am amazed at just how many people in the west put up so much personal information on Facebook.

Once again, I have found a recent article that supports my beliefs about Facebook not becoming number one in Japan and how the can't do so as the cultural differences are too great.


Let's face it, Mixi and Gree were made in Japan, they completely understand the Japanese psyche. Facebook doesn't. Also, one of Facebook's biggest sales points is that it let's you connect with people overseas. That is not a big point of appeal to the Japanese. 


Bloomberg reports:

Facebook Inc. may not overtake Mixi Inc. in Japan as the lure of connecting with friends overseas isn’t enough for users to switch services, according to the U.S. social-networking site’s biggest games developer.

Japan “is one place where Facebook may not end up being dominant,” Robert Goldberg, head of Zynga Game Network Inc.’s operations in the country, said in an interview in Tokyo. 

According to Nikkeisha research, only 3% of the Japanese public can converse in English. This is a huge reason why reconnecting with people in foreign countries doesn't really appeal to the Japanese; they can't communicate.

I think it is possible that Facebook could actually be a failure in Japan much like Pepsi-cola or Universal Studios. The article continues:

Mixi is better suited for Japanese users because it gives subscribers more control over who sees their content and personal data is more secure, President Kenji Kasahara said in an interview on Dec. 15. Users can also send Twitter-like messages limited to 150 characters, a service that began in September 2009 and isn’t available on Facebook, Kasahara said at the time.

Masashi Tokuda, a Tokyo-based spokesman at Mixi, said the company’s stance hasn’t changed since Kasahara made the comments.

Shares of Mixi declined 5.6 percent to 428,500 yen as of 1:25 p.m. on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, compared with a 0.7 percent gain in the benchmark Nikkei 225 Stock Average. Zynga is a closely held company.

Mixi’s monthly active users, subscribers who log in at least once a month, have reached 14.5 million as of Dec. 31, the Tokyo-based company said earlier this month. That compares with Facebook’s more than 500 million users worldwide and 24.5 million for DeNA Co., Japan’s biggest developer of social games for mobile phones.

"Japan is a unique marketplace and it is necessary to take care when bringing a global product and localizing it to the Japanese culture."

Mixi and Gree allow people to use pen-names and to hide their true identities. This is important to the Japanese. 

Facebook isn't going to change 2,700 years of culture in five years. It's crazy to think that they could. Facebook doesn't protect people's privacy enough and, recently, there has been lots of junk mail and people's account's being hijacked to send junk mail out.

Like I said, they might fail here. Many big guns have in the past failed. Of the companies successful in the west that have failed in the Japanese market, the list is long; Pepsi, Universal Studio Theme Park, eBay, Vodaphone, Carrefour, Burger King and many more. The most surprising thing about this list is that, even after the failures of big players with multi-million dollar budgets, the list grows longer everyday. 

Will it include Facebook someday?

The companies who failed in Japan, failed because they couldn't comprehend just how different Japan is from the west. On the other hand, the companies who succeeded like; Disney, Coca Cola, Goldman Sachs, Yahoo and Amazon, all hired Japanese companies to handle their product/service PR for the Japanese market. 

Facebook blew it at the start in Japan by not correctly localizing their service and they also lost 2 years by not having their service ready for cell phones. This allowed Mixi and Gree to completely capture the youth market.

I think you would hard-pressed to find a high school kid in Japan who uses Facebook... I know a few college kids who do (they all speak English).

Don't even get me started on Twitter

I have a Facebook account too. I am thinking about quitting it. But I haven't. Why? I connect with many foreign musicians through Facebook. It is useful for that. Facebook is great for foreigners. But for connecting to the Japanese? No. Don't need Facebook.

I certainly do not put any personal information on my Facebook account. I don't even have my correct birth date on it. I'd recommend that you eliminate all personal information on yours too.

So, like I said, I have been serious about quitting Facebook recently. Any readers in Japan who feel the same way?


This from Eye on Miami:


HERE IS FACEBOOK'S CURRENT POLICY ON USER CONTENT...LOOK AT LAST LINE: IT BASICALLY SAYS "PERMANENT RECORD!"

"By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing. You may remove your User Content from the Site at any time. If you choose to remove your User Content, the license granted above will automatically expire, however you acknowledge that the Company may retain archived copies of your User Content." 

Here's a great, humorous article entitled, "Facebook Sucks" that spells out the dangers of too much information and about not being cautious on Social Media.

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Can Facebook Be a Contender in Japan? Probably Too Late.

In Japan, Facebook is small potatoes. In this country, Mixi, Gree and Mobage-town blow Facebook out of the water.


As Asahi Newspaper reports:

Facebook's global membership is about 30 times the size of Mixi's, Japan's largest social networking service, but the tables are turned if you look at Japan membership alone. Mixi has about 20 million registered users, and competing services like Gree and Mobage-town are not far behind.

According to the research company NetRatings Japan Inc., there were an estimated 2.93 million Facebook users in Japan as of last November.

I have three daughters. Two of them do Facebook, Gree and Mixi. The youngest daughter only does Gree. I think it is important that the youngest is not interested in Mixi and only Gree...

Of the two daughter who do Facebook, they told me that they only do it because they are half-American, went to school in the USA, and, as such, their US friends do Facebook. They added comments like they don't have any Japanese friends who do Facebook.

Come to think of it... I only have a few. I have thousands of "friends" who do Mixi.

I have another child who is going to international school here in Japan. I do notice that the mothers of the children of those schools do Facebook, but I haven't noticed my wife doing Facebook with her Japanese friends who reside outside of the "foreign community" in this country. With them she does Mixi.

In my (most possibly confused) opinion, I think it is too late for Facebook in Japan. People over 25 do Mixi; High School kids don't do Mixi and do Gree or Mobage. Why do the younger people all do Gree or Mobage? Because data shows that 98% of all 16-year-olds and up in Japan have a cellphone. 90% of those people do not have a PC.

Services like Gree were built specifically for Japanese young people using cell phones, not PC. This makes them have a massive advantage over a service like Facebook that was built for PC then has to be adapted to cellphone; not to mention the cultural problems that a system created in the USA has to overcome in tackling Japan.

Facebook lost their chance in this country when they first arrived and failed to recognize that this is a cellphone country and that few people have PCs in their homes. It is too late to catch up now.

It is an error that companies from the west have made repeatedly over these last 40 years (think Pepsi Cola, Universal Studios, E-Bay, Pay-Pal, etc...) These companies came into Japan thinking that they could do business the same way they had always done in the west, but they failed.

Now, it's too late for them in Japan. 

I do not see why Facebook thinks they will be different this time. No. I think history will repeat itself again.