When it comes to familiar social networking, though, the rest of the world isn't necessarily addicted to Facebook. Different countries have their own online procrastination tools. With that, I will talk about Japan's "place for friends":
mixi.jp is Facebook from The Land of the Rising Sun. Mixi was created in 2004 by entrepreneur Kenji Kasahara, and dominates 80% of the social networking market in Japan. As of 2008 there were over 21 million registered users on the site.
Some features of mixi sound familiar to us Facebook users: members can upload albums and photos, write on each other's profile, play games, update statuses on the news feed, write in a diary (like "notes"), and many others.
A feature called ashiato ("footprint") lets a user know who has looked at their profile, which could actually be an average Facebook user (aka stalker)'s worst nightmare.
The differences beyond that, though, may show a little insight into the Japanese psyche. Unlike Facebook, in order to register for mixi, you need to have a valid Japanese cell phone number. This rule actually bars anyone who does not live in Japan access to the website. Japan has a history of being a closed-off country, which had refused contact from the western world until 1854. Even today, the country can sometimes be seen as a xenophobic society, illustrated by many examples: Just one being the refusal to allow anyone else from another country to join their social websites.
