TOKYO — Twitter is a hit in Japan, succeeding where other social-networking imports like Facebook have foundered as millions “mumble” — the translation of tweet — and give mini-blogging a distinctly Japanese flavor.
The arrival of the Japanese-language Twitter service in 2008 tapped into a greater sense of individuality in Japan, especially among younger people less accepting of the understatement and conformity their culture is usually associated with, analysts say.
A mobile version of Twitter started in October, further fueling the Twitter boom in a nation where Internet-connecting cell phones have been the rule for years.
These days, seminars teaching the tricks of the tweet, as the micro-blog postings are known, are popping up. Ending Japanese sentences with “nah-woo” — an adaptation of “now” in English — is hip, showing off the speaker’s versatility in pseudo-English Twitter-speak.
A TV show features characters that tweet. A Tokyo bar has screens showing tweets along with World Cup games. And pop idols, a former prime minister and plain regular people are all tweeting like crazy.
The proportion of Japanese Internet users who tweet is 16.3 percent and now surpasses the ratio among Americans at 9.8 percent. Twitter and Japan’s top social-networking site, mixi, have been running neck-and-neck with monthly visitors between 9 million and 10 million but Twitter squeaked past mixi in April, according to ratings agency Nielsen Online.
In contrast, only 3 percent of Japanese Internet users are on Facebook, compared with 62 percent in the U.S., according to Nielsen. MySpace has also failed to take off in Japan, at less than 3 percent of Net users versus 35 percent in the U.S., according to comScore.
Twitter estimates that Japanese write nearly 8 million tweets a day, or about 12 percent of the global total. Data from Tweet Sentiments, a website that analyzes tweets, show Japanese are sometimes tweeting more frequently than Americans.
“Japan is enjoying the richest and most varied form of Twitter usage as a communication tool,” says Daisuke Tsuda, 36, a writer with more than 65,000 “followers” for his tweets. “It’s playing out as a rediscovery of the Internet.”
One reason is language. It’s possible to say so much more in Japanese within Twitter’s 140-letter limit. The word “information” requires just two letters in Japanese. That allows academics and politicians to relay complex views, according to Tsuda, who believes Twitter could easily attract 20 million people in Japan soon.
Another is that people are owning up to their identities on Twitter. Anonymity tended to be the rule on popular Japanese websites, and horror stories abounded about people getting targeted in smear campaigns that were launched under the shroud of anonymity.
In contrast, Twitter anecdotes are heartwarming. One well-known case is a woman who posted on Twitter the photo of a park her father sent in an e-mail attachment before he died. Twitter was immediately abuzz with people comparing parks.
So far, people are flocking to Twitter in positive ways, reaching out in direct, public and interactive communication, debunking the stereotype of Japanese as shy and insular, says Noriyuki Ikeda, chief executive of Tribal Media House, which consults on social media marketing.
“Twitter is turning out to be like a cocktail party,” he told The Associated Press. “Japanese see how fun it is to network and casually connect with other people.”
