mixi

mixi, Inc. ,ミクシィ Mikushī, TYO: 2121, is one of several social networking websites in Japan. As of May 2008, mixi had over 21.6 million users and an 80% share of the social networking market in Japan. mixi was founded by Kenji Kasahara, under E-Mercury, Inc. (actually Mixi, Inc.).

History

Mixi has enjoyed a steady growth in its userbase. In 2005, the website had more than one million users, and less than a year later, it had more than five million users. The site had more than 10 million users in February 2007, and as of July 2010, more than 30 million. This number includes deleted and multiple accounts.

Overview

The focus of Mixi is "community entertainment," that is, meeting new people based on common interests. As is typical of social networking sites, users can send and receive messages, write in a diary, read and comment on others' diaries, organize and join communities, and invite their friends.

Started in February 2004, there are now more than 10 million members and 1 million communities on mixi, and more than 2 million page views per day as of December 2007.

Registration requires a valid Japanese cellphone number, which bars anyone who is not or has not been a resident of Japan.

A community is a place for people to share their opinions through an online forum and a way to express tastes and hobbies.

A footprint (ashiato (足あと?)) is a function that allows a user to see who has visited their page.

myMIXI, or MAIMIKU for short means buddy or friend. This is similar to a contact in flickr or zooomr, or friend on Myspace, and involves an approval process. The maximum possible number of myMIXI a user allowed to have is 1,000. Accounts that are marked as tarento or celebrities don't have this limitation.

The word Mixi is a combination of mix and I, referring to the idea that the user, "I", "mixes" with other users through the service.

"Mixi Station" is an application that detects songs being played in iTunes and Windows Media Player and uploads them automatically to a communally accessible list in the "Music" section, and was implemented late in June 2006. By July 2006, support for winamp was implemented via a winamp plugin, which was quickly made official by Mixi.

Batara Eto was the only developer at the start of the social networking site.

Mixi heavily uses open source: Linux, Apache, MySQL, and Perl. It uses several hundred MySQL servers. Mixi also uses Tokyo Cabinet NoSQL database.

"Mixi Fatigue (mixi tsukare (ミクシィ疲れ?))" is a psychological state in Japanese youth experiencing a sense of tiredness from using Mixi and voicing the desire to discontinue using Mixi, and finally deciding to terminate their Mixi account.

Mixi added the feature to upload your own video content, along with the ability to post content from YouTube.

Celebrity Accounts

In 2008, mixi began "Celebrity Accounts" in which celebrities who are on the social networking site are allowed to surpass the 1000-friend limit and potentially have an unlimited number of followers.

Many popular figures have "Celebrity Accounts" such as actress, model, singer Anna Tsuchiya, producer and rapper Shing02, Akihabara idol Haruko Momoi and countless others including fictional character Arsène Lupin III from the series of the same name.

Mixi maintains an official list of these accounts. 

Terms of use

In early 2008, Mixi announced a plan to revise their terms of use Mixi 利用規約. The changes, which were supposed to take effect as of April 1, 2008, included a section that appeared to grant Mixi unrestricted ownership to all user generated content. In particular, the proposed changes to Clause 18 stated:

"By posting information, including diaries and the like, on this service, users grant the service the unrestricted right to use said information (whether in the form of reproduction, publication, distribution, translation, modification or the like) without compensation."

However, the clause was never actually implemented, apparently due to user protests. The relevant portion of the terms of use currently states that "all rights (including copyright and personal-usage rights) for content belong to the user that created it."

As of December 2008, Mixi is now discouraging use of Mixi as a dating site, prohibiting users from “using Mixi mainly to meet with strangers of the other sex”.