Facebook is NOT big in Japan

From:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/02/07/BUVU1HJV80.DTL

Number of the day

1.7%
That's the portion of the Japanese population that uses Facebook, according to Socialbakers, which tracks online statistics. Facebook is far less popular in Japan than in nearly every other developed country. In the United States, for example, almost half of the population uses the site. Many Japanese prefer a service called Mixi, which has 10 times as many users as Facebook in the country. While Facebook is growing in Japan, it isn't expected to challenge Mixi's dominance.


mixi, Inc. (ミクシィ Mikushī,) 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. Founded by Kenji Kasahara, under E-Mercury, Inc. (actually Mixi, Inc.). The focus of Mixi is "community entertainment", that is, meeting new people by way of 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.