Twitter Inc now speaks more Japanese — and it plans to be multilingual within months.
The popular microblogging service launched a Japan-based mobile version on Thursday, hoping to penetrate a country where other US social networking sites including Facebook and MySpace have failed to capture much ground.
Japanese is Twitter’s sole non-English platform so far, and the company’s efforts here indicate it’s serious about making it big in Japan — and eventually all over the world.
Twitter teamed up with Tokyo-based Internet firm Digital Garage Inc early last year. It launched a Japanese-language platform for PCs in the spring of last year, and hired a Japan country manager earlier this year.
“It’s an excellent opportunity for us to see where we can go in Asia in general because Japan represents a leading edge, with advanced mobile usage,” said Twitter co-founder Biz Stone, who traveled to Tokyo for the launch. “Mobile is in Twitter’s DNA.”
The company will roll out the site in Spanish, German, French and Italian over the next few months, Stone added.
The San Francisco-based company is also using Japan to experiment with ways to make money from features unavailable on its English language site, such as banner ads. It remains mum on how much revenue the ads have attracted so far.
Early adopters were largely male tech geeks, but the messaging service is finally gaining some traction in mainstream Japan.
Between January and June, the number of users jumped almost fourfold to 783,000, according to Internet research firm NetRatings.
Japanese celebrities and politicians are starting to sign up. So are traditional media outlets like newspapers and radio stations as well as municipalities and companies eager to take advantage of Twitter’s marketing potential.
Lawmaker Kenzo Fujisue first heard about Twitter from a friend in Silicon Valley and now tweets regularly throughout the day. He has more than 5,400 followers, and his 140-character messages — all in Japanese — range from serious policy issues to the more mundane, like what he ate for dinner.
“People don’t really know what politicians do,” he said. “Twitter helps me give people a glimpse of the lawmaking process.”
Still, Twitter remains a mystery to the vast majority of Japanese Web users. Mixi, the country’s top social networking site, has 17 million users and is aiming for 30 million within four years.
The key to expansion in Japan is to develop a locally friendly mobile platform, Digital Garage’s Rocky Eda said in June.
‘NO SECURITY RISK’: The Railway Bureau reassured the public that the technicians’ activities were limited to technical guidance and did not involve sensitive systems The Railway Bureau yesterday said it had invited eight Chinese technicians to assist with an airport MRT construction project. The bureau issued the confirmation after an Internet user said Chinese nationals had entered the construction zone of Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport’s Terminal 3 project. They asked why “individuals from an enemy state” were allowed access to such a major national infrastructure project, which raised serious concerns over Taiwan’s industrial safety, sensitive systems and information security. The bureau’s Northern Region Engineering Branch Office said subcontractor Taiwan Handle Industrial Co (台灣手把工業) of the Taoyuan airport MRT’s “Contract No. CU05 Project A14 Station Civil, MEP &
A US uncrewed surface vessel (USV) encountered multiple Chinese warships during an autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait, US defense company Seasats said in a statement on Wednesday. Seasats announced that a Lightfish USV had completed the first autonomous transit of the Taiwan Strait. Over five days, the USV traversed the entire length of the Strait while constantly monitoring surface vessel traffic, the company said. The Lightfish encountered multiple Chinese warships, one of which was a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) Type 056 corvette, it said. The Chinese vessels were operating “well within Taiwan’s exclusive economic zone without transmitting their identity via the
‘BOOMING’: ’ The number of partners we have here is incredible. You can see from their stock prices. They’re doing so well, they’re so happy,’ Jensen Huang said Nvidia Corp’s spending in Taiwan has ballooned to about US$150 billion a year, 10 times the US$10 billion to US$15 billion the company spent five years ago, Nvidia chief executive officer Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said yesterday, suggesting Taiwan’s strategic importance in the global artificial intelligence (AI) supply chain. “Taiwan is the epicenter of the AI revolution. This is where the chips come, packaging comes. This is where the systems are made. This is where AI supercomputers were created,” Huang said at a meeting for the company’s employees in Beitou-Shilin Technology Park (北投士林科技園區) in Taipei, the planned site of Nvidia’s Taipei headquarters. “Taiwan
GREATER REACH? Auto parts and wood products would face tariffs of up to 15%, matching those targeting the EU, Japan and South Korea, Vice Premier said The US has announced that preferential tariff treatment for Taiwan’s non-semiconductor Section 232 goods would take effect retroactively from May 1, the Executive Yuan said yesterday. The US government yesterday posted a notice on the Federal Register’s public inspection Web site previewing tariff concessions for Taiwan under a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on Taiwan-US investment after two months of negotiations. The MOU signed on Jan. 15 stipulated three major preferential tariff arrangements: a 15 percent “reciprocal” tariff rate for Taiwan without stacking most-favored nation (MFN) rates; preferential Section 232 treatment for semiconductors and related products; and preferential Section 232 treatment for non-semiconductor
RSS