Facebook and Mixi
Interesting! I was hit with this banner image while I was replying in Japanese to a message that former college professor and good friend of mine sent me (also in Japanese). Looks as though the American-started social site, Facebook, is reaching out to speakers of Japanese. The whole site is still in English, and considering the vast majority of the Facebook community is English speaking, I imagine it’s really only helpful to exchange students and former exchange students at the moment.
You may have also noticed that I added a script to the bottom of the left sidebar. Feel free to friend me on Facebook – but please note that I reserve the right to not accept friend offers arbitrarily and won’t feel bad about it. The odds of me accepting are far greater if I know you as a commenter on the blog. I think that’s rational. Ha ha.
I used to have an account with a very popular Japanese social site called Mixi. I started it when I was still attending classes at Waseda, but have no idea how to access it now. It’s fallen by the wayside. (By the way, if anyone wants to take pity on me and send me an invite to create a new Mixi profile, you can hit deas at rocking in hakata dot com. I’d appreciate it.)
UPDATE: Found it! You can search for me. デイズ・リチャードソン! Feel free to add me!
Recently, Koichi over at Tofugu submitted an article to JapanSoc, and I followed it to the site. The post is about improving your Japanese and making new friends by using Mixi. He outlines the differences between Mixi and sites like Facebook in the post. I thought one of the more interesting points he had was about the “communities” versus “groups” on Facebook. Apparently, communities tend to be actually active, whereas many groups are started with the sole intent to leave a funny group name on your profile or see how many people you can get to join. Interesting.
Anyway, just thought I’d drop that for your amused perusal. Do with the knowledge what you will. 
And have a nice day. Later!
