Japan's Online Social Scene Isn't So Social

SYDNEY MORNING HERALD -- Sep 26 -- The vast majority of mixi's roughly 15m users don't reveal anything about themselves. It's not just mixi. It's Japan. Fewer than half of Match's members in Japan are willing to post their photos, compared with nearly all members in the U.S. Google, which operates YouTube, has tried to convince the Japanese to loosen up, running events in Tokyo in which girls in miniskirts roam the streets with giant picture frames and video cameras, soliciting pedestrians to frame themselves and record a clip for the site. "When we did research in Japan, we found that the No. 1 reason for not using online dating is that they don't know if people are real or not," says Match.com's Japan president, Katsu Kuwano. The company hopes to make more people show themselves online by defining itself in a less Web-centric way. Match has also held offline events at Tokyo restaurants. FULL ARTICLE @ SYDNEY MORNING HERALD

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