Twitter in Japan Update 2010 – Statistics, Video and Duck Mouth?

By Neal Schaffer

Twitter books line the shelves at the famous Japanese electronics store Yodobashi Camera.

I just came back from a visit to Japan, where i was impressed with the growth of Twitter in the mainstream of Japanese society.  No, not everyone is using the realtime social networking platform, but considering that Japan is a society that both does its social networking primarily on the cellphone and are avid readers of the latest information through the plethora of printed magazine and newspapers that exist, the stage was set for Twitter to be successful in Japan.  And the numbers are already showing that the growth is impressive.  The interesting aspect is that its growth seems to be spawned by a wide professional demographic, not just early adopters.  In fact, while I was in Japan, Diamond Magazine, a well-respected business magazine that also represents the Harvard Business Review, did a cover story on Twitter that declared that ２０１０年は「使えない」ではすまされない, which roughly translates to mean that in 2010 you can’t say that you can’t “use” Twitter anymore.

The growth of Twitter in Japan, just like as in the United States, has been explosive.  However, as growth of Twitter in the United States seems to be slowing, it is predicted that Japan users of Twitter will grow from the 5 million users that was announced in February of this year to a goal of 10 million users by the end of the year, according to this article by the Japanese Twitter book author Masato Kogure.  This is an aggressive goal to say the least, but seeing that it is estimated that other foreign social networking sites LinkedIn and Facebook have under 1 million users in Japan, Twitter has broken out of the “foreign” mold and is taking on a distinctly Japanese flavor.  In fact, the Diamond magazine gave details on the popular social networking platform that took up 31 pages of their 150 page magazine, details in itself that would probably make a best-selling book here in the United States.

I look forward to reporting on this distinctly “Japanese” flavor of Twitter and what American businesses and professionals can learn from it into the future.  In the meantime, although the user numbers in Japan are far less than in the United States, one of the leading social media consultants in Japan, Toru Saito, pointed me to an article which showed that Japanese tweets represented 14% of all tweets worldwide.   Since Twitter worldwide users are estimated to be 75 million users, 6.7% of Japanese users creating 14% of all tweets worldwide hints that the Japanese are more active users than their average counterparts.

Moving on to the promised video in the title, I was literally walking around a popular youth culture part of Tokyo called Shibuya late at night and walked right into a symbol of the Twitter Movement in Japan without my knowing it.  First view the video, and then follow the text below it for what I found out about this cafe after I shot the video.

As it turns out, the hashtag #ahiru and the logo represent the term “ahiruguchi,” which literally means duck mouth or duck lips.  It was November 19, 2009 when a famous Japanese blogger named Matsuyou decided to change her profile photo.  The first reply to her was someone who said that they liked the photo but said she had a duck mouth.  This started off a chain reaction of people who said they actually liked the “duck mouth look,” and a new fashion trend was created.  But the story doesn’t end there!

Shortly afterwards Matsuyou (who, by the way, has more than 200,000 followers now) tweeted that she’d love to write a book on this Twitter movement, and three hours later she received an email from a publishing house.  Less than six months later, and Matsuyou’s new book “Everyone Love’s Duck Mouth!” was released.

The duck mouth look and Matsuyou have become such a boom that one of the trendy departments stores in this fashionable part of Tokyo, Parco, decided to open a cafe dedicated to the “I Love Duck Mouth” movement, and that is what you see in the video.  Not only does this cafe offer all the cutesy “Duck Mouth” cakes (like the one pictured here) and other accessories that you would expect from Japan, but if you go to this cafe after 6 P.M. you can get a discount of up to 20% based on the number of Twitter followers that you have!  Have you heard of a restaurant in the U.S. offering the same?

I’m already looking forward to my next trip to Japan and reporting to you all on the developments.  In the meantime, have you experienced Twitter in different countries other than the United States?  Do you find different countries and cultures are absorbing the social networking platform differently?  Would love to get your feedback!  日本語でのコメントもよろしくどうぞ！

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