75 percent of Japanese still haven't heard of Facebook

When award-winning movie "The Social Network" opened last weekend in Japan, it failed to top the box office, beaten by a domestic film “Boku to Tsuma no 1778 no Monogatari.” As a metaphor for the reality of Facebook's challenge in Japan, it could not have been more appropriate.

According to the New York Times, just two percent of Japan's online users are registered on Facebook, compared to 60 percent in the United States. With an online advertising market worth US$8.5 billion in 2009, it's no surprise that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has promised to resolve the issue.

In an investigation by Japanese channel NTV, some 75 percent of Japanese polled on the street had still never heard of the world's leading social network site. Similar local site Mixi has over 10 times more users than Facebook with 21.6 million compared to less than two million registered Japanese users of Zuckerberg's powerhouse.

It seems too, that the increasing awareness of Facebook in Japan is coming through those who have studied or lived abroad.

Hidden identities

So why the difficulty? While Facebook users proudly display their pictures and personal information, all three of the leading networks in Japan use nicknames and avatars to hide the user's true identity.

Last year, gaming and social networking hybrid GREE overtook Mixi in terms of number of users, while mobile social networking site Mobage Town placed third, but all allow those registered to mask their real names.

Convincing the Japanese online community to reveal themselves is the biggest challenge for Facebook, and with all three of the big players in Japan set to incorporate some of Facebook's techniques -- such as allowing third-party apps -- there will be little reason for most Japanese to change. 

So is this another case of Galapagos Japan with the country becoming even more isolated? The success of Twitter seems to support the case.

Twitter does not require personal information to be displayed, and has therefore had a greater take-up in Japan. In fact, Japan recently set a world record for the number of tweets per second on New Year's Eve. The leading Japanese twitter users were also revealed to be Yoko Ono and Softbank Masayoshi Son.

Meanwhile, a survey at the end of last year found that Japanese have the fewest friends of any nationality on social networking sites, though given that Japanese rarely reveal their identity, it's questionable whether this can be measured accurately and that the truth is quite different -- Japanese are as active as anyone when it comes to social networking.