Facebook reaches 10M in Japan, doubles users in 6 months

Facebook is 10 million monthly active users strong in Japan, the company announced today at a marketing conference in Tokyo. This figure indicates Facebook has about 10 percent penetration among Japanese Internet users and is quickly gaining on Mixi, Japan’s most popular social network. Mixi reported in February that it has 15.2 million monthly active users. Japan is one of the few countries where Facebook has lower than 20 percent penetration. Russia and South Korea are others, as well as China where Facebook is banned. But Facebook is growing rapidly in Japan. The latest MAU figures are double the 5 million the social network reported in September 2011. Facebook got serious about Japan in 2010, and developed a number of initiatives to increase usage there. The social network began to let users syndicate their Facebook posts on Mixi. It created a job search app for university students. And it prompted users to complete “missions” to fill out their profiles. Judging from a graph shown at fMC Tokyo, Facebook had about 1 million MAU at the start of 2010 and 2 million in 2011. Source:  http://www.insidefacebook.com/2012/03/16/facebook-reaches-10m-in-japan-doubled-users-in-6-months/

VOCABULARY

1.       Active (adj.) - doing something regularly

2.       Indicate (v) - to show that a particular situation exists, or that something is likely to be true

3.       Penetration (n) - when something or someone enters or passes through something, especially when this is difficult

4.       Banned (adj.) - not officially allowed to meet, exist, or be used

5.       Initiative (n) - an important new plan or process to achieve a particular aim or to solve a particular problem

6.       Figure(n) - a number representing an amount, especially an official number

7.       Syndicate (v) - to arrange for written work, photographs etc to be sold to a number of different newspapers, magazines etc

8.       Prompted (v) -

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1.       Do you have a Facebook account? Or Mixi? What do you use it for?

2.       What can you say about the figures shown on this article? Do you believe more Japanese are using Facebook now?

3.       Give advantages and disadvantages of social networking sites.

4.       In your opinion, what are the reasons people use Facebook or other networking site.

5.       Why do you think China banned Facebook?