Japanese twitter users at a football game. Source: theHindu.com (I see Ricky from "Better Off Dead" finally made it over to Tokyo)

I increasingly hear from people that they are “giving up” or abandoning twitter. Reasons given are the usual suspects: the signal-to-noise ratio is bad, no quality insights are possible in 140 characters, most tweets just look like shallow self promotion, product company spam. Indeed, there was a golden era (that lasted about 6 weeks) where one could tweet about a company, and receive a prompt response. Now that most companies have installed a twitter-monitoring robot, the service level is quickly degrading right down to the same level as the automatic email responders– or worse– the automated telephone system.

Twitter as a viable business tool is limited; as a marketing blurb tool it’s adequate, but as an ongoing small-talk medium it seems to do pretty well.

As I’ve picked up more and more Japanese friends on twitter, I’ve noticed that it seems to be doing relatively well in Japan (compared to the US market). Why is that? Is it just the stereotype of tech-friendly gadget-wacko Japanese? Or are there some other more specific factors in play? I have absolutely NO SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH to back this up, but here are my postulations. Perhaps someone out there can follow up with some actual useful information. I’m throwing this out now to get the conversation started.

Possible technology explanations for better twitter penetration into Japan:

• Character/language density – One quality of East Asian languages that use Kanji is that many words can become pretty short. In English, “transport” is 9 characters; in Japanese it’s two: 交通. “Tokyo” is 5 characters in English, Japanese is two: 東京. Similar consolidations go for names, places, verbs, etc. Yes, Japanese grammar may get longer, but since when is proper grammar needed in twitter? It seems that the Japanese writing system has an inherent “density” advantage over English.
• Input tools – Twitter seems tailor made for mobile devices: short, text-centric, quick input. For a networked society that already preferred the mobile phone-based Internet access, twitter drops right into place, often much handier than email. I’ve discussed this before.

Along with the tech explanations, however, there may be some cultural differences in play. These are kinda squishy, so please squint appropriately:

• Inherent public posting – Most Japanese people I know guard their privacy pretty strongly, but no more so than Americans or Europeans, I think. However, there sometimes is a strong tendency to make idle chit-chat items public out to the group. Japanese people will usually not talk with strangers, unless someone breaks the ice with small talk about the weather or some ramen noodles. Then, the mode shifts to everyone wanting to build a connection with others, and everyone will pipe in their 2 cents. Mind you, this isn’t a political debate or anything concrete, just pichiku-pachiku. Twitter seems to facilitate this nicely. Let me put it this way: that signal-to-noise ratio that drives some of my American friends nuts fits in nicely with the low-level buzz that Japanese ping to each other to reinforce their relationships.
• ongaeshi 恩返し — My wife (who is Japanese) dislikes instant chat with other Japanese, because of all the built-in politeness requires everyone to say “thank you” and “goodbye” at least 4 or 5 times before closing the conversation. For Japanese, a similar thing looks like it’s occuring in twitter, albeit in asynchronous slow motion: someone follows you, you actually have a bit of an obligation to follow them back. If someone tweets your name, you’ll RT a simple acknowledgement. Taken together, this may push enough people past that critical mass needed to keep a social network flourishing.
• Lack of a Mixi / Facebook alternative– Mixi is pretty noisy and cumbersome compared to Facebook, but has an interface completely native to Japan. Facebook, while cleaner, may be a little too “close” for the idle chit-chat that seems to go on in twitter (this is no different than the US: don’t you hate that guy on Facebook that has hotlinked all his tweets to show up in his friend feed?). Taken together, twitter gives a good outlet for quick updates via mobile phone in a text-rich environment (easily consumed on the train).
• Son Masayoshi– The great thought leader of Softbank seems to be a prolific twitterer. Along with other leadingtech figures in Japan, Son seems to actually hold ongoing debates and policy discussions via twitter. This openness is refreshing if not counter-intuitive for Japanese business. Put together, twitter looks like the domain of the tech-forward progressives.