Twitter Inc. is turning Japanese. Or at least trying to.
The popular microblogging service on Thursday launched a Japan-based mobile version, hoping to penetrate a country where other U.S. social networking sites including Facebook and MySpace have failed to capture much ground.
Japanese is Twitter’s sole foreign language platform so far, and the company’s efforts here indicate it’s serious about making it in Japan.
Twitter teamed up with Tokyo-based Internet firm Digital Garage Inc. in early 2008. It launched a Japanese-language platform for cellphones and other mobile devices in the spring of 2008, and hired a Japan country manager earlier this year.
The company is experimenting with making money from features it doesn’t use on its English language site, such as banner ads.
While early adopters were mainly male tech geeks, the messaging service is finally gaining some traction in mainstream Japan. Between January and June, the number of users jumped almost fourfold to 783,000, according to Internet research firm NetRatings.
Japanese celebrities and politicians are starting to sign up. So are traditional media outlets like newspapers and radio stations as well as municipalities and companies eager to take advantage of Twitter’s marketing potential.
Lawmaker Kenzo Fujisue first heard about Twitter from a friend in Silicon Valley and now tweets regularly throughout the day. He has more than 5,400 followers, and his 140-character messages — all in Japanese — range from serious policy issues to the more mundane, like what he ate for dinner.
“People don’t really know what politicians do,” he said. “Twitter helps me give people a glimpse of the lawmaking process.”
Still, Twitter remains a mystery to the vast majority of Japanese Web users. Mixi, the country’s top social networking site, has 17 million users and is aiming for 30 million within four years.
The key to expansion in Japan is to go mobile, Digital Garage’s Rocky…