The Battle between Enterprise SNS and Groupware

In Japan, many companies currently use collaborative software, or groupware. The giant is Cybozu which has more than 30% of the share in middle-sized and small-sized companies, which is more than double of the second ranked Lotus Notes/Dominio (12.9%). My law firm also introduced Cybozu and it facilitates our scheduling and communication, through functions to see the schedules of other lawyers, the bulletin board, and messaging. Now, this is a kind of "must" for many companies because of its convenience.

However, the future of collaborative software might be threatened. The new trend is using a social networking service for facilitating communication within the enterprise. Some companies use Facebook's group function to substitute collaborative software. Other companies use Airy, Beat Shuffle, Chatwork, Chatter, and Yammer. (Note that recently Cybozu also released enterprise SNSs.) One of the characteristics of the service by the enterprise SNSs is that usually users can easily set up a community to share knowledge. This means that the cross-sectional communication becomes easier if we use enterprise SNSs. A small company might be happy with the current groupware. But for middle- and large-sized companies with many sections and sectors, this flexibility of enterprise SNSs seems to be attractive. As the interest of Japanese companies on enterprise social networking service increases, there is a concern on whether the enterprise SNS service will substitute collaborative software. Will groupware be replaced by enterprise SNSs?


On February 14, 2013, Yoshhisa Aono the President & CEO of Cybozu clearly said NO to this question. His point is that instead of enterprise SNS taking place of groupware, what will happen is that collaborative software will have a new communication function similar to an enterprise SNS and many companies will continue to use this modified groupware.

He pointed out that there is the problem that in many companies data are being scattered around different software. In addition to backbone software, companies own many other kinds of software such as email software, data warehouse, and groupware. As the usage of a large amount of data (or Big Data) is becoming more and more important, it is essential that companies store their data in one place. President Aono contends that introducing new coming enterprise social networking software is against this trend. He argues that as groupware is already a basic infrastructure of communication within companies, the customers will continue to use the collaborative software. He even said, "enterprise social tools will be incorporated into groupware and will eventually be extinguished." ( Kigyo muke no sosharu turu ha gurupu uea ni torikomare te shometsu shite iku daro.)

It is still too early to assess whether or not President Aono's argument is correct. There will be many enterprise SNS companies which will try to survive in some innovative ways. However, at least it is clear that groupware companies recognize enterprise SNSs as an important competitor and that the companies are trying to incorporate convenient functions of enterprise SNSs into their collaborative software. As long as this competition is not too harsh, I believe it is good for the user companies because we can anticipate a great amount of future improvement in both collaborative software and enterprise SNS.  

DISCLAIMER: "IT Law issues in Japan" only provides general information about Japanese information technology law and does not, under any circumstances, constitute legal advice. You should first obtain the advice of professional legal counsel who is qualified in Japan before acting or refraining from acting based on this blog.

Facebook User in Japan Showed a Sharp Decline

Globally, the giant of the social networking service has been Facebook. However, in Japan, it was not in the past. At least by around 2011, Mixi was the most popular SNS in Japan. After 2012, Facebook became the most popular SNS.

Some surprising news is that according to the latest research in Japan, Facebook's users have started a decline. According to Cereja Technology, the number of Facebook users as of February 6 and 7, 2013 in Japan became 13,820,000, which is a 23.8% decline from January 2013. Cereja's research was based on the number of Facebook users when a company wanted to distribute a Facebook advertisement to Japanese users. According to similar research, the decline is mainly happening in the age range of 18 to 34. 

It is not very clear why this kind of decrease has happened. One of the issues that may be relevant is the rise of a new SNS. It is not Google+, LinkedIn, nor Path. It is Line.

Line is a SNS operated by a Japanese entity of a Korean Company called NHN Japan. The company boasted having 100,000,000 users all over the world as of January 18, 2013. Of the 100,000,000 users NHN Japan claims that around 41,000,000 users are Japanese.

Line started from a smartphone App by which users can call for free (somewhat similar to Skype). But now it has a texting function and wall function similar to Facebook message and Facebook wall. It's growing popularity owes partially from the popularity of an unlimited data service plan for Japanese smartphone users and partially from the fact that Line made full use of the address book of the smartphone installed to help the user to get connected with other Line "friends".

It is not clear whether Line can replace Facebook in Japan. It is also possible that Japanese people are just using Line in some occasions and for some purposes and using Facebook in other occasions and for other purposes. Therefore, it is too early to conclude that Line's rising popularity has made young Facebook users logout from Facebook and turn to Line.

However, at least, as Facebook's ARPU (Average Revenue Per User) is not in the trend of rapid increase, it is important for Facebook to keep increasing the number of the users. I think there are two important points that we should pay attention to: (1) whether this trend of decline of the numbers of Facebook users in Japan continues and (2) whether other countries follow the Japanese trend.

DISCLAIMER: "IT Law issues in Japan" only provides general information about Japanese information technology law and does not, under any circumstances, constitute legal advice. You should first obtain the advice of professional legal counsel who is qualified in Japan before acting or refraining from acting based on this blog.

Half of College Students Using SNS for Finding Jobs

How do Japanese college students find jobs? To understand the issue, first, the Japanese system of simultaneous recruiting of new graduates.

Different from most other countries, Japanese college students virtually have only one chance to get a permanent job. Namely, they want to or need to find a job and start working from April of the year of graduation. (N.B., the Japanese school year starts from April and ends in March.) On December 1st, junior students officially start attending explanatory sessions, interviews and other activities to find jobs. Many expect to find a job by the start of their senior year. On October 1st of the senior year, students who found jobs are officially offered a job, which is the official end of their job finding activities. (Those who could not get an official offer may have to continue searching for a job afterwards.)

One important characteristic is that a Japanese company does not generally require the new graduates to be an immediate asset for the firm. Therefore, students do no need to have some experience in relation to the job (such as intern or part-time job) during college. What the companies do is conduct systematized training and educate them.

The education, of course, needs a lot of time, money and effort. It would be a loss of an "asset" if those educated employees easily switch jobs. So, another important trait is that compared to many other markets around the world, the Japanese job market is relatively illiquid and Japanese companies traditionally offer lifetime employment.

The other important issue is that this is virtually the only chance a student may have to get a permanent job. Of course, there are some successful stories where a worker changed her status from a part-time to a full-time position, but at this time, they are exceptional. So, Japanese juniors are zealous and desperate to find a good full-time job during this period of simultaneous recruiting.

As a result, juniors tend to quickly follow the trend of the society. In a recent research by Dentsu Public Relations, about half of juniors are using social networking sites to find jobs. 

Different from the US, LinkedIn is not very popular in Japan. Therefore, the site most used for finding jobs is Facebook. According to the research, some students use Facebook as a digital business card and some use Twitter as a tool to collect informal information.

I am not sure whether the Japanese system of simultaneous recruiting of new graduates is good or not, but at least, in this world where SNSs are widely used, it is good to learn to use it as a business tool at a relatively early stage.

DISCLAIMER: "IT Law issues in Japan" only provides general information about Japanese information technology law and does not, under any circumstances, constitute legal advice. You should first obtain the advice of professional legal counsel who is qualified in Japan before acting or refraining from acting based on this blog.

Can Mixi, Japanese Social Network Service, Revive?

According to Neilsen Netview, a research company, the SNS used most by Japanese people in September 2012 was Facebook with 17,369 thousand users. The next closest was Twitter with 13,243 thousand users.  The third was mixi, the Japanese SNS, but the people who visited is under one third of Facebook, only 5,686 thousand.

Just one year before, in September 2011, the most popular SNS in Japan was mixi, which had 21 million active users (who used the service within one year).  This number was more than twice that of Facebook, which had only 9.7 million users.

One of the biggest traits of mix is that it is anonymous.  Different from Facebook, no actual name was necessary and it was said that Japanese people prefer anonymity.  However, with the boom of Facebook, mixi's popularity decreased.  I personally created a mixi account in around 2005, but I have not logged onto mixi for more than a year.

There would be many reasons for the decline in mixi's popularity.  One important aspect may be the specification changes, such as abolishing a "Footprint function", or "Ashiato Kino," by which users can tell who visited her page.  Although this change was to deal with spammers who visited users' pages and attract users to visit their advertising pages, many mixi users protested, as they were unable to know who was interested in their site.

Facing this hardship, mixi started to change the managers and introduced the policy of "user first" by which they listen to the request of users and enhance the users' experience.  In December 2012, one year and a half after the removal, mixi re-introduced a similar function to the footprint function.

But it would take some time before we can tell whether mixi can revive.  In Japan, there are not many users who express their opinion to the administrating company. It may be that the silent majority's opinion is different from that of a user with a loud voice. "User first" policy may lead to reflect the needs of the users who have loud voices.  The question is whether the users who do not actively complain to the administrations would be happy with the "enhancement of the user experience."  Whether mixi can reflect the needs of such passive users would be the key for their revival.

DISCLAIMER: "IT Law issues in Japan" only provides general information about Japanese information technology law and does not, under any circumstances, constitute legal advice. You should first obtain the advice of professional legal counsel who is qualified in Japan before acting or refraining from acting based on this blog.