mixi abandons invitation-based registration

In a long awaited move mixi, Japan's biggest social network in terms of registered users, changed the rules for new member registration. Before, in order to register you had to receive an invite from your friend who was already on mixi. As of March 1st, it is no longer required. With this move mixi repeats the steps of Facebook and hopes to boost its memberships beyond of reach of the competition. It worked handsomely for Facebook and should work for mixi as well. However, it might backfire if Japanese users find it intrusive given their appreciation for privacy. Call it a cultural thing but some might hate to a higher degree than in the wedt the idea that their profiles can be searched by random people.


- Posted on the go