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Mixi headed for IPO

August 30th, 2006 by Joe Jones		 Joe

Mixi, the 5 million-strong Japanese social networking service, is getting ready to go public with an IPO on the Tokyo Stock Exchange. Mixi expects to get ¥6.9 billion from the deal, about 7 years’ profits at the current rate.

In case you haven’t tried it, it’s a mighty fine service. While it has the usual features—you can make a profile and leave comments about others—its real strength is in its communities and their message boards, and there’s one (or more) for just about anything imaginable. Kind of like Orkut meets Yahoo Answers. The diaries are also pretty popular, although I tend to avoid them because they’re just not that interesting.

We thought GREE was cool as hell a year and a half ago, and now we just look at it and laugh at its lameness.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 30th, 2006 at 8:56 pm and is filed under Econ & Business, Japan, Net culture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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    • 7 Responses to 'Mixi headed for IPO'

    1. Durf Says:
      September 7th, 2006 at 4:37 am

      Yesterday Mixi announced they were shooting for about ¥11 billion . . . 7,100 shares at 1.55 million per. (At least that’s what Reuters reported.) Wonder where they’ll end up.

    2. Donna Says:
      September 15th, 2006 at 12:55 am

      I just tried to have a look at Mixi but as far as I can tell you can’t join without an invite. Is that right?

    3. Mutantfrog Says:
      September 15th, 2006 at 1:54 am

      Yes, that is correct. I think I have an account but I haven’t actually used it, so all I know is that it’s like Myspace but in Japanese. Hopefully less terribly programmed too.

    4. Joe Says:
      September 15th, 2006 at 2:05 am

      The invite system is actually a pretty good idea because it helps keep people from making dummy accounts, which became a pretty annoying issue on Friendster and other services.

      Mixi is also better than Myspace (in my opinion) because it keeps people from customizing their profiles to the point where you can’t read anything.

    5. Joe Says:
      September 15th, 2006 at 2:18 am

      By the way, if you want to follow mixi’s performance, Bloomberg is your friend:

      http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/quote?ticker=2121:JP

    6. Donna Says:
      September 18th, 2006 at 7:48 pm

      I’d like to join but don’t know anyone who is a member. I don’t suppose either of you could invite me??

    7. Mutantfrog Says:
      September 18th, 2006 at 7:50 pm

      Please don’t ask that. If you haven’t got any friends using the service, there’s very little point in having an account anyway.

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