Mixi headed for IPO

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.

7 thoughts on “Mixi headed for IPO”

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

  6. 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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