It seems sane people are looking for an excuse to jump ship from X (The Right-Wing Zombie Social Media Site Formerly Known as Twitter) these days. Now, an old friend among Japanese social media users is giving them one more reason to bail.
Mixi, run by the company of the same name, launched in 2004 and supported up to 15 million active daily users. It was basically Facebook and Twitter in Japan before Facebook and Twitter became popular here. It was also Japan-only: entry required possessing a Japanese phone number.
When Elon Musk first bought Twitter, Mixi trended on social media briefly as people mulled a return to the still-operating service. Mixi came up again as a possible refuge when technical problems on Twitter froze thousands of legitimate accounts – an event known as the “Twitter Ice Age” among Japanese users.
Mixi did not, in fact, benefit from a mass migration. While there was a mass exodus from X in the past two months, most users seemed to move to either Bluesky or Threads. (Most Japanese users seem to be option for Threads – not surprising, given the popularity of Instagram here.)
Mixi 2: Like Twitter, but with less suck
The company’s hoping it can turn that around with the release of its new app. This week, MIXI Inc. announced the release of Mixi 2 for iOS and Android. Unlike its older service, the new release feels more like Twitter than Facebook. Unlike Twitter, however, Mixi 2 doesn’t aim to be a town square. Its focus is on connecting you with your friends and acquaintances.
As a result, Mixi 2 operates more like Bluesky in its default behavior. Instead of showing you a list of curated posts from everyone, the Follow tab shows posts from people you’re actually following. (Radical, right?) There’s also a Discover tab to find content and accounts that are popular amongst your friends.
Mixi 2 features additional tabs for announcing events and forging communities based around like interests. It also supports a number of unique posting features, including enlarged text and making text shake. Likes are private and the service is limited to users 18 years old and up.
Currently, invites are limited to people with an invite link. However, invites don’t seem to be limited to a specific number of users, so it’s easy to find an invite link available on other services such as X or Bluesky.
The only hitch for users living overseas is we’ve heard from some users outside of Japan that the app wasn’t available yet in their app stores. However, the app lists both Japanese and English support in the Apple App Store, so this might change. (We’ve asked MIXI Inc. to clarify this.)
Japanese users on X appear to be excited about the release. At one point, the service’s site, mixi.social, went down due to a traffic spike.
Time will tell, however, if people stick with it. It also remains to be seen how MIXI Inc. will handle problems as they arise. Online harassment is a hot topic in Japan, especially in the wake of several high-profile tragedies and incidents of real-world stalking. Focusing the service on connecting with friends will reduce the problem but won’t eliminate it.
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