Ameba, a Japanese website directly competing with Twitter in microblogging has reached 1 million members within 3
months of it starting with about 2000 of Japanese celebrities signing up recently.
With Ameba.jp jumping into competition in the micro blogging market, we can all be assured that this side of the market is surely vulnerable. Twitter has about 4.7 M users in Japan but with the introduction of Ameba which is more tuned towards its local population could as well be a game changer.
The site’s owner CyberAgent has a secret weapon. He employes a staff of 10 people who go around trying to pursuade celebrities and upcoming artists to join Ameba. About how they are going to make money is still a question althought a thorough business model has not been explained yet. “Right now we want to increase our users” says Nagayama, the producer of the Ameba service.
Ameba can be accessed at here.