Twitter Planning to Open Shop in Japan

According to various local media Twitter will enter the Japanese market in the spring. One interesting post indicates that they are working with Digital Garage, who has made a small investment, and will help localize the service. Also noted was that Twitter founder, Evan Williams, revealed late last year that 20% of their users are - already - based in Japan!

Via: AsiaJin

Digital Garage makes some disclosed amount of investment not more than 100,000,000yen(about $915,000), and also helps Twitter’s localization development in Japan. Digital Garage and Twitter will launch Japanese microblogging service for both PC and cellularphone browsers by this spring 2008.

It is not told whether it is Twitter with Japanese UI, or another new service based on twitter technology. Twitter founder Evan Williams revealed that they have 20% Japanese users in November.

As Gen Kanai pointed out, Twitter will face some technical challenges here with the lack of SMS but if they are to succeed then mobile will certainly be a critical component.