Feel free to add any notes about Mixi below.

• Mixi is the dominant (size, mindshare, media profile, rate of growth, market performance) SNS in Japan.

• It is invitation-only. The record of how an account was created is persistent.

• It has a high default degree of privacy preservation. This is compounded by next-to-nobody (except, in the main, non-Japanese) using their real name. In these respects it is the mirror image of the dominant SNS, Cyworld, in Japan's nearest neighbor, Korea. (Which is why one may wish to carefully consider comments about Asian SNSs in general.)

• the Mixi approach -- privacy, bias toward strengthening real-world networks, bias against link-collecting -- seems similar to the approach of Vox and Multiply

• launched 25 Feb 2004

• IPO 14 Sep 2006 (from $0 to approx $2b valuation in approx 900 days) perhaps the first big web2.0-ish IPO (as opposed to acquisition via shares of acquirer)