MIXI founder Kasahara Kenji (笠原健治) discusses the origins of the “original social network” and the company’s continuing effort to connect people, 20 years on. He also discusses how the platform worked at its launch and how the company expanded into its current range of businesses.
mixi, the original social network, launched on 22 February 2004 as a new communication tool that allowed users to share diaries and profiles with their Mixi friends and strengthen connections among friends. Features such as profile visit histories and visits to friends-of-friends pages helped make online activity part of everyday life.
Twenty years later, MIXI continues to expand its business around experiences that connect people, competing with social networks originating overseas. Founder Kasahara Kenji (笠原健治) looks back on the origins of his entrepreneurial ambitions and the history of mixi, while explaining the direction of the company’s current business.
The company’s main business is gaming, led by Monster Strike, but it has also expanded across a broad range of areas, including Mitene, a family album for sharing photos and videos; Romi, an AI robot for free-flowing conversations; and mixi2, a new short-form service.
The first part traces the origins of Kasahara Kenji’s (笠原健治) desire to start a business and the process by which he created mixi and built it into a defining platform of its era. MIXI continues to serve as a “communications company.”