CEO of Twitter, Dick Costolo announced in a recent blog post the appointment of James Kondo (@jameskondo) as the first country manager in Japan (credits to Asiajin).
Kondo is Twitter’s first international manager and had experience at McKinsey, the Office of the Prime Minister, and also University of Tokyo. The move indicates the importance of Japan for Twitter. The relationship goes both ways, Twitter is important for Japan as well, at least from a third party point of view.
Whether it is a call for celebration (New Year) or a disaster (Earthquake), Twitter has proven to be a useful communication channel in Japan.
With a new Twitter Japan head, the world’s largest microblog is set to hire more team members in Japan, mainly in business development, account management and communication. For now, it functions a more like a sales office in Japan.
Back in October 2009, before Twitter became the “big thing,” Co-founder Biz Stone said, “It’s an excellent opportunity for us to see where we can go in Asia in general because Japan represents a leading edge, with advanced mobile usage.”
Within 6 months, Twitter’s effort in Japan was already paying dividends. Last year World Cup at mid 2010 saw a record 3283 tweets per second (TPS) when Japan defeated Denmark by 3-1. Marketing campaigns in the country like Uniqlo’s lucky line went wildly viral and dominated the worldwide trending list for days. Again, these are strong indications of Twitter’s growth in Japan.
At this year’s New Year celebration, just 4 seconds after midnight in Japan, Twitterers set an all time record by sending 6,939 tweets per second (TPS). Twitter took off in Japan and 4 months into the new year, it has gotten itself a proper office in the country.
Boy, Twitter, you really have gone pretty far in Japan. Take that, Facebook.
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