Facebook and Japan: The Story of Clashing Cultures

Facebook may soon rule the world. But the empire won’t include Japan. “Facebook Wins Relatively Few Friends in Japan” by Hiroko Tabuchi reports less than 2% of Japan’s population uses Facebook. Japan is still the tech advanced and driven society it has been known as. So, Why hasn’t Facebook been adopted by Japan? Two reasons: Japan’s Internet culture clashes perfectly with the Facebook culture and the company has rivals in the country.

“The Internet in Japan has not been so closely connected with real society…Those other community sites can keep offering the joys of staying remote from real life”

                                      -Mr. Kodama, the Facebook manager for Japan

In Japan, users actively participate in online communities. Typically, they don’t use personal photos, real names, or make attempts to connect their real life with their profile. This is completely different from the Facebook culture. Facebook prides itself on being an open real community. Even if a Facebook user didn’t want to upload photos or give personal information, they have to use their real name. While there may be ways to get around the policy, Japanese users have been faced with the real name policy at almost every attempt to not use it. Thus, most are not attracted to Facebook, even after making attempts at it.

OWN: The Next Biggest Part of Oprah's Empire Starts Today

As most of you know, today is New Year's Day and the debut of OWN: the Oprah Winfrey Network. OWN has gotten much press. Not only is it anticipated because it belongs to Oprah, it is the first personalized cable channel. It also a big venture. It is to replace Discovery Health channel, it is a partnership between Oprah and Discovery, and Discovery has invested about $200 million (as reported by Brian Stelter of NY Times). I read two NY Times articles, “Oprah’s Network is Her Highest Hurdle” and “Shaping a Network With Oprah’s View” both by Brian Stelter. Instead of giving summaries, I’m going to give some important points about OWN.

Oprah Has Planned This For a Long Time

Often celebrities are approached to simply give their name to a product. Even if some of those celebrities may have always wanted to enter into such a venture, most have not prepared for it. Oprah is a different story. According to “Oprah’s Network is Her Highest Hurdle”, she thought up OWN in 1992. She previous attempted a move into cable as the co-founder of Oxygen network. That didn’t go well for her and it was sold to NBC Universal. According to Oprah, the experience taught her: “don’t partner when you’re not allowed to be in charge and make a decision”. And in 2007, she partnered with Discovery to mold OWN. This has been a well establish goal and she has made efforts to make it happen.

Johnson & Johnson: Recalls and Succession

I previously wrote Johnson and Johnson recent recall in “Johnson and Johnson: Recalls Do Not Help”. In that article, I expressed the belief that J.&J., as a whole, just didn’t get the impact of the recalls on their brand. It seems J.&J. finally got the point. Yesterday, NY times Natasha Singer reported in “J.&J. Puts 2 in Line to Succeed Chief Executive” that J.&J. had made moves to promote two executives, one of whom will succeed the current CEO William C. Weldon. While “a company spokeswoman said in an email that Mr. Weldon ‘has no plans to retire'”, according to the article, Weldon had taken criticism for his handling of the recalls that plagued the company.

The two promote executives are:

Ms. Sheri S. McCoy. She will be vice chairwoman of the executive committee. New responsibilities are “to supervise the pharmaceuticals group; the consumer group, which includes the McNeil unit; and corporate affairs.”  Thus, McCoy will be handling the source of the recalls, the McNeil Unit.

Mr. Alex Gorsky. He will be vice chairman of the executive committee. New responsibilities will be “to oversee the medical device group, the global supply chain and government affairs.”

Big congratulations to the new junior partners. The article gives a brief history of the two’s history in the company and they should be proud of themselves. As for Weldon, who doesn’t plan to retire, he doesn’t have to retire to be replaced. With these two promotions, the company has rewarded good work and made it publicly clear that they have handled the recall by strategically placing people in positions to take over if Weldon becomes useless. 

Groupon Founder Andrew Mason Speaks aka Groupon Says No! Part 2.

I was very delighted to read Andrew Mason’s interview with NY times in an article titled “What’s Next For Groupon’s Founder” by Evelyn M. Rusli. I heard that the Groupon founder was quirky but had never read an interview from him. I expected a straightforward acknowledgement of rejecting Google and a clear explanation. Rather than an interview focusing completely on Google, Mason gave a short interview revealing more about himself and plans for Groupon.

Regardless, if you believe Groupon is smart or dumb for rejecting Google, Mason deserves credit for knowing how to dance well in an interview.

“We will also emulate Amazon in the sense that we don’t talk about the competition.”

“Luckily we don’t need to say anything. We just need to keep running our business. Most people don’t understand — I’ll just leave it at that.”

Groupon Said No!

By now, you should know Groupon has turned down Google’s almost (so far reported) $6 billion offer for the company. The basics: Groupon is a high valued site, which brings together retailers and consumers so as to offer good deals. Through the website, people are able to share such deals using social media platform. Google wanted to purchase the website expected to have a value of $1 billion for supposed $6 billion. Groupon turned down the offer.

People are left wondering the reasons would Groupon give up the chance to let Google take them over. Recently, I read "Google's Groupon Groping Reveals the Shifting Power in the Web World" by Paul Smalera". Smalera gave a web dichotomy perspective for the turn down. Smalera stated Groupon is a social website where as Google is more search oriented and has not been so successful with social ventures. Groupon might feel better being acquired by Facebook (if they were interested) or any other giant social media company, which could then integrate better with the website. The other point made is Groupon would want to be taken by which ever company could mature it the best.

Smalera’s perspective is very fascinating but when I first heard of the decline, I observed from a different perspective. The control perspective.

Some entrepreneurs are start-up junkies. This is a term I took from the reality show of the same name that goes behind the scenes of a start up. The CEO of the company, Ron Weiner had started up various companies and sold them for high value. Some entrepreneurs start companies with the intention of eventually selling. Other entrepreneurs start companies and intend to maintain control of their creation. This intention might explain Groupon’s decline.

Groupon might want to stay independent and maintain control over the progression of the company. As far as growing, Groupon might believe it can help itself grow more and that continuing to do so under their control, the company could gain more value. My point is we can’t always assume such a decline is due to a defect in Google. Simply put, maybe, Groupon doesn’t want to have a Google takeover.

Groupon was supposedly in negotiations for a week. So I could be wrong; Groupon might just be bluffing or waiting for the next bidder. I’m just offering a different perspective. But remember this: Just because an entity is bigger, more powerful, and has more capital does not mean everyone wants to be owned by them. There is enough space for many web based companies to thrive and the natural progression of the web should not be eventual takeovers of smaller companies by bigger ones.

Note: For references to Google and Groupon, the links go to crunchbase.com. I just discovered this database of tech info. Its similar to a wikipedia for technology.