According to Asiajin, Mixi.jp is finally taking the monumental step outside of Japan and plans to broaden its service to the US and Europe.

Mixi, for those not in the know, is Japan’s most popular social networking site, and has been for quite some time now. Despite threats from Friendster, MySpace, and Facebook, Mixi has managed to keep its top position with the much-coveted Japanese market. Strangely enough, however, despite its success in Japan, Mixi never seemed too interested to go international in the past. (To get an account on Mixi, you need to be sent an invite from an existing member… and even then, you’ll need a mobile email address from a Japanese carrier to register.)

Now, after years of blocking away the outside world, Mixi.jp wants to speed up internationalization efforts by hiring foreign graduates in 2012.

2012.

Are they kidding?

Facebook has basically taken over the world (except for a very few key target markets, Japan being one of them), and Twitter and Tumblr – a relative upstart in the social networking game – are gaining ground (yes, this includes Japan). And in two years, Mixi will start hiring foreigners so they can begin internationalizing their service?

I’m sorry, but considering Mixi’s social networking service and UI is pretty archaic to begin with (think MySpace circa 2004), how exactly do they plan on making any progress internationally? They’ve been so opposed to change for far too long, I don’t see any hope for Mixi to innovate enough to gain any popularity outside of Japan.

Even in Japan, I sense trouble for Mixi. Mixi was interesting because most users didn’t put any private information or rarely even put up a profile photo of themselves (the anti-Facebook). Anonymity seemed to be a big thing, and understandably so for a social networking site popular for personal blogging in a country that’s still relatively conservative and personal opinions are, well, kept personal. But an interesting change seems to be happening with Japanese internet users. Japanese on Twitter, for example, are listing their real names on their profiles now, despite still tweeting out personal opinions. It seems like there’s a small cultural shift happening. And maybe because of this, Twitter is hugely successful in the country when even Facebook couldn’t make a dent. (Of course, I think this has more to do with Twitter being made with mobile in mind — and he who perfects mobile in Japan will do very well due to Japan’s unbelievably high mobile browsing rate.)

So with Mixi being a cash cow on its dying legs, it has nowhere to go but outside of Japan. But I’m afraid it’s far too late for them – 2012 or now – to get any piece of the pie outside of Japan. They could, of course, completely revamp their service both for domestic markets and international markets, but a big part of me feels that they can’t. Their service has remained stagnant for too long, and in the tech industry – and social networking in particular – that’s the biggest mistake anybody can make.

(That said, if you have an account on Mixi, feel free to add me.)