If you don’t have a Mixi account already, sucks to be you
So it turns out that now the Japanese social networking site Mixi (it’s like a Japanese equivalent of Facebook, I guess, so it’s kind of a big deal) have made a Japanese cellphone email address compulsory for all new registrations (this is on top of already requiring an invite from an existing member). This new measure effectively limits it to people resident in Japan only. It makes me rather relieved I already have an account, because as far as I can tell, they’re not enforcing it retroactively.
Maybe I’m just being a bit optimistic about their intentions, but it looks to me like a slightly shortsighted and misguided way for them to cut down on spam accounts, rather than any particular hate for foreigners – like a more extreme version of how US sites occasionally ask for a zip code (12345 and 90210 is how I roll). Still, the end result is that it prevents anyone outside of Japan from registering, and that sucks. Go whore yourself on Stickam instead.
via Tofugu