Hiragana Times
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SNS – You can Enjoy International Exchange at Home

Many people want to be friends with other people around the world! Now that dream can come true easily through the Internet. If you are interested in skiing, just click ”ski enthusiasts,” and you will see a list of ski enthusiasts by region, with photos. In order to take advantage of this site, you are required to create an Internet profile, however your privacy will be protected and no registration fee is charged.

Once you become a member of the site, you can enjoy exchanging e-mails and chatting with other members. The site system is being developed and promoted by Meta4 Group K.K. The company was launched in 2000 by Dominic PENALOZA, so it is still a young company. However, it has already attracted approximately 1.5 million members and about 40,000 more people join every month. At this stage, it has grown into an enterprise that has the world’s largest member network.

Their offices are located in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Tokyo, with 42 staff in total. Penaloza is a Canadian who has Chinese grandparents who have immigrated to the Philippines. Due to this, he has grown up with more than one language and culture. He expected that Japan would be the country that has the greatest demand for the English language, and with that in mind, he started creating a mail-magazine for learners of English as a type of advertising media in Hong Kong in 2000.

Later, he launched an international exchange party in Japan that became so popular that all the tickets sold out whenever the party held. Looking at the situation in Japan where every foreigner is surrounded by approximately five Japanese, he observed that many Japanese are very eager to learn English and do not hesitate to pay a lot of money to go to language schools.

After considering the situation further, Penaloza concluded that more and more people would join the network if he created a website, and also that it is more enjoyable to learn a language through communication. So, as a matter of course, the online international exchange site “WorldFriends Networks” was created in 2003. In the world of SNS (Social Network Services) people all over the world can start new friendships.

At present the site uses four languages: Japanese, English, Chinese and Korean. The site will enable you to practice a foreign language and find friends with the same interests from among the members who come from 22 countries. Japanese make up the biggest group of users with 350000 members, followed by Americans and Chinese. Among female Japanese users, those aged between 25 and 26 form the biggest group and which interestingly, place emphasis on language study and travel. Of course, the group also has older members. More than 360000 e-mails are exchanged among members each month.

“Sometimes some users misunderstand the purpose of our site and think it is simply a dating site. However, we are focusing on international exchange as a means of learning foreign language and exchanging information. Recently, due to the influence of Japanese manga animation, the number of foreigners who want to learn Japanese language has been increasing. We are very pleased about this,” says Business Development and Marketing Director HARADA Ken.

In the three years since they started the WorldFriends business, the company went into the black. Three years on, management is planning to increase the number of Japanese users to one million, and to add Arabic to the existing four languages. They hope the site may make it possible to help enemies become friends by adding a language used in the violence-prone Middle East. “People using our site will be able to experience excitement they do not feel in their daily lives. And it would make us happy to be able to contribute to world peace,” Harada says.

Meta4-Group K.K. is entering into tie ups with many companies in order to spread this network. In the Hiragana Times website, their service is installed as “Hiragana Times Friends” and many people are currently using it. SNS is expected to continue to expand on the wave of globalization and IT systems.