Why WordPress is minor in Japan

Here’s a figure of “Zeitgeist” of “wordpress” and “movable type” in Google Trends. It shows that most of users have searched about “wordpress” related things than of “movable type” related things. I will compare a result of the United States with other non-anglosaxon countries but South and North Koreans have no significant results. So the figure should contain results of Taiwan, China, and Japan. You will find that the result in Japan is differ from others. From my observation, Japanese users have searched about things related to Movable Type very much and WordPress seems to be minor tool than Movable Type. So the result supports my observation as well. (By the way I would tried to make another statistics from Amazon Book search. But the result may not be significant because a result for “movable type” has a book of “wordpress”.)

It is not a critical conclusion that the usage of Movable Type has been decreased rather than WordPress or other tools. Differ from 2003 or around, currently we use variable tools written in Perl, PHP, Python, Java, or other languages. And now many server hosting companies serve databases and automatic installation of CMS/Blog tools. Moreover it is not necessary for most of users to have own server to build up their blogs. Like Blogger or so, most of Japanese users registered in such services at livedoor, goo, excite, Yahoo! JAPAN, MSN, or others. Therefore the relative significance and usage of Movable Type must be decreased.

But as I said, Movable Type has many users than WordPress in Japan. More than 20 books related to Movable Type have been released while less than 10 books related to WordPress have been released in Japanese publishers. And in the web development business, there are many companies serve to make a blog with Movable Type but we find a few companies support WordPress customization.

One of assumption might be the presence of reliability for support in Japanese. Six Apart has a subsidiary in Japan but Automattic completely do nothing in Japan. And most of Japanese programmers and designers can not use English so they always follow private blogs about Movable Type or other tools in Japanese. Other words (in agressively), they could use other tool if they read blog entries about other tools in Japanese. Support for own language may be critical not only for private web development but also for corporate activities. Six Apart gets a point especially in Japan and they win in here.

Second. As referred, it was very expensive to use a database in Japan, so WordPress was out of question. For many of Japanese users, using hosting server, original domain name and database is to be a nerd :)

Third. In many web productions, “programming” means to write a Perl code (they call a code to used on the web as “CGI”, so even now, a code written in Perl is a typical web program in Japan). Programmers in web productions could use PHP as well, but from a risk-managemental point of view, the presence of Japanese official agency is a strong support for choice Movable Type from WordPress to use in business. Contrary to this, however, many web productions use WordPress to develop own company website. In this situation, the reason is clear: “free” (free? how long programmers and network engineers work as an unpaid overtime?)

Yes another reason will be suitable. In Japan, a web designer does not use any programming languages (includes JavaScript) because most of Japanese web designers were graphic designers or layout operators and they think that the programming should be a job of coders. And not least of designers can not handle even XHTML or CSS. Therefore it is naturally to say that many of many Japanese designers can not use WordPress. WordPress needs a basic skill of PHP coding.

Or other reasons may be there. Even about a free software, it should not be independent from a social tag of war. People who voluntary support some project have an aim to write a book or to be famous on the web. It is not a bad motivation I think, but it would be attacked in Japan. Because a Japanese meaning of “voluntary activity” is the same as “self-sacrifice”, it must be a stupid understanding. I do not know whether the webmaster of Japanese website for WordPress has some income from that activity, but anyway I hope he or she gets some money for such a long good support and efforts.

追記

あと、日本ではオリジナルのサーバを立てるよりも FC2 とか livedoor ブログなどのサービスを使ってる人が圧倒的に多いから、ツールの比較をしても既に意味がなくなってきてるように思う。MTやWPがこの世からなくなっても、日本ではほぼ大勢に影響がないと言える。つまり、日本で Movable Type や WordPress を使ってブログをやってるのは、もはや業界人だけなんじゃないかってことです。しかるに、そろそろツールの比較をしてもあまり建設的な知見（とりわけ、売れるためのアイディア）は出てこないフェイズとなったのでありましょう。「こんなに便利だからブログをやりませんか？」と言うためのアイディアを、いまごろ MT と WP が競争して追加してもインパクトはないということです。

(4/7）一言だけ追記。最後の段落で書いたことに続けて。どうしてこうオープンソースにしろボランティアにしろ、好きでやってるだけには違いないけれども尊敬に値する行為を素直に賞賛できない人が多いんだろうか。確かに NTT-DATA とかで仕事の一環としてやってるような人々はそれなりに職責もあるから、単純に好きでやってるとは限らないし単純に賞賛しかねるようなところはあるのだけれど、ともかく企業や個人の（意図はどうあれ）自発的な活動を、スラッシュドットとかシステム系のメディアの掲示板で執拗に叩いてる人っているよな。そんなにその人達の代わりにオライリーやピアスンから訳本を出版したいか？　みたいな。てめーの世界ではともかく世間のレベルではつまんない蘊蓄のくせに、自分が権威だみたいな自意識が肥大化してる人。だからおたくって嫌いなんだよ、俺は。アカデミズムで勝負もできなかったくせに研究者の真似ごとなんかしてんじゃねーよとか思う。ハッカーの歴史とか見ると、そんなもんと関係なく好きにやってるじゃん。結局は誰が出版するかとか、誰がカンファレンスやユーザ会のアタマを取るとか、そういうのばっかり気にして叩いて回ってるのって、非常に格好悪い。それでメシを食う人がいてもいいし、誰がメシ食っててもいーじゃんとか思うけどね。ときどきスラッシュドット見てるとアタマにくるので、乱文失礼した（笑。