The Japanese YouTube: Nico Nico Douga for Video Sharing

by Vikki Diamos | @vikkidiamos Social Media is now the largest advertising market in the US, but what about the rest of the world? We'll take you this time to Japan, one of the big industrialized countries. Most "Nihon-jin" (Japanese people) use primarily mobile social media platforms -- especially since their phones receive e-mails rather than text messages.

Nico Nico Douga (which literally means "Smile Videos"), a popular video sharing website which can be accessed via computer or mobile, is similar to YouTube in some ways, but has a lot more charm.

It has more categories, like "Tried Singing" and "Tried Dancing", which attracts a lot of amateurs to publish their work without being compared to professionals. VOCALOID music, songs created by a synthesizer with artificial human-like voices, has the most number of covers.

Users can also embed lyrics, comments and replies directly on the content, making most of the videos collaborative and rarely a single piece.

Furthermore, since Japan is very strict with copyright laws, most of the content is fan-made. Users can freely download any of the video and music off the website.

Whether in English or in another language, what video-sharing sites do you like?