While Twitter itself is still struggling to find a profitable business plan, Japanese ad agencies have quickly embraced the micro-blogging service to create innovative campaigns.
This year, Japanese clothing chain Uniqlo has been at the forefront of creating Twitter-based microsites for which they received international media attention.
In one of the simplest ones, Flash veteran Yugo Nakamura developed the UTweet microsite (www.uniqlo.com/ utweet) where, after entering their Twitter ID, the user's profile icon gets mashed up with their own tweets as a red-and-white graphic visualization. Visuals are then spliced into a film of various hipster models wearing the company's new clothing line. UTweet is only one of several Uniqlo apps that has proven to be popular.