Interesting... but watch out for the Nihonjinron trap ;-)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihonjinron

> Japanese and Chinese traditionally don’t mind the copying of other people’s work.

Don't know about the Chinese, but Japanese companies sometimes certainly do mind copying. http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20061205-8353.html

> Japanese like to stay anonymous

That seems to be true. Some more info on http://www.japanmediareview.com/japan/blog/Technology/631/

> many Japanese users are afraid of the “great unknown” of web sites and web surfing; afraid that someone might watch them, afraid the web technology may not treat them well, afraid of what happens behind the scenes.

Think it's not really about being afraid of the great unknown, but more about adding some opaqueness between one's online and offline personality, so that say, your boss doesn't know it's him you're criticizing in your online diary. You see something similar on Japanese TV, by the way: very often, the voice and face of the speaker are altered for anonymity reasons.

> But an invitation [to a social networking site] [...] is a commitment to the invited person

Don't know about China, but I doubt this is really the case in Japan. Users just invite the people they like, it seems to me (thinking about http://mixi.jp/ , for instance). If the community is very small and consists of a selected group of users, things may be a bit different, but that's the same in the West.

Also of interest: http://www.pingmag.jp/2006/02/22/making-mixi-better/ (PingMag's fine Mixi critique)

> Interesting... but watch out for the Nihonjinron trap ;-)

Just to clarify Andreas, my intent was to portray Oliver's session, not to talk about my own beliefs or findings. Of course, your comments and criticism of Oliver's findings are welcome here. (I also sent off a link to Oliver asking him for corrections, just in case I misrepresented some of his findings.)

Glad you liked it. Looks like there will be more barcamps in and around Germany in 2007.