INTERVIEW-Mixi aims to nearly double its users in 4 yrs

TOKYO, Aug 26 - Mixi Inc, Japan's biggest social networking site, plans to boost the number of its users to 30 million from 17 million within four years, its chief executive said on Wednesday.

Mixi expects to attract more users by adding more functions and content to its site, opening up registration and through a marketing campaign, he said.

"We hadn't spent money on marketing up until the last financial year but we now are planning to spend 300 million yen to promote our site." Kenji Kasahara, chief executive and the founder of the company, said in an interview with Reuters. Mixi, which competes with Yahoo Japan, Rakuten Inc and DeNA's Mobage-town, is Japan's top social networking service.

Launched in February 2004, it logs over 15 billion monthly views, a quarter of which are via mobile phones, but the number of its users is still a fraction of those of News Corp's MySpace or of Facebook.