iReport — Twitter: The New Haiku in Japan?The Dawn of a New Cultural Landscape  LONG BEACH, CA (June 15, 2011) — Twitter in Japan – after the Tohoku earthquake on 3/11 -quickly became an outlet for emotion: shock, sadness, love, but mainly hope. These emotivekeywords, among others, all saw a marked increase in the Japanese Twitter-sphere, according toa study just released by interTrend and Bassett & Partners. This rise of outward expression of emotion is mirrored by the introduction of a poetic form thattook root in Japanese culture hundreds of years ago; haiku. The similarities between haiku andTwitter are uncanny: concise structure, minimalistic emotional approach, and limited charactercount.  More striking is the fact that haiku was often crowd-sourced; historically, multiple authors linkedpoetic lines to create haikus. In Japan, Twitter users added their own comments within re-tweets. Perhaps the new appeal of Twitter stems from this poetic form that is deeply ingrained in theJapanese psyche. “Twitter’s impact on Japanese culture may be as lasting and as deep as haiku’s” says TomBassett - CEO Bassett & Partners. For a culture that is traditionally seen to be reserved, this type of openly emotional outpour is acultural revolution. After 3/11, Twitter has bridged gaps among generations, social classes andregions within Japan. It has also given Japanese the opportunity to feel more included in theglobal community, and foreigners a better view into Japanese culture. ”We all know that social media is huge but it’s interesting to note that each country seems to favora particular medium.  For Japan, it’s Twitter.” Jane Nakagawa - VP Strategy, interTrend. Japan’s entire social and cultural structure may be changed forever.  As the largest earthquake inthe island country’s history ripped through the North Coast, mobile networks were destroyed.  Asa result, Japan turned to social networking and they chose Twitter. From the depths ofdevastation hope rose.  The st...