Social Networks of an Emergent Massively Collaborative Creation Community - Case Study of Hatune Miku Movie on Nico Nico Douga

Aug 22, 2026

The study examines massively collaborative creation on the Web through a social networking analysis of Nico Nico Douga’s video development ecosystem. Using Hatsune Miku as the focal phenomenon, it analyzes how song creators, illustrators, and CG creators interact through their social networks to produce thousands of videos and evolved derivative works. The research investigates relationships between social ties and creation activities, distinguishing this community’s dynamics from other Web collaboration models such as Wikipedia, Yahoo Answers, and earlier QA or video-site analyses.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages12

Reading Time30 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Motivation and Web-based collaboration

Prior related work

Purpose and research approach

Paper structure

Social Networks of an Emergent Massively Collaborative Creation Community Case Study of Hatune Miku Movie on Nico Nico Douga Masahiro Hamasaki 1 and Hideaki Takeda2 1 AIST, Japan /JST CREST, 1-18-13 Sotokanda, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, Japan [hamasaki@ni.aist.go.jp](hamasaki@ni.aist.go.jp) 2 National Institute of Informatics, 2-1-2 Hitotsubashi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, Japan [takeda@nii.ac.jp](takeda@nii.ac.jp) Abstract. The Web technology enables numerous people to collaborate in creation. We designate it as massively collaborative creation via the Web. It is coming to produce important activities such as Wikipedia and Yahoo Answers. As an example of massively collaborative creation, we particularly examine video development on Nico Nico Douga, which is a video sharing website that is popular in Japan. We speci¯cally examine videos on Hatsune Miku, a version of a singing synthesizer application software that has inspired not only song creation but also songwriting, illustration, and video editing. As described herein, creators interact to create new contents though their social network. As described in this paper, we analyzed the process of developing thousands of videos based on creators' social networks. The purpose of this paper is to investigate the relations among social networks and creation activities. 1 Introduction The Web was created as a publishing platform, but it is increasingly becoming a two-way communication platform for people. Thanks to the ﬂexibility of the Web, communications of various types have emerged. As a platform for communications, the Web presents various advantages over older systems. For example, it eliminates the sense of distance because people at any place can mutually communicate. It supports massive interactive collaboration through large-scale BBSand social tagging, which is impossible in real-world communication channels. It also enables large-scale information sharing not only of texts but also of various multimedia contents such as videos. This activity has already produced valuable digital contents such as Wikipedia and Yahoo Answers, which could never have been born without the Web. We designate activities of this type as massively collaborative creation by which a huge number of people mutually collaborate to create contents on the Web. Massively collaborative creation on the Web has features that augment traditional collaborative creation; one is the style of participation. Vastly numerous people are involved. For that reason alone, they often do not know each other. II Numerous evolved or inspired versions of a video can be created if a video explores a new idea or if it ”catches on”. Another di®erence is the digital reuse of contents. Some components of a work are reused in evolved or inspired versions. For example, an image or sound in a video can be reused in a new version of the video. Consequently, digital work can be developed among people via the Web. We are interested in the development of such digital works, particularly in the process as it unfolds in a video-sharing website. We selected a video-sharing website called Nico Nico Douga 3 , in which intense collaborative video creation is occurring. We speci¯cally address Hatsune Miku 4 , which is a version of singing synthesizer application software that has inspired many people to produce various music, picture, and video compositions. The Hatsune Miku phenomenon is interesting because di®erent creators interact in projects: song creators, illustrators, and CG creators. Some analyses of massively collaborative creation that have speci¯cally elucidated relations among contents and creators have been described in the literature. Kittuer analyzed the e®ects of sharing roles on the quality of created content [1] . Adamic analyzed a social network among questioners and helpers on a QA site [2] . Results of these analyses contribute to our understanding of the massively collaborative creation activity of users. Our r

FAQs

What community and platform does the paper analyze?

The paper analyzes video development on Nico Nico Douga, a Japanese video-sharing website where intense collaborative creation occurs.

Why is Hatsune Miku chosen as the key case?

Hatsune Miku represents a singing synthesizer-based phenomenon that drives many creators to produce songs, illustrations, and videos that interact through projects.

What is the main research goal regarding social networks?

The goal is to investigate how social networks relate to creation activities by examining how different types of creators interact to generate new content.

Aug 22, 2026

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