I feel like my posts have been weighing too much toward social networking and Web 2.0 lately, but I couldn’t pass this story up. The founder of Mixi, a Japanese social networking site saw his company Tokyo Stock Exchange today making him an instant billionaire.

Online communities have are very vulnerable to geographic segregation. While Myspace dominates the US market, Orkut owns Brazil, and Bebo the UK. eBay owns the US for online auctions, Yahoo owns Japan. Whats the point? Don’t think that just because one company dominates the US market you can’t compete elsewhere.

Kenji Kasahara has now made a lot more money than Tom Anderson or Intermix made from Myspace (assuming that share prices don’t drop like Vonage.) Shoemoney made a good point on his radio show this week. You don’t have to come up with a brilliant idea to make a lot in business. Find out what works for someone else and do it better or tailor it to an underserved market.