Earlier today in Tokyo, the OpenID Foundation along with eleven technology companies in Japan announced the formation of a Japanese chapter of the OpenID Foundation. Just as the OpenID Foundation's board is made up of some of the top Internet companies around the World, these initial participants in this local chapter are some of the top technology and are the premier social networking services in Japan. The OpenID Foundation works to support the community all around the World and is encouraging the formation of local chapters to work within their own communities, supporting the Foundation's mission of fostering and promoting the development and adoption of OpenID on the Internet. In addition to taking part in the Japan chapter, Mixi announced that they will be shipping support for OpenID shortly. The joint Japanese press release garnered enough attention to be featured on the front page of Google News in Japan and the introduction is translated below:

Six Apart KK (Headquarters: Minato-ku, Tokyo, Executive Vice President of U.S. Six Apart, Ltd.& General Manager of Japan: Nobuhiro Seki), VeriSign Japan K.K. (Headquarters: Chuo-ku, Tokyo, President & CEO: Teruhide Hashimoto) and Nomura Research Institute, Ltd. (Headquarters: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, President, CEO&COO: Akihisa Fujinuma) announced today that the three companies will jointly establish "OpenID Foundation, Japan Chapter (tentative name)" in order to further popularize OpenID technologies in Japan. OpenID Foundation, Japan Chapter will be established in April as Japan’s branch office of the U.S.'s OpenID Foundation under permission of the U.S. parent organization. The three companies, founders of OpenID Foundation, Japan Chapter, have held discussions with the U.S.'s OpenID Foundation aimed at establishing the foundation in order to vigorously accelerate popularization of OpenID technologies in Japan. Companies Ascent Networks, E-context, Infoteria, Livedoor, mixi, Nifty, Technorati Japan, and Yahoo! Japan will also participate in OpenID Foundation, Japan Chapter primarily to support implementation and popularization of OpenID technologies for consumers in Japan.

David Recordon (Vice-Chair of the OpenID Foundation) and Nat Sakimura (of NRI) spoke this morning in Tokyo and their presentation can be found online. If you're already building an OpenID community and wish to start a local chapter of the Foundation, you can learn more at http://openid.net/foundation/chapters/.