Eisys, the parent company of digital comic and game platform DLsite, announced that the demo version of its new social media platform Pommu will be going live again as of December 18. This marks the end of the service’s “indefinite suspension,” which was announced on November 10 following a series of malfunctions and higher than expected traffic.
According to an official update posted on DLChannel, in order to avoid high traffic spikes, the platform will only be accepting a limited number of users for the time being. Only those based in Japan who have a viviON ID (previously known as a DLsite account) and recorded accesses to DLChannel before December 17 will be eligible to create a Pommu account. The management explained that they will be monitoring the situation while gradually working on a more stable version of the website that will be able to host a larger number of users in the future. However, it is currently unknown whether the service will be available on a worldwide scale past the beta version.
Dubbed the “friendly, secret hangout place for otaku,” Pommu is a social networking platform created as a more “Twitter-like” counterpart to DLChannel (DLsite’s forum-based community network), with video game, anime and manga fans and artists as its main target demographic. The platform comes with a handy R-18 button, letting users quickly toggle between SFW and NSFW posts – a feature that helped it gain a lot of traction among both Japanese and English-speaking communities. Considering DLSite’s long history of resisting pressure to censor their adult-themed works, many users have expressed high expectations for the level of freedom the “otaku friendly” social network would offer.
However, after launching on November 5, the platform only lasted for five days before being shut down for maintenance on November 10. As the website was still in its beta version, it seemed like traffic from new users and visitors was greater than what the platform could handle, causing it to slow down, especially late at night. After a solid month-long maintenance period, it seems like the management was finally able to come out with a stable enough version that can handle at least a portion of the anticipated user base. And if the current Pommu build ends up performing well with no major malfunctions, an official grand-opening of the website might be coming sooner than we expect.
