Dreamers Never, Ever, Give Up

This blog post, written well over 6 months ago, resonates with me today even more than it did then. With the launch of DailyJ and the re-launch of Japanopedia I spread myself rather thin and neglected Nipponster. At the time of this post part of me felt like throwing in the towel and today too part of me feels like throwing in the towel. I have reached this point five or six times with Nipponster in its brief two year existence. But I have always pushed on. Nipponster has always persevered or reinvented itself. And today is no different. So here it is; an oldie, but a goodie:

Dreamers Never Give Up

Thursday, August 30, 2007

I have to be honest, sometimes I feel like giving up...

Trying to affect change and carry out a vision is hard work!

That's what we are trying to do with Nipponster.com

We are trying to make the web a better place for Japan-enthusiasts

But it is not easy.

I did not think that it would be.

But I did not expect it to be this hard.

The main problem boils down to how to create buzz about our mission.

How can we get lots of people behind it?

How can we make them passionate about revolutionising Japan-related content on the web?

How do we get people involved in projects (like making a free comprehensive Japanese text book)?

We don't know the answers yet.

And we could always use your input.

But one thing is for certain...

We are dreamers.

And Dreamers never give up!

-Tori

Nipponster in 2008

Where will Nipponster go from here?

That is the question we have been considering lately (well, always really).

We feel that Japan-related search is an important new field and expect it to grow, especially in 2008.

Admittedly, Nipponster is currently not even close to meeting the potential for this field.

The ability to search across the various mediums and niches of the web and quickly return only Japan-related results is the goal.

This will call for the launch of new search tools, refinement of current tools, and passion for the mission.


Onward we will go.

Improvements to the Nipponster Japan Toolbar

In keeping with our efforts to continually improve the Nipponster Japan Toolbar we have just added two new features! Take them for a spin and let us know your thoughts.

1, We have added a "JapanSoc It" button that allows you to submit a URL to JapanSoc (a digg.com-clone for Japan-related news).

2, We've added Nipponster Video Search to the search box. So now you can search the major video sites for Japan-related videos... right from your browser!

Two easy steps:

1. click on the black arrow in the search box
2. select "Nipponster video search" and click go

The new "Hot Search Archive" is here!

Ok. Finally we have finished the new Nipponster Hot Searches! Whew...
That was a lot of work. And it still needs work.

I thought that the entries from the old hot search archive would be easy to move to the new one but alas that's not so :(

We will have to manually re-enter them...

But no worries because having the new archive makes up for everything!

Let us know what you think of it!

Yes! Progress with the new hot search archives

Like I mentioned in the previous post, we've been working on the hot search archives. And I've been messing things up :(

Fortunately I just fix a major problem on the new archive! Too bad we have not released it yet, so you cannot see my good work :(

oh, well.

The good news is that it is working as we had hoped and soon it will be released!

Hot search archive - no one is perfect

We've been working on the hot search archive trying to upgrade it.

Unfortunately while I was working on it I made a mistake and now it is a little buggy.

The new version that we are hoping to release soon will automatically archive old hot searches saving us lots of time.

It will also help us update the hot searches much more frequently.

It has been awhile

Sorry for the silence.
Life is busy. Hopefully some changes we are making will free up our time from tedious things.

Our goal with this blog is to post more often and publish shorter "bite-sized" posts that let you know what we are doing each day.

That's the goal. We will see how that holds up...

Tweaking the search engine

I just did some major tweaking of the search settings for Nipponster. Hopefully this will make searches more accurate and remove some of the junk results that sometimes pop-up.

Nipponster is supposed to filter results so that only Japan-related results come through. I know that this is going to require constant tweaking, especially since we want to go from "ok, it's Japan-related" to "Wow! these results are Japan-related and better than any other results on the web!"


We want the "wow factor." How would you rate Nipponster search right now? Is it a wow? How can we improve?

Work in Progress

There is so much to do and so little time!

I have a lot of little edits to make here and there on Nipponster.

I'm going to talk about them because I think mistakes should be celebrated! None of us are perfect.

I made some edits to the layout of the search engine results pages (SERPs) and did not realise that it messed up some of the design. It looks ugly and I have to fix it.

If you see any other things that look out of place (design-wise) or things that do not work, please let me know!

I am always giving feedback to other sites like that because I know how helpful it is.


[This is an aside, but an important one: If you have a site or blog about Japan I challenge/encourage you to help your fellow Japan-related sites! It will help them, it will help you, it will help the readers and in the end make us all one community]


Let's keep dreaming; let's keep building, together!