Cute girls vs. Business and Culture - Which will win on RisingSunofNihon?

On September 17, 2007 in Interviews, Uncategorized

As promised, today we are continuing our discussion with Bill Belew of RisingSunofNihon. It’s time to find out a little more about RSON, it’s most popular posts, and aspirations.

So without further ado, here is the interview:

Daily J: what motivated you to start your site?

Bill: Long story…the short version is I get paid to maintain the site www.risingsunofnihon.com

Can’t argue with money! Wish I was getting some. Btw, here is the “long story”

Daily J: What was the most difficult thing starting out with RSON?

Finding my rythym…finding good sources to read then write/comment about.

Daily J: What part of running RSON is the most fun for you?

Trying to come up with creative ways to say something and still be understood.

Daily J: What is the most interesting project, etc. that you are current working on for RSON?

Still trying to find that ‘pillar’…that might distinguish me from all others.

Daily J: Where do you see RSON in the future?

I want people to think…I wonder what/if RSON has anything to say about this topic.

Daily J: What would you say is RSON’s mission?

Bill: Covering the economic and industrial might of Japan…and getting off topic quite often, because I think understanding the culture will help a person do better business there.

We asked Bill about his favourite / most popular posts. Like most Japan-related sites there is the struggle between getting readership through “cute girl” content and staying true to the focus of the site.

Sadly…the most popular topics are when I touch on the stars, think girls of Japan. Kind of lets us know what most/many people on the Net are looking for. I am happy to say that I have not compromised my content for the sake of readership…though at one point I did have to reel myself back in a bit.

My all time most read post is Miss Universe - Riyo Mori If you look at the date, I wrote it several months before she won. Then when she won… I had some 99,000 visitors in one day.

I wrote follow ups

Miss Universe Japan - Ballet Dancer, Mori Riyo - Learns Lessons …

Miss Universe Japan - Ballet Dancer, Mori Riyo

Riyo Mori’s 10 Steps to Becoming Miss Universe

As I mentioned above….I have an incentive…the more page views the better. So, I will try to ‘milk’ a hot topic for all its worth. Make sense?

We’ve decided never to compromise here at Daily J. So sorry guys, no cute J-girls. Wait, where are you all going?!!! No!!!

Daily J: You mentioned that one obstacle at the start was “Finding [your] rythym…finding good sources to read then write/comment about”. I think I understand what you mean but could you elaborate a little more on that?

Bill: I now have a quite a few Japanese news sources bookmarked. I read though them every morning and tab what I want to write about. Until I hit on the idea of using Mainichi News, Yomiuri News, Asahi News and some of the other news aggregators, I struggled a bit to come up with topics, 5-6, each day to write about. Now I have more to write and say than I have time or post allotment for. ( I am limited to 150 posts per blog per month.)

As a last note, we have an inside scoop for you about a new blog, kind of a Bill Belew Unplugged. (I’m sure that if there will be any Dancing Bill video clips they will show up there )

I have just started a new blog…a personal one that I own and I can control the content…..you can see it at www.wispid.com

I enjoy this blog and in less than three weeks, I have had several days with more than 1,000 page views…I’m just getting warmed up.

What I like to write about is…look what’s going on here…is that interesting/stupid/great/fun/ridiculous…what can we learn from it? That is the style I prefer and to a great extent the style I use in my blog at RSON, PAB, TBOK and especially at WISPID.

A BIG thank you to Bill and RisingSunofNihon for letting us interview (and poke fun at) you.

I hope you, loyal reader, have found these posts fun and useful. Be sure to check out RisingSunofNihon and say “hi” to Bill.

And remember, we always appreciate feedback or a little comment below, so “give us some love.” (hey, we’ll even settle for hate)

As always,

A good day

From Daily J

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