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Some more possible gems of the Japan-related web
On December 15, 2007 in On the J-web, Resources
A couple days ago I posted a list of sites as possible “unknown gems” of Japan-related web. After posting the first list of gems I got some great feedback and suggestions for more gems. Here are those suggestions and some more possible gems from my wanders on the web.
#1 from Shane S:
I misstated in my earlier post that this weeks qoute was about fairy tales - it was Kotowaza or Japanese proverbs. The site that I refer to is here: http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/5623/kotowaza.html and I think that is goes along with the fairy tale site and should be considered for your list.
By the way, Shane has just started a neat blog called A typical life. Each week starts out with a quote or Kotowaza. This week is:
<—click to read the post.
#2 Chris at Waikiki2Yanai
Do you know this place? It’s definitely not what I thought it would be.
Gaba teacher is a neat site. It is like theonion.com, but for Eikaiwa teachers! 
Thanks guys for sharing these great sites with everyone!
And thanks to Thomas at NihonHacks. I got this idea of including reader comments in future posts from him. It is a great community building tip. See how Japan bloggers can help each other out?!
Here are some more sites I found that might be hidden gems. What do you think?
#3 Sakura House
(not so unknown) Cheap Accommodation in Tokyo. Another is Fontana Apt.
#4 The Japan section of Career.org
One interesting thing on the page is a Nova Teachers United group. Poor Nova teachers 
Good resources on studying in Japan. wle-Japan is similar
************SOMETHING NEAT*****************
I found this panning virtual reality thing (awhile ago) on the site below
************************************************
#6 Kiku’s Cobweb Castle
All kinds of goodies. Lots of great pictures, panning VR, more. How about it guys? Gem?
A website for ‘taboo-free” journalism on Japan. Looks pretty interesting and a bit like our past interviewee, gyaku.jp
So what is the verdict? Which are gems and which, well… aren’t?
Cool sites. I don’t know if you’ve posted about it yet or not, but Nick from http://longcountdown.com has started a Japan Blog Social Bookmarking site at http://japansoc.com. It’s like bloggingzoom, but targetted at Japan-related blogs. It’s still really new, but if we can get some buzz going, it could be a great asset to the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Blogosphere. I’ve been submitting every new NihonHacks post I write there.
And thanks for the link.
Thanks Thomas!
I am very interested in talking to him about his project. I just sent him an email.
A similar site is http://Japanalyst.com. Maybe they can work together somehow
Maybe not so similar, japanalyst is using modified drupal instead of pligg.
I am having some trouble with my feed over at http://Japanalyst.com and after posting on his site and sending an email from the contact form with no word back I emailed him through his other site and he told me that he couldn’t help me with the feed problem, that he was to busy, and that it should sort itself out in 8-9 posts….very frustrating so I hope that you have more luck working with him.
Thanks guys, I hadn’t seen Japanalyst until now, and you’re right, it is very similar to JapanSoc!
Still, I’m having fun with it and hope to build a solid community there. Thanks for your support!
Hi Shane,
Japanalyst definitely seems to be busy. I tried to get an interview from him awhile back (Bill from RisingSunOfNihon recommended him) and he said he would when he had more time. Still nothing
But I try to give people the benefit of the doubt, especially since I have a hard time keeping up with everything sometimes too.
JapanSoc should also be able to register blogs by RSS feed just like Japanalyst so it might be good to ask them about that. I will be asking them too (once I finish some of my other “to dos”)
p.s. When are we going to hear the Shane Sakata story?
Hi Nick!
Thanks for the comment.
I am not shocked that now there is more than one digg-like site related to Japan. It was bound to happen, what with the digg-clones available and all. Actually, the hot search archive that we have for Nipponster is a pligg (that could use an update) and I was looking into using a pligg for some other things too.
That JapanSoc and Japanalyst are similar is not a bad thing in my book. I hope in general that going forward what we are going to see on the Japan-related web is more and more collaboration.
I really want to talk to you about this more. I think JapanSoc is going to be really great (especially if a close-knit community builds around it) and I want to promote it in whatever way I can. And it looks like you already have a good JapanSoc evangelist on your side with NihonHacks spreading the word and helping out too.
I think Japanalyst is different that JapanSoc.
Japanalyst is just a news/post aggregator.
JapanSoc gives users a chance to express what they are and aren’t interested in.
There’s room for both I think.
I totally agree.
I think they ought to work together, if possible. It seems like they would complement each other well. Of course that is up to them.
Either way there is definitely room for both.
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