Archive for February, 2008
The Japan-related Web: The Future
On February 06, 2008 in #The Japan-related Web Debate, Future of the J-web, Helping Japan Bloggers
| If you are just joining us, Bill from Rising Sun Of Nihon has invited me to use his blog as a platform where we can all come together and discuss the Japan-related web! |
For the last few posts of the Japan-related web series I mention three web projects that I think are leveraging innovative web technology to build community and help webmasters/bloggers.
#1 Japanopedia
#2 Japan-Hopper
#3 JapanSoc
Number 1 and number 3 have been mentioned before on DailyJ (and I will be talking about them more later). Right now I want to talk a little bit about number 2 and then an idea about how all three can work together.
Japan-Hopper.com:
I contacted Kiyotaka, the owner of Japan-Hopper, and asked him a little bit about the project (there will also be a full interview with him later here on DailyJ). You can read what he said in the original article. Basically Japan-Hopper is a site where anyone can add a “placemark” (some info about a location) on a map of Japan.
The great thing about it is that it is perfect for you if you are a Japan-blogger and you have posts about specific places in Japan. You can take a snippet or a summary of your post, add it to Japan-Hopper as a placemark, and add a link back to the full post on your site! Extra traffic.
Now my idea, and it is just an idea (i.e. don’t kill me if you don’t like it)
JapanSoc, Japan-Hopper and Japanopedia if used together could amplify the community building work and send even more traffic to blogs. Here is my thinking:
Japanopedia is like a blank open slate. Anyone can start a project there. Currently there is a project on it to help JapanSoc. A similar project could be made for Japan-Hopper. Maybe a project for bloggers to talk about their favourite places in Japan. Or maybe a project to add screenshots of Japanese monuments on SecondLife to the right places for them on JapanHopper. What do you think about that?
Whatever the case, once it is on Japan-Hopper maybe then it could be highlighted on JapanSoc! You could take your Japan-Hopper placemark’s address and submit it to JapanSoc. If it is interesting and gets “soc’ed” you get exposure for your post on two sites! And you support both projects at the same time.
Of course I am not advocating spamming either site with worthless junk, so I hope you make your contributions meaningful. And have fun too!
Last words?
Tomorrow the last post of the Japan-related web series on RisingSunOfNihon will be posted. But it’s my hope that this series is just the beginning.
As always, I am eager to hear what you think. So let me know!
And have a great day
Humbled
On February 05, 2008 in Uncategorized
Posting everyday takes its toll on you…
I didn’t have time to make a quality post so I will wait until tomorrow and in the meantime give you a little video from Tofugu.
Helping Japan Bloggers - Feedburner Video (and thank you Nick and KenYN)
On February 04, 2008 in Blog Improvements, Helping Japan Bloggers
I hope you enjoyed the Tofugu interview. If you missed it here are the posts: 1, 2, 3, 4
One thing I really like to post about here on DailyJ is Helping Japan Bloggers. The last post I did on that topic was about a comment notification plugin (and I asked everyone to spread the word). Today I have a little treat for any blogging newbie (like me):
How to videos!
One of my favourite bloggers is Yaro from Entrepreneurs-journey.com so I was ecstatic to find out that he just launched a blog to help out newbies with great tutorial videos. You can find all of them at becomeablogger.com
KenYN suggested making the DailyJ RSS feed more prominent and Nick from Longcountdown.com gave this suggestion in a comment:
For feeds, I’d recommend using Feedburner. With Feedburner (owned by Google) you can access statistics about your rss subscribers such as how many there are and how have they subscribed. Also, if you move blog, you can still use the same feed. Oh, and when you change to Feedburner, you can point all your existing subscribers to the new feed! There are also some little icons they give you to put on your site to show off your reader count and encourage more people to sign up. Oh, … they also offer “subscribe by email†which is awesome!
Finally, I think it’s a great idea helping out fellow Japan bloggers. Keep it up!
SO,
I’ve set up my feedburner account and added a nice big RSS icon at the top of DailyJ. Now you can learn to do it too with this great video!
Pass it on to other J-bloggers!
How Tofugu was born - an exclusive interview
On February 03, 2008 in Interviews
Hi All. Today we are back one last time with Koichi of Tofugu.com (Japan Humour Blog of the Year 2007). I first heard about Tofugu from Thomas at NihonHacks.com when he recommended them as a good possible interviewee. So, thanks to Thomas, today we get to hear the story of how the wonky Tofugu was born…
DailyJ: What motivated you to start Tofugu?
Koichi: I originally just started my other website, Koichiben (www.koichiben.com) for an independent study class in Japanese. I made a couple of posts in English, and they became surprisingly popular (though they have since been hidden or remade over on Tofugu). After a while, there was enough of a following to split off and create an English website. I did it in the name of branding, since I didn’t want to mix the English and the Japanese, and everyone called me crazy. Still, it’s worked out okay, I think.
DailyJ: What part of running the site do you like the best?
Koichi: I really enjoy responding to (some) emails. Interacting with new people is always a lot of fun. I just wish I had more time for it.
DailyJ: Where do you see the site going in the future?
Koichi: I have no idea. The internet is so unpredictable. I really hope to make an alternative Japanese learning book someday. I think the site will help.
DailyJ: Are there any projects/etc. you are working on?
Koichi: What? That’s secret.
DailyJ: What posts/content are your favourites?
Koichi: I kind of like everything we write, sorry about the mass of links
The pokemanz one is a little… hmm.
Thomas was impressed with the Tofugu post “How to Win at UFO Catchers” (a good post with some good video). Maybe he might also like to add Studying Japanese with a Nintendo D as a nihonhack.
Lots of good stuff there on Tofugu. Wonky and wonderful. So check it out!
And a big thank you to Koichi for the interview!
Have a great day!
DailyJ
Why Koichi is embarrassed about the Japan Humour Blog of the Year Victory - an interview with Tofugu
On February 02, 2008 in Interviews, Uncategorized
If you missed it, yesterday we found out that Tofugu’s mission is to “make interest in Japan cool again”. Today we are back with Koichi taking a look at some of the great content on Tofugu that earned it Best Japan Homour Blog 2007 and why he is embarrassed about it.
Here is some of Koichi’s favourite content related to learning Japanese (good stuff!):
Learn Japanese from Anime in only 5 minutes a day (not)
Beginning Japanese 1: Where do I start
Beginning Japanese 2: Hatsuon is King
Beginnine Japanese 3: Taking steps
DailyJ: Congratulations on becoming the undisputed Best Japan Blog of the Year 2007. But did you have to beat us all so badly? I mean 365 votes, come on! 
Koichi: I was very embarrassed about that, I really shouldn’t have gotten so many votes, considering how great all the other blogs are, and how much support they have.
The runners up were:
Great blogs all. DailyJ was cheering for Gaijin Tonic (a past interviewee).
Well, that’s all for today. But I have some more Tofugu for you tomorrow when Koichi will tell us a bit about how he got started with the site and other fun (”behind the scenes”) facts.
To all a good day!
DailyJ
Why interest in Japan is cool again - an exclusive interview with Tofugu
On February 01, 2008 in Interviews
Hello everyone. Today we are back with Koichi, the panda hat wearing blogger from Tofugu.com. If you missed it, yesterday we had a fun time watching Koichi’s video on Segat Sanshiro (the Chuck Norris of Japan).
DailyJ: What is the mission/vision of your site? What is Tofugu all about?
The overarching goal (I suppose our mission statement) is to make interest in Japan cool again. We don’t hate otakus or anything, but we want to encourage people to be interested in Japan for the “right” reasons … not because they love seeing Naruto and Sasuke make out.
Other than that, we really go for quality articles. We don’t try to come out with a post every day; rather, we want to bring original content to the table, and even if we find something off of another blog, we are going to research it better.
DailyJ: I’m not big on anime either (I had to look up Sasuke if that is any indication), but what would you say are “right” reasons for people to be interested in Japan?
Oh man, that’s a tough one. I can’t go and say that there are any “right” and “wrong” reasons to learn Japanese, because sometimes some of the “wrong” reasons lead people to the “right” ones. I think people should learn another language because they are genuinely interested in the culture (and meeting new people that are a part of it). I think a lot of people think they know about Japanese culture because they watch a lot of anime, and think that is a good reason to learn Japanese. I mostly just get irritated when people watch a ton of anime and try to learn Japanese solely because of it. EVERY language should be learned because because you respect their culture, not because you are obsessed with their TV shows … though drama might be a teeny-tiny exception (jk).
HaHa. Didn’t know we play hardball here at DailyJ did, ya?
Join us again tomorrow (or subscribe) to hear what Koichi has to say about Tofugu being crowned Japan humour blog of the year 2007!
And be sure to give your comments on the interview. Let us know what you think, what you like and what we can improve.
Post #27 of “The Japan-related Web†guest-blogging-series on Rising Sun of Nihon
On February 01, 2008 in #The Japan-related Web Debate
| If you are just joining us, this month Bill from Rising Sun Of Nihon has invited me to use his blog as a platform where we can all come together and discuss the Japan-related web! Here is today’s snippet. |
[Ken YN from WhatJapanThinks.com] had around twenty nominees for his Japan Blog of the Year Contest and he linked to each one. Those sites saw the link, found out about the competition, and then mentioned the competition on their sites with links back to Ken (traffic). Both sides benefited…
Can you do something like that?
