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J-web 2.0 - Elevator Up?
On August 21, 2008 in #The Japan-related Web Debate, Community building, Future of the J-web, On the J-web
When I look at the flurry (is that a word?) of activity on the Japan-related web I can’t help but wonder…
From the time I first started scouring the web for Japan-related gems (back in 2006 for Nipponster) up to now, it seems like there has been a transition.
It seems like there has been a change in the way we build Japan-related websites and the kinds of sites we build.
Also, to me at least, it seems like there is a greater sense that there is in fact a “Japan-related web,” a community, and we are a part of it.
If those observations are in anyway accurate, I propose that we have now reached 2.0. The next level; a new playing field.
I can’t put it any better than BillyWest of JapanBlogger.net -
“it’s like an elevator that has left the ground floor, but too many people are still doing ground-floor stuff. There’s a whole world of opportunity to do original Japan-related sites and it’s nice to see some are taking it to the next level.”
Are you going up?
Update (Aug. 22) :
Here is an interesting chart from Google Trends related to the J-web -
Search trends for “Japan Blog” (an upward trend)
Also, there are 156 million website online. I wonder how we could come up with a figure (even a decent guess) of the number of Japan-related ones. Any ideas?
It does seem like sort of a “bubble” period for the Japan-related web, doesn’t it. I don’t know when it’ll burst, but it will.
However, I think that’s a good thing since the wheat will be separated from the chaff.
The bubble will burst when there’s no more originality. The good thing is there are still thousands of great ideas out there in other niches that could be applied to the J-Web. Just keep your eyes open!
I totally think there is a void, rather several voids, that could be filled by someone with the time and skills to put out a Japan related website (or blog if you have to use that word) on the level of other niche websites like Engadget is for tech.
It would take more than one person of course, a site with multiple editors that covers in-depth aspects of Japan, writing original essays that go beyond just generalizations. The site would need to create a lot of its own content. It would need to cover the major cultural, sports and maybe even political events.
Rambling…..
If you use the term blog, of course you will see this huge uptrend. The terminology is relatively new. Try Japan website, Japan sites, Japan web and you will see something that is indicative of the actual reality.
Obviously, the Japan-related web itself is not monolithic. It is comprised of a variety of niches and not all of them play well with each other. The bubble that you see is maybe relevant to blogs involved with being linked to via JapanSoc but there is a whole other world out there which I think you might be totally oblivious to. This growth has been ongoing for awhile especially if you take into account those who have been using sites like Tabulas, LiveJournal or Xanga to do their Japan-related blogging.
Social bookmarking is a chicken and egg problem because someone has to catalog these websites. If a site admin or blogger does not know of the bookmarking site, they can’t add themselves. If the admin or members of the bookmarking site aren’t aware of the existence of a site or blog, they can’t add them. The concept is supposed to help by allowing others to add and discover more sites. Sounds good in theory but the reality is there are large number of sites that go ignored or unnoticed. You see this on Digg all the time. The proof is also in the pudding with those sites involved in what you refer to as J-web 2.0.
Considering there are at minimum several thousand Japan-related sites and blogs out there, why does JapanBlogger have only around 70 blogs listed? You would think the sphere would grow larger since somewhere in one of those linked blogs should be content or pointers to other sites not currently listed. That is pretty pathetic if you ask me when I have over 200 Japan-related feeds in my reader which I discovered on my own. Why doesn’t JapanSoc have at minimum, several hundred active users taking part in submitting links and voting? This was answered of course in the previous paragraph. The old style Japan Directory at Japan Reference does not fare any better with 268 links in the personal homepages category and that includes a large amount of dead sites.
Regarding community, there has always been factions of communities unless you are only looking at them from a narrowly defined blog point of view. In that case, it was probably weak before. The only Japan specific one I could think of before JapanSoc was probably Japan in Motion Blogs.
Older sites like Japan Reference or Japan Guide are both content rich and they each have their own unique and sizeable forum communities. Both are not web 2.0 centric though and I don’t see that changing without someone else consolidating similar content into a far better 2.0 experience which does not get in the way. There are sites other like JapanForum, Gaijin Pot, Japan Today, the Japan related forum on Trip Advisor, etc that also have their own communities. And it goes without saying that some of these are like oil and water, they just do not mix.
You can dig down deeper into the niche barrel. Try looking at the Japanese popular culture sites for example. Lets narrow it down even further by taking out the anime related ones and just look at Jpop. Something as simple as this seems homogenous but it isn’t. There are several general sites like J-Fan, JpopMusic, JpopAsia to name a few. What about Jrock or visual kei? Well they too have their own niche communities. Furthermore, a few individual artists have their own user communities especially in the Hello! Project arena with Hello!Online being one of the largest. The majority of these sites mentioned have 5 digit user communities. A few of them might share some members but often times, each is distinct.
I guess I don’t see the point of creating a Japan-related megaportal which utilizes web 2.0 tech and social networking concepts since the result would be another MySpace, Facebook, Mixi, etc clone except it is Japan focused. The problem with community portals like this that try to do it all is they tend to not do any one thing well. That is why niches thrive.
The concept at Tokyo Circle comes closest to this but you don’t see a whole bunch of people storming to sign up and add content. And if there were many out there striving for something like that, this whole discussion would be teaming with individuals adding their input.
The fact is the larger majority do not give a damn about the tech driving a site. For others, some social networking concepts are an annoying distraction. Sites like Digg are often times a pissing contest with egos at play. The gems are often stories which never get voted on. Yet it is the basis for social searching sites. The experts have been saying for several years that social search is going to take off but the reality has been far from that. How many people are going to bother taking the time to vote on the search results they think was more relevant? Some concepts just do not translate well for certain tasks yet there are forces at play trying to shovel it down peoples throats.
I wrote a nice long reply to all of your great comments and then I accidentally navigated off of the page and it lost it all
Just imagine the best reply possible and that would be more or less what I wrote
*frustrated*
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