Archive for the ‘Community building’ Category

Catching up

On January 08, 2008 in #The Japan-related Web Debate, Announcements, Community building

Sorry for the late posting today.

I have been running around trying to keep up with the comments on DailyJ, the Japan-related Web series we are doing on RisingSunOfNihon, and related comments elsewhere.

One really interesting development is Ken YN’s latest post over at What Japan Thinks. Ken has kindly made a gadget to help the fledgling JapanSoc project. This type of collaboration is exactly what I am trying to promote through the series we are doing on RisingSunOfNihon.

I’ll talk more about the gadget he created later (it deserves its own post or posts), but I couldn’t wait to saying something today about his example.

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Post #2 of “The Japan-related Web” guest-blogging-series on Rising Sun of Nihon

On January 07, 2008 in #The Japan-related Web Debate, Announcements, Community building, DailyJ Mission, Future of the J-web

Here is a snippet from the next post in the guest blogging series. We will be chatting about this all month long and want to hear your opinions, so be sure to visit RisingSunOfNihon and join in the discussion!

The purpose of this series is to inspire everyone (from reader to webmaster) to greater collaboration, communication and mutual encouragement.

But, I am not foolish enough to think that I have all the answers.

In this series the real inspiration is you…

Click here to read the full post (all posts are under 200 words, just the right size!)

Join the fun

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Post #1 of “The Japan-related Web” guest blogging series on Rising Sun of Nihon

On January 06, 2008 in #The Japan-related Web Debate, Community building, DailyJ Mission, Future of the J-web

And so it begins…

As I mentioned earlier, 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! This will be a month long guest blog series.

I am going to be putting snippets of the posts here but most of the action will be over on Rising Sun Of Nihon. Be sure to”weigh in” on the topics by commenting and sharing your ideas.

Here is a snippet from my introduction:

I started building websites related to Japan while studying at Sophia University in Tokyo. I started because I was a bit overwhelmed (like many are) by the difficulties of trying to live/succeed as a foreigner in Japan and I wanted to make things a little easier for others…

I believe that communication and collaboration between webmasters (and between webmasters and their readers) is the key to better Japan-related content on the web.

So, I am very grateful and excited that Bill has given me the chance to guest blog here on RisingSunOfNihon and chat with all of you!

You can read the full at RisingSun.

Be sure to introduce yourself as well in the comment section! This is your discussion.

 

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Why I am guest blogging at RisingSunOfNihon

On January 06, 2008 in Announcements, Community building, DailyJ Mission

Past DailyJ interviewee, Bill Belew, has invited me to guest blog on RisingSunOfNihon and I can blog about any topic. So, of course I am going to blog about the Japan-related web!

The guest blogging series will be a month-long discussion about “The Japan-related Web: What it is, What it could be and Why it Matters.” You are invited to join in on the discussion and share your ideas and opinions, so please do!

I am definitely grateful to Bill for this opportunity to talk about this topic with more people and at length. I think that this is a great opportunity for all of us to brainstorm how we can help make Japan-related content on the web even better. And that is why I am doing this.

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Japan-bloggers United Mailing List?

On January 01, 2008 in Community building, Future of the J-web, On the J-web, Suggestions Please

世論

Ken YN over at WhatJapanThinks has been holding a little Japan Blog of the Year Contest and he brought up some really interesting ideas in the comments section of the post.

Ken YN: I’m not very good at this community thing, but I feel that there should be some sort of J-bloggers United mailing list/SNS where we can get to know everyone a bit better, but without getting too incestuous; the blogging about blogging world is really bad for that!I see Japan Probe has a new AdRoll icon; the Japan BlogAds doesn’t sell anything as a unit; could “we” work out a deal with Piqniq, TokyoApartments, etc so they could advertise direct rather than through the AdSense, TLA middlemen? I don’t, but someone like Robert at jp.blognation may have answers.

Having a Japan-bloggers United emailing list or a J-blogger social networking site (SNS) sounds like a great idea to me. What do you guys think? How should we do it?

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What Japan Thinks reviews DailyJ - and - yes to the next JapanBlogMatsuri

On December 31, 2007 in Announcements, Community building, JapanBlogMatsuri, On the J-web

Ken YN over at WhatJapanThinks has been reviewing the runners up for the Japan Blog of the Year Award, and DailyJ is “grateful bewildered” to have a place on that list. His review of DailyJ is below.

More importantly, after a bit of childish “Are-we-there-yet?” style nagging, we have word from Ken about possible future J-blog matsuri!

Daily J. This blog is centred around Japan blogger interviews, and is trying to foster, no, make that build a Japanese blogger community, something I feel should exist, and I hope that this Japan Blog of the Year vote has somehow helped towards that goal. Oh yes, and about the Japan Blog Matsuri - I have an alternative yet cunning plan, and I’ll have to talk to you soon regarding one or the other matsuris!

I am sure that Deas from RockingInHakata and Bill at RisingSunOfNihon will be happy to hear that! The credit goes to them for supporting it in the past and talking to DailyJ and others about having more of them.

I don’t know about you, but I am excited already!

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When Japan-bloggers put their minds together beautiful things happen - follow up to our interview with JapanBlogList

On December 21, 2007 in Announcements, Blog Improvements, Community building, DailyJ Mission, Future of the J-web, On the J-web

Three heads are better than one.

Chris had a brilliant idea, Shane expanded on it (see below), the JapanBlogList fit the bill perfectly and now…. the ball is rolling to create a “blog search tool” that will let you search all of the Japan-related blogs online!

Nipponster and DailyJ are giving full support to the JapanBlogList project and partnering up with them to create this new search tool.

So from now on you will see an extra tab at the top of DailyJ for the JapanBlogList. And soon (once we do the tech work) our blog search widget will be on their JapanBlogList page so that users can search through all of the blogs on the list.

None of this would have happened without the great feedback from DailyJ readers like Chris and Shane so a BIG thanks to both of you!

Shane S Said, As far as the blogroll goes I think that this is a great idea - why don’t you create a page behind home and about titled Japan blogs and start the list with those that are regular contributors to Daily J and those that you have interviewed. You could then take suggestions or add based on the comments that you got on your previous top Japan Blogs…you could have two columns - one for blogs and one for resources sites like japan-guide.com etc…. (link to original comment)

Have a great day

DailyJ

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Friends don’t let friends blog without comment notification ;)

On December 19, 2007 in Blog Improvements, Community building, DailyJ Mission, Helping Japan Bloggers

In my last “Helping Japan Bloggers” post I asked Nick from LongCountdown.com to “share the love,” and share it he did!

Nick gave all of us the plugin that notifies your commentors when someone replies to their comment.

Quicknote - This is a wordpress plugin. If you use Blogger you are lucky and already have this function. If you are on another blog platform leave a comment and hopefully we can find the solution for you too (or switch *cough**cough*).

Nick Ramsay Said,…To notify people of new comments on my blog, I use the Subscribe to Comments plugin for Wordpress.

He also mentioned somethings about RSS that some might not know (more on that next time).

Now this is my commission to you:

If you have a wordpress blog or if you know a Japan-blogger with a wordpress blog, why not tell them today to install this plugin for better blog communication?

And why not spread the word on your own blog too? You don’t have to mention this post, just take this information and use it on your blog help your fellow Japan-bloggers make their blogs better!

Share the love!

Daily J

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Still catching up on my email

On December 18, 2007 in Announcements, Community building

The interview is coming. Just a little delay.

I want to reply to all of the comments and to emails I am getting about DailyJ

To those who have emailed: Sorry if I have not gotten back to you yet. I am trying to get back to everyone and give them my full attention.

Ganbaru!

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Helping Japan bloggers with their wordpress blogs

On December 16, 2007 in Announcements, Community building, DailyJ Mission, Helping Japan Bloggers

One thing that I would like to do here on Daily J is discuss, as Japan bloggers, how we can improve our blogs.

So I am going to post “Helping Japan Bloggers” posts from time to time.

*You can help by offering suggestions. And if you have solved a problem others are having SHARE your solution! *

I mentioned this to JapanItUp.com on his post about displaying Japanese on wordpress (my comment is at the bottom) and it is time to talk about it here.

I want it to be an interchange of help.
The idea is that we talk about what could be better and then we blog about how to do it technically.

Here is an example:

JapanItUp had a problem with displaying Japanese, so he figured it out and then he posted about it so that every one else could learn from it.

That is what I want this series to be about!

So here are two things I see on J blogs that I think could be better:

(btw, I am guilty of just about all of them still, so don’t feel bad)

#1

Wordpress bloggers need to install a mod that notifies commenters when there is a reply!

(If you have done this please teach the rest of us how to do it easily. I could search for the mod. But I am too busy already)

longcountdown.com has it! Not fair. Share the love Nick

Work around (?) - (In case you want to know if someone replied to your comment but the blog doesn’t have auto-notification)

Take the URL of the post that you commented on and add RSS to the end:

http://www.longcountdown.com/2007/02/10/technical-problems-with-lc/

becomes http://www.longcountdown.com/2007/02/10/technical-problems-with-lc/rss

I think this should work. not sure.

#2

Prominently displaying RSS feeds.

I’ve been bugging a few bloggers about this one (you know who you are) I am a hypocrite though because my rss feed is still way at the bottom of this blog I need to stop being lazy…

What other things have you guys seen that we all could work on? And what do you think of this idea for helping each other out? Let me know!

Have a great day

Daily J

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