Archive for the ‘Helping Japan Bloggers’ Category
On the Importance of a Sustainable J-web Economy - An Open Letter
On May 26, 2010 in Community building, DailyJ Mission, Future of the J-web, Helping Japan Bloggers, On the J-web, Suggestions Please
“It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people’s minds.” — Samuel Adams
If you have any part in the J-web I beg you to suffer through this long letter. If I have done my job well it will be worth it for your time.
The Need for a Sustainable J-web Economy
A little while ago Nick was talking about revenue sharing on JapanSoc and basically summed up the conclusion that all of us who have started projects eventually come to:
Do we need ads? Yeah. Some kind of income would keep me sane when checking the daily batch of spammer registrations. I’ve got a dozen sites, but spend way too much time maintaining this one.
Today we need to talk sustainability. But first let’s talk about “why;” why is sustainability important? The answer will be very personal and different for each individual, but here is my “why” :
Questions - to myself and to the community
On July 15, 2009 in Community building, DailyJ Mission, Future of the J-web, Helping Japan Bloggers, Suggestions Please
Reformulating.
Rethinking.
Lurking.
It seems to me that a sustained and useful Japan-related web community requires soul searching.
I know that for myself, for me to be a useful and long-term contributor, I have to do soul searching. I have to know what really drives and motivates me; what will really sustain my enthusiasm for this activity.
For me it is about Japan and it is about the web. But it is also bigger/more than just Japan and more than just the web.
It is about people, passion, mission.
So I have been rethinking and reformulating in the shadows. It’s not quite time yet; the ideas aren’t solid yet.
But the questions are firm and universal.
Why Japan?
Why are we interested in Japan? What exactly is the nature of our interest in Japan? (ex: living there, want to live there, etc.) How can we satisfy that interest?
Why the web?
Why do we blog? Why do we build websites? Why do we write, podcast, videocast?
and perhaps even…
Why a community?
Why the need to organise? Why the need/desire to connect with others? How does the community benefit the whole?
Supporting JapanSoc
On September 29, 2008 in Announcements, Blog Improvements, Community building, DailyJ Mission, Future of the J-web, Helping Japan Bloggers
Just a quick but important post today.
I (finally) put up a JapanSoc widget on DailyJ to help spread the idea of JapanSoc and a J-blogger community.
on the bottom of it you can click “get widget” and get one for your site. Go for it!
and check out the Jsoc toolbox
Let’s support our community-driven Japan-related news source.
Ninja lessons for J-bloggers
On September 18, 2008 in Announcements, Helping Japan Bloggers, Resources
Attention Japan-bloggers and webmasters:Â
Nick over at Longcountdown.com recently posted about a collection of over 70,000 video tutorials!
Included in the collection are video tutorials for web developers (html, css, php, javascript, etc.)
These, young grasshopper, are your lessons in the ancient art of J-blogging.
Enjoy.
JapanBlogger.net - an answer to our need
On September 11, 2008 in Future of the J-web, Helping Japan Bloggers, On the J-web, Resources
I have been talking some recently with BillyWest about his newest creation, JapanBlogger.net
If you haven’t checked it out yet, now is the time.
For Japan-bloggers and your everyday Japan-enthusiast alike JapanBlogger.net is an indispensable site.
The concept is something that was long talked about, even here on DailyJ (see Chris’s comment in this post)
So let’s look at some of the main features of JapanBlogger
#1 The dynamic blog roll.
This makes a great edition to any Japan blog. Nick from JapanSoc worked together with BillyWest on this. Great work!
#2 Besides rating blogs, JapanBlogger is a good blog directory. Users can comment on blogs and others can read and find out about more blogs in one sitting than they could if they had to go to each blog individually.
#3 It works also as a blog portal. This is a subtle difference but an important one.
When a user clicks on a blog, that blog opens up in a new window and can be closed out taking the user right back to JapanBlogger to browse other blogs. How cool is that?!
I’ve been using it quite a bit lately and have to say it is a fun and easy way to surf J-blogs.
Words of wisdom for any J-blogger
On September 11, 2008 in Blog Improvements, Community building, DailyJ Mission, Helping Japan Bloggers
A few days ago I was feeling tired, and I posted about it.
Nick, my J-web champion, from Longcountdown replied and gave me some much needed encouragement and advice. It is advice that every Japan-blogger should probably take to heart.
Nick said: …you can “meet the needs” of Japan bloggers (or anybody for that matter) by making them feel important, and being sincere about it in the process. Here are a few things that bloggers like:
- receiving positive comments on their blog posts
- being linked to or mentioned in a positive context on another blog.
- having a post dugg, stumbled, soc’ed or otherwise shared without needing to ask for it.
- getting new subscribers
- getting added to someone’s blogroll
- being followed on TwitterEtc. All these things make bloggers feel good about themselves. Now, this is just a suggestion, but it’s really very similar to what the Daily J has always been about - community building:
Everyday, make an effort to do one of the things listed above, and on the Daily J, write a quick paragraph about why you did it. So, if you stumbled someone’s article, tell your Daily J readers about it. The person who got the Daily J “Stumble, Backlink, and Recommendation” package will be buzzing all day… because you made them feel important.
Do that with five different J-bloggers per week and you’ll have indirectly affected each of those bloggers in a positive way. As you do this week after week, your actions will have given the whole community a boost, and if you’re lucky, your generosity will rub off on others who may feel energized to be more active in the community themselves.
And you can do all this in just five minutes a day!
I have said similar things in the past but I am guilt as charged of not practising what I preach.
It is time to change that. Thanks Nick.
A lazy J-blogger’s hack.
On September 03, 2008 in Blog Improvements, Helping Japan Bloggers
 
2008 is moving along. Soon we will be looking at 2009 and you will have to update the little copyright date on your blog.
Not if you’re a lazy blogger.
This little php code snippet does the hard work for you year after year.
<?php echo date (”Y”);?>
This code works on any php page (a file ending with .php). It displays the current year.
If you have a self-hosted wordpress blog go to:
wp-contents/themes/YOURTHEME/footer.php and look for the copyright year. Replace the copyright year with the code above.
your done,
now go be lazy
Is your J-blog on the twitter group?
On August 29, 2008 in Future of the J-web, Helping Japan Bloggers, On the J-web
Neil Duckett over at NeilDuckett.com is twittering and invites you to join in if you have a Japan-related blog.
He has created a Japan-blogger twitter group and you are welcome.
J-tweets…
What will we think up next?!
Navigation for the navigationally challenged wordpress themes
On August 25, 2008 in Blog Improvements, Helping Japan Bloggers
It is good that certain things irk some more than others.
Nick over at LongCountdown had been bothering me for awhile about not having good navigation.
As the editor I know where everything is so not having great navigation doesn’t bother me (which is not good). I don’t think about it as much as I should, so it is nice to have someone who reminds me of how things are from the reader’s perspective. Thanks Nick.
So how about you, Japan-blogger? Is your navigation lacking?
If you use wordpress (self-hosted) and need navigation, today is your day.
Here is the code you will need to enter to help readers navigate to next and previous posts:
Instant navigation in Wordpress. First find single.php,(that's YOURSITE.COM/YOURBLOG/wp-content/themes/YOURTHEME/single.php)In single.php in your theme, find: <?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?> and right below it, paste: <!--navigation--> <table style="width: 100%; text-align: center; border:0px; margin-bottom: 6px;"> <tr><td class="text" style="text-align: left; font-size: 8pt;"> <?php previous_post_link(); ?> </td> <td class="text" style="text-align: right; font-size: 8pt;"> <?php next_post_link(); ?> </td></tr></table>
Next I want to make my category list expandable/collapsible and make sub-categories under “interviews” for each of the sites interviewed. That way you readers can more easily find and read specific interviews. If I find it, I plan to let you know about it so you can use it for your sites too.
Have a great day,
DailyJ
great blogging resources
On August 17, 2008 in Helping Japan Bloggers
One of the first blogs I ever really connected with was Yaro Starak’s Entrepreneurs-journey.com
I first started reading him when I was in uni at Jouchi.
Anway, he started a site recently for new bloggers that has some free resources and I thought I’d pass them along to you J-bloggers out there. Here they are:
