世論 What Japan Thinks

I just noticed a visitor coming via The Guardian (a UK daily broadsheet), and it seems that on their Japan page, down the left-hand column is a list of useful Japan-related links, where I find myself in the company of not just political parties and the serious press, but also fellow bloggers at Observing Japan and Digital World Tokyo, and even the Whale Marketing Council Institute of Cetacean Research.

You may have noticed that my sidebar has changed – I’ve ditched BlogAds which was just not performing for me at all, and also killed a Google skyscraper that was suffering from Google’s squeeze on the little guys, and I’ve instead joined up with AdToll to provide advertising services. I currently have available two slots; one of size 125 x 125 above the fold (usually), and one at 468 x 60 at the bottom of each post, available at a quite reasonable cost – at the moment it’s standing at about 40 cents for a projected 15,000 impressions. Please consult my rate card below for the latest prices.

In addition, my fellow blog publishers may like to take advantage of AdToll’s services, with a key feature being a modest 30% cut compared to many other advertisement brokers who charge a 50% premium for their services. If so, please click here to sign up.

The winners of the 2008 New Year Postcard lottery for the Year of the Rat have been announced, and the winning numbers and prizes are as follows. The number to check is the six digit number at the bottom right of the card. Note that some cards do not actually have numbers…

First prize: 574578

Choose any one from a 37 inch Sharp AQUOS LCD television, a Sharp water oven, a MacBook plus iPod classic, or a foreign holiday from HIS.

Second prize: 957358, 769466, or 397940

Choose any one from an iPod nano, a Nintendo Wii, a Canon IXY DIGITAL 10 camera, a Sanyo air filter, or a Le Creuset cast iron pan.

Third prize: last four digits 9660

Choose any one from a pasta sauce set, filter coffee, Marrons Glaces (Crystallized Chestnuts), some Asakusa boiled beef, a Queen Alice beef stew set, Dalloyau French sweets, some Imperial Hotel canned soup, Yoku Moku sweets, Nadaman restaurant gift set, or Orbis Collagen beauty drink.

Fourth prize: last two digits 37 or 64

Otoshidama stamp set – a fifty yen and an eighty yen stamp, pictured above.

C Gumi Special prize: 812751 or 561101

Choose any one from cardboard furniture set, commuter bicycle set, or a garden decoration set. The “C Gumi” is apparently something to do with carbon offest New Year Postcards.

New Year Greeting Original Prize: 935473, 588104, 520056 or 700871

New Year Greeting Original Ninetendo DS Lite.

If you have matched any of these, go to your nearest post office before the 28th of July 2008 and either collect the stamps while you wait, or apply for any of the bigger prizes. The full prize line-up can be seen here. I haven’t checked my cards yet, but how did you get on?

One of my blogging New Year Resolutions is to network more – indeed just network full stop – so one way is to give something to the community of Japanese bloggers that doesn’t quite exist yet, despite some action towards that goal.

Some of you might have heard of JapanSoc, a digg-like social bookmarking thingie for Japan-related news stories, but it seems to be suffering from a lack of readers. So, in order to spread awareness of its existence and to increase the number of stories posted and therefore voted on and clicked-through to, I’ve written a small FeedBurner FeedFlare that puts a “JapanSoc It!” button at the bottom of each post.

If you as a blog publisher want to use it, sign up to both FeedBurner and JapanSoc if you haven’t already done so, then from your feed’s FeedBurner menu select the Optimize tab along the top, then the FeedFlare option on the left. Look for the edit field with the “Add New Flare” button beside it, and type into the box and press the button. Now, everyone who reads your feed will have the opportunity to submit your stories to JapanSoc.

This is an unofficial add-in and I’ve only previously hinted to Nick that I was doing something for his site! If you want to know why you should use it, Nick posted today on boosting traffic with JapanSoc. Oh, and perhaps Nick might like to make this suggested change to the submit.php page to handle resubmissions, or even do something like this.

If you as an RSS feed consumer want to use it, sign up to JapanSoc and whenever you see the “JapanSoc It!” button on a good story (like this one?) in your RSS reader, just press the button and submit it.

If you don’t use an RSS reader, try Google Reader for size.

Note that another similar site, TokyoGraph Link, doesn’t seem to support automation, so I cannot provide a widget for that.

All the winners have been contacted, but I’m too busy having a holiday to do much – please bare with me as we look at mini-reviews of all the blogs that didn’t quite make it. Last up is the personal blogs. This is the hardest to review by definition, as one just might not find someone else’s life interesting! Fortunately for me, all the blogs here do not fall into the uninteresting category.

Rocking in Hakata: I’m a fan of this blog and this blogger – a very interesting look at a slice of life somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Next time he comes to the Kansai I’ll have to get him to buy me a drink.

Watashi to Tokyo / Mari’s Diary: Another blog I’m a big fan of. She rounds-up news from both Japan and abroad with short summaries of the stuff that tickles her fancy. Her blog has a nice and simple clean design, and it always brightens up my day when she posts.

Blue Lotus: This is a blog that’s new to me! It revolves mostly around food and photography. A very personal slice of her life is presented in words and pictures, so please visit and see if it takes your fancy.

jeansnow.net: I must admit that when I first saw this blog I read the title as “Jeans Now”, which struck me as a rather odd name for a blog on Japan… An excellently designed blog, as one would expect from someone who follows design and pop culture in Japan. Lots of interesting stuff, including reviews of latest magazine issues in assorted genres. Lots to learn about here!

I noticed with these four sites also that they all had their RSS feed buttons hidden away; the use of feeds is really the best way to get loyal readers, so I think they should move their buttons a bit further up the pages – having said that, jeansnow.net has over 2,000 readers regardless, so take all my advice with a pinch of salt!

It seemed to have been popular last year, so I thought I’d remind you all that you can buy a lucky bag, or in Japanese, 福袋, fukubukuro, from Strapya filled with 18 cellphone straps to a value of over $130 for just $27 or so (depending on exchange rates), a saving of 80% on the retail price.

Help yourself to a bargain (and help out me) buy picking one up today!

Whilst I get in contact with the winners of each group, I’ll do mini-reviews of all the blogs that didn’t quite make it. This was one group that didn’t get many nominations – is the topic not interesting, or is there a lack of bloggers, or some combination of the two? I was hoping to discover more blogs myself through this category.

Digital World Tokyo: I love their logo and the clean site design, barring the distracting humping dog in the corner… Lots of the latest tech news from Japan, and this is another site that I really should nick layout and presentation ideas from!

Tokyomango: Another bright and breezy blog, focusing on the weirder side of technology. Slipper pong was a revelation to me.

blognation Japan: Oops, this site has died; see TechCrunch for more details. That’s a shame, as the writer, Robert, has good ideas on how to make the Japan blogging community work, so hopefully he’ll reappear somewhere else.

Whilst I get in contact with the winners of each group, I’ll do mini-reviews of all the blogs that didn’t quite make it. Next up is the culture blogs

neomarxisme and clast: Despite two blogs for the price of one here, he just didn’t quite manage to get enough votes to win. His personal neomarxisme has sort-of wound down, with his work-sponsored clast taking up some of his blogging time – his other blogging home, neojaponisme also picks up fromwhere neomarxisme left off. His blog reminds me of a friend from school who used to write letters to our local newspaper about existentialism.

Sushi Day: Not really a blog about Japan, but I thought it was such a colourful and nicely-designed blog it would be fun to introduce it to everyone. Many interesting sushi recipes with an American flavour; funnily enough, her latest post mentions that she has eaten raw fish sushi for her first time ever!

No-sword: A blog about Japanese language, literature, culture, and art, as it describes itself. Another fascinating blog about little looked-at corners of Japan. This is the sort of blog that should have better exposure, so I hope that this goes some way to spreading its name around.

ryuganji: he opening page is more magaziney than bloggish, which helps to highlight the very good use of photography to illustrate the stories. Lots of stuff on the side of Japanese cinema that doesn’t usually get touched upon in English.

Apologies to anyone who tried to access the site yesterday – just before bedtime I updated a plugin without testing it, and it broke my blogging software, making the site bascially unavailable for the whole day.

Normal service has now (hopefully) been resumed.

Whilst I get in contact with the winners of each group, I’ll do mini-reviews of all the blogs that didn’t quite make it. I’m sure there’s a word to describe this, but if I stare at “humourous” for too long the word just starts looking all strange and meaningless. Anyway, on with the show.

The Hopeless Romantic and His Adventures in Japan (Claytonian@YouTube): I have to admit that I find personal videos hard to watch as I have a thing about seeing my own face, and somehow other people’s faces remind me of that. Also, for some reason my computer’s not playing the sound on the videos either. Sorry Claytonian, but I’ll review your actual blog instead! Lots of good stuff about his life in Japan; I liked and can identify with trying and failing to speak keigo!

an englishman in osaka: Hey, that’s cool; if you search Google for an englishman in osaka, you – well, just try it and see. This blog is updated far less regularly than it should be, and his British sense of humour is spot on, for instance with this look at the new fingerprinting procedures.

Gaijin Tonic: Another British blogger, this time drinking his way through life in Japan. Wonderfully silly stuff throughout!

TV in Japan: Silly Japanese. YouTube. Copyright trampling. On TV. In Japan.

Today’s SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) lesson – the top two vote-getters called for votes through YouTube video broadcasts – perhaps this is a worthwhile way of promoting one’s blog.