Nipponster Official Blog

Where the action is

2008-09-10T01:36:00.004+09:00

Hi All,

Just another quick update. As mentioned before this blog is suspended for now.

Instead all of the action will be on DailyJ

ALSO
Anyone who wants to contribute to Nipponster development can check out the new Nipponster Lab on the JapanLabs social networking site!
See you there!

Focus

2008-08-07T02:57:00.002+09:00

To better focus efforts on creating a better search engine I am suspending this blog.

(ok, I know that sounds counterintuitive, but let me explain)

I need to focus resources and time where they will produce the best results.

Writing two blogs (this one and DailyJ) is too much.

So future Nipponster messages will be posted on DailyJ instead.

Move to Wordpress inevitable

2008-03-25T00:07:00.000+09:00

Just wanted to let everyone know that I will be moving this blog from Blogger to Wordpress.

Since launching DailyJ as a wordpress blog back in September 2007 I have fallen head over heels in love with wordpress.
(A special thanks goes to Jamaipanese for suggesting it over blogger)

And although I have a deep love for things Google (and think the Blogger tagging features are swell) I must make the switch.

Wordpress just gives the user so much more control.

Dreamers Never, Ever, Give Up

2008-03-20T20:43:00.005+09:00

This blog post, written well over 6 months ago, resonates with me today even more than it did then. With the launch of DailyJ and the re-launch of Japanopedia I spread myself rather thin and neglected Nipponster. At the time of this post part of me felt like throwing in the towel and today too part of me feels like throwing in the towel. I have reached this point five or six times with Nipponster in its brief two year existence. But I have always pushed on. Nipponster has always persevered or reinvented itself. And today is no different. So here it is; an oldie, but a goodie:

Dreamers Never Give Up

Thursday, August 30, 2007

I have to be honest, sometimes I feel like giving up...

Trying to affect change and carry out a vision is hard work!

That's what we are trying to do with Nipponster.com

We are trying to make the web a better place for Japan-enthusiasts

But it is not easy.

I did not think that it would be.

But I did not expect it to be this hard.

The main problem boils down to how to create buzz about our mission.

How can we get lots of people behind it?

How can we make them passionate about revolutionising Japan-related content on the web?

How do we get people involved in projects (like making a free comprehensive Japanese text book)?

We don't know the answers yet.

And we could always use your input.

But one thing is for certain...

We are dreamers.

And Dreamers never give up!

-Tori

Nipponster in 2008

2008-01-31T01:09:00.000+09:00

Where will Nipponster go from here?

That is the question we have been considering lately (well, always really).

We feel that Japan-related search is an important new field and expect it to grow, especially in 2008.

Admittedly, Nipponster is currently not even close to meeting the potential for this field.

The ability to search across the various mediums and niches of the web and quickly return only Japan-related results is the goal.

This will call for the launch of new search tools, refinement of current tools, and passion for the mission.

Onward we will go.

Improvements to the Nipponster Japan Toolbar

2008-01-19T04:00:00.000+09:00

In keeping with our efforts to continually improve the Nipponster Japan Toolbar we have just added two new features! Take them for a spin and let us know your thoughts.

1, We have added a "JapanSoc It" button that allows you to submit a URL to JapanSoc (a digg.com-clone for Japan-related news).

2, We've added Nipponster Video Search to the search box. So now you can search the major video sites for Japan-related videos... right from your browser!

Two easy steps:

click on the black arrow in the search box
select "Nipponster video search" and click go

The new "Hot Search Archive" is here!

2008-01-17T04:51:00.000+09:00

Ok. Finally we have finished the new Nipponster Hot Searches! Whew...
That was a lot of work. And it still needs work.

I thought that the entries from the old hot search archive would be easy to move to the new one but alas that's not so :(

We will have to manually re-enter them...

But no worries because having the new archive makes up for everything!

Let us know what you think of it!

Yes! Progress with the new hot search archives

2008-01-05T09:43:00.000+09:00

Like I mentioned in the previous post, we've been working on the hot search archives. And I've been messing things up :(

Fortunately I just fix a major problem on the new archive! Too bad we have not released it yet, so you cannot see my good work :(

oh, well.

The good news is that it is working as we had hoped and soon it will be released!

Hot search archive - no one is perfect

2008-01-05T08:52:00.000+09:00

We've been working on the hot search archive trying to upgrade it.

Unfortunately while I was working on it I made a mistake and now it is a little buggy.

The new version that we are hoping to release soon will automatically archive old hot searches saving us lots of time.

It will also help us update the hot searches much more frequently.

It has been awhile

2008-01-04T05:44:00.000+09:00

Sorry for the silence.
Life is busy. Hopefully some changes we are making will free up our time from tedious things.

Our goal with this blog is to post more often and publish shorter "bite-sized" posts that let you know what we are doing each day.

That's the goal. We will see how that holds up...

Tweaking the search engine

2007-12-15T07:46:00.000+09:00

I just did some major tweaking of the search settings for Nipponster. Hopefully this will make searches more accurate and remove some of the junk results that sometimes pop-up.

Nipponster is supposed to filter results so that only Japan-related results come through. I know that this is going to require constant tweaking, especially since we want to go from "ok, it's Japan-related" to "Wow! these results are Japan-related and better than any other results on the web!"

We want the "wow factor." How would you rate Nipponster search right now? Is it a wow? How can we improve?

Work in Progress

2007-12-15T07:16:00.000+09:00

There is so much to do and so little time!

I have a lot of little edits to make here and there on Nipponster.

I'm going to talk about them because I think mistakes should be celebrated! None of us are perfect.

I made some edits to the layout of the search engine results pages (SERPs) and did not realise that it messed up some of the design. It looks ugly and I have to fix it.

If you see any other things that look out of place (design-wise) or things that do not work, please let me know!

I am always giving feedback to other sites like that because I know how helpful it is.

[This is an aside, but an important one: If you have a site or blog about Japan I challenge/encourage you to help your fellow Japan-related sites! It will help them, it will help you, it will help the readers and in the end make us all one community]

Let's keep dreaming; let's keep building, together!

Update. We are still full of crazy dreams.

2007-12-14T07:00:00.000+09:00

yikes! It's been awhile since we last posted to the official blog.

Keitaro and James have been really busy with their full time jobs, although James has been helping me with a new Japan-related project that hopefully we will launch sometime soon.

I have been busy with work and Daily J. The latter has been going really well, in my book, because it has turned into a center for discussion about the Japan-related web. That discussion is set to grow and in the near future with some guest blogging I'll be doing, but more on that later.

For now, I just want to say...

We are still crazy dreamers striving to create the best Japan-related tools we can for all of you Japan-enthusiasts out there.

And,
We are always always interested in your feedback, and we love helping out Japan-related projects!
So feel free to contact me (Tori) at eaglelandgrace [att] gmail [dott] com

Wake up and smell the Japan-related videos!

2007-11-21T00:49:00.000+09:00

Good day to you.

Seems like not many have checked out the new video search feature :(

The problem is likely the simplicity of our homepage (it is being overlooked.

So I set video search as the home page.

So...
"Stay hungry; Keep searching"

And then give us some feedback!
--

If you have no idea what I am talking about read this post on the Japan-related video search

What you have to see to believe!

2007-11-05T09:08:00.000+09:00

I have a fever and the only prescription is more VIDEO!

If you missed it on the front page, I would like to present to you Nipponster Video Search!

All Japan-related videos, all the time.

Take it for a spin!

Here's a screenshot of the search results page:

You can watch the videos right on the search results page!

Finally some new hot searches

2007-10-29T11:27:00.000+09:00

Ok ok.

Yes, finally some new hot searches. I have been really bad about approving new hot searches over the past 2 weeks or so...

Not good.

Here are the new ones:

genpatsu shinsai

anti-groping software

free manga

Remember, to see past hot searches visit the Archives

Also here are a few search suggestions:
Keeling's Guide to Japan

Japanese mascots

My fellow Japan-enthusiasts...

"Stay hungry; keep searching!"

Kaizen and the Nipponster Japan Toolbar

2007-10-16T04:19:00.000+09:00

Kaizen, Baby!
We are trying to make the Nipponster Japan Toolbar better and better all the time

Kaizen (改善) - continuous improvement

If you are out of the loop when it comes to our Japan Toolbar, and the cool tools we've been working on, check out this previous post: Free Internet Broadcast Japanese TV!

And it you haven't downloaded it yet DO IT NOW! --> Nipponster Japan Toolbar download page. We think you will thank yourself for it later ;)

The Nipponster Japan Toolbar is the first Japan Toolbar, the first Japan-enthusiasts toolbar. It is the first toolbar to bring all the gadgets a Japan-enthusiast needs together in one place: Japanese dictionaries, Kanji cards, free Japanese typing software (Japanese language support), language practice, radio language lessons, 24 hour Japanese TV, and all kinds of useful links. And don't forget Nipponster Search (the first Japan-related search engine).

So how did we improve a toolbar so chocked full of goodies?
We've added three cool new things to the Japan Toolbar:

More new free Japanese internet TV links
A web app that let's you type in Japanese without software
Cool gadgets from Labpixies

New free Japanese TV channels:
We've added Impress TV, Channel J, Biglobe, and NHK (English & Japanese). Here is a screenshot:

Type in Japanese without software:
A great tool to use if you do not have a Japanese OS and you don't have (or don't want to install) Japanese typing software.
It is a good idea to bookmark this link (http://ajaxime.chasen.org/index.html) on Google bookmarks, etc. (or save it somewhere like in your gmail). Here is why: Let's say you take a little trip to Australia and midway through your trip you need to email someone in Japanese. But there's a problem, none of the PCs available have Japanese typing software. Not good. But wait, now all you have to do is visit this link and you can type in Japanese without installing software! Awesome.
Here is a screenshot:

Cool gadgets from Labpixies:
There are a lot of gadget goodies but the best in my book is Labpixie TV. This is probably of more interest to foreigners in Japan, whereas the Japanese TV is interesting to people outside of Japan. Missing TV from home? LabPixie TV has programmable TV stations. Click on the first button on the right and it will take you to their website where you can choose your channel,... by country!
Screenshot:

They even have some Japanese stations on there but it is all user submitted and some of the .asp links (streaming tv links) may have been changed. They seem to get changed pretty often, that is why in our tv section we link to the homepages too.

Well, that's it for now. What's next? Video search?! (uh. oh. looks like I let the cat out of the bag...) Stay Tuned!!

And let us know what you think by giving us some feedback!
We do it for you, the Japan-enthusiasts.

-Tori

Stay Tuned!

2007-10-12T13:36:00.000+09:00

I was super excited today.
I just finished the major work I had to do on some improvements we are making to the toolbar.

I will be posting more about that soon. Good stuff it is.

We are also cooking up some fun with the search engine.
Something new and exciting.

So do as the title and please stay tuned!

35 years of Shinjuku in 10 seconds and some new hot searches!

2007-10-09T11:07:00.000+09:00

Found this on the Nipponster hot search I just archived Tokyo time lapse video
(Thanks to sparkplugged)

Here are the newly approved hot searches:

secret Okinawa pact

rice patty art harvest

And a timely and fun suggestion:

Rubik's cube championship

"stay hungry; keep searching!"

Advert policy - Why there will be no banners on Nipponster.com

2007-10-01T06:40:00.000+09:00

D.B.E.

We were contacted via email recently by a company that offers popular advertising solutions for websites. To reap a profit from it, the service would likely require the posting of banners on this site.

Though this particular company's service seems to be becoming ubiquitous on sites with a focus similar to ours, we declined them.

We were congenial in all of our correspondence with them and although we declined we even offered to interview them on our new blog Daily J (because we think their service is ok, it's just not for us). But there was no reply...

So I am sure that declining their offer certainly won us no friends in that company but we have
to stick to our guiding principle:
"Does this make things better for Japan-enthusiasts?"

In this case we decide that the answer was "NO" for two reasons:

It would distract from the purpose of Nipponster. That purpose is to quickly give our users only the information they are looking for. Not the clutter they are not looking for.

The service is a "freemium". It's free for the basic functions but if you want to get the full service you have to pay a fee. There's nothing wrong really with freemiums, but Nipponster was started with the goal that everything we provide we provide 100% free.

In the end we are crazy dreamers, right? So regardless of any monetary benefit we would have reaped we would not and will not give up our dream and our principles.

We hope that is clear to everyone and I personally hope that will never change.

Interesting searches

2007-09-27T04:12:00.000+09:00

Just approved some new hot searches: Japanese to English copy machines and Tokyo time lapse

And here are some more fun searches we found:

dance vader

and

learn japanese from gundam

Enjoy!

"Stay Hungry; Keep searching!"

Japan on the moon and more

2007-09-24T09:23:00.000+09:00

Changing a hot search.

Seems Japan Aerospace (JAXA) launched a lunar mission.

Some other recommendations are:

JAXA to privatize

google x-prize Jaxa

sino-japan space race

"Stay Hungry; Keep searching!"

New hot search and some interesting related searches

2007-09-21T00:58:00.000+09:00

Just changed another hot search.
Trying t0 at least switch them twice a week.

Some other interesting hot searches are:

Accenture the dodgy company behind the new fingerprinting s

abolition of fingerprinting

opposition of fingerprinting

Giving the "hot search archive" a makeover

2007-09-21T00:27:00.000+09:00

The rest of this week we'll be working on giving the hot search archive a new look.

We plan to change the template to something that better matches the rest of Nipponster.

Going Crazy

2007-09-17T07:22:00.000+09:00

Have you ever had way too much to do?

I feel like my head is going to explode.
My nature is to take on more than I can chew, try to pack more than 24 hours worth into a day, or whatever other cliche is fitting here.

There are so many things we would like to do.

I think that the key going forward it to focus on doing a few things really well.

I also worry that we don't really understand our users very well.
How can we best serve you? What do you like, dislike about our services? What would you like that currently doesn't exist?

PLEASE GIVE US FEEDBACK

I am brainstorming with the other crazy dreamers about how we can get more user feedback.
Maybe a user comments page. Maybe one on each tool page (ex: one on the toolbar download page).

Tori