Japansoc Blogger Conference 2

By Michael Gakuran | | Other | 23 Comments |

Yesterday at 1am I was up and donning my black gakuran to attend the second J-blogger conference. Wonky Tofugu’s Koichi hosted the conference on the popular live video learning platform Edufire. The focus was on the fantastic group of people that blog about all things Japanese.

japansocorgSo for the second conference, we talked (and debated!) heavily about the up-and-coming Japansoc podcast, the next-big-thing in social networking ‘Poken‘ and also about how to further build the Japansoc.org community. The conference lasted for 4 hours this time, stretching on into the early hours of the morning. After a little shyness, the discussion got going and we had a healthy debate full of rich ideas and jokes. Potential Lord of the Rings-themed podcasts were even mentioned!

J-bloggers present:

  • The Nihon Sun (www.nihonsun.com)
  • JapanSoc (www.japansoc.com)
  • JapanSoc Google Group (japansoc.org)
  • Tofugu (www.tofugu.com)
  • GoddessCarlie (www.goddesscarlie.com)
  • Rocking in Hakata (www.rockinginhakata.com)
  • Gakuranman (gakuran.com)
  • Rick Martin (1rick.com, 2JPN.com, asia.cnet.com/blogs/tokyo-shift)
  • Wafukari (Wafukari.intothenew.net)
  • Kirk (www.jamaipanese.com)
  • Mo Kudeki (mokudekiru.com)
  • Chris Gaunt (www.nihongonotes.com)
  • Instant Ramen (www.instant-ramen.net)
  • Jon Allen: I’m A Seoul Man in Tokyo (www.seoul-man.blogspot.com)
  • Frugalista Japan (www.frugalistajapan.com)
  • Gaijin Stuff (www.gaijinstuff.com)
  • David K. (sleepytako.blogspot.com)
  • Tokyotopia (www.tokyotopia.com)
  • Next up:

    Podcast


    Some of the points we discussed and concluded(?) – please correct me if I’m wrong!

  • Koichi from Tofugu will coordinate the podcast
  • Time length of podcast to be 20 minutes to keep things simple.
  • Podcast every two weeks (undecided)
  • People interested in being presenters: Koichi, Deas, Carlie, Mo, David, Jamila, Rick and myself
  • 3 people presenting one podcast. Poll: 3 presenters – 10 votes, 4 presenters – 3 votes, 2 presenters – 2 votes.
  • USB microphones/setup to ensure clarity of voice required
  • Japansoc.com headlines and discussion, Japanese lessons, introducing J-blogger’s websites, Japansoc Matsuri highlights
  • Content to be further discussed to avoid clashing with the good people at Pokya
  • Next, onto Poken!

    Poken


    These neat little things were introduced at a recent CGM hosted by Dannychoo and Andrew Shuttleworth. Website is here: Doyoupoken? They act as electronic business cards, allowing you to store your online social network profiles and swap them by ‘high-fiving’ the two devices. The idea is to make exchange of details much simpler and reduce the amount of time taken swapping phone numbers and such. They also come in colourful and cute varities:

    poken

    We want the people at Poken to promote their hot new toy through the Japansoc community! I think a lot of us are very interested, but in order for Poken to really work, everyone needs to have one. I wonder if they are feeling generous? *grin*

    Japansoc.org


    So there are two sites now: Japansoc.com, which is a Digg-style site to submit Japan-related content that you like and have it ‘soc-ed’ (pronounced ‘sock’). You can find one at the bottom of this post! Please submit it to Japansoc if you like it!

    Japansoc.org is the centre of the community. It is a Google Group, used to help members to promote their sites, organise ‘action alerts’ that members participate in and is generally the hub of all Japan-related things on the internet. If you like Japan, you’ll be at Japansoc.org!

    General discussion led us to conclude that we need to drive more traffic to Japansoc.org, use the ‘Soc’ button on our websites and encourage readers to submit our posts rather than just using Japansoc to drive readers to our blog. Efforts to get readers to participate more.

    Some points made:

    LinkedIn JapanSoc Group: http://www.linkedin.com/
    Facebook Group: http://www.facebook.com

    – Upcoming Matsuri deadline (20th?)
    – JapanSoc.org member Sites page – are you on it?
    – Do you link to the group?
    – Promoting your own posts – how?
    – Action Alerts – RSS FEED BOOST
    – Wiki
    – JapanSoc.com profile – please add your networks!
    – Twitter, please Tweet: “Follow @japansoc!” or something to get more people to Japansoc and therefore your blogs.
    – Join http://www.japansoc.org !!! <- created after the last J-Blogger's Conference - Japan Blog Matsuri: http://wiki.japansoc.org/index.php/Japan_Blog_Matsuri

    **********

    So, are you a member of Japansoc yet?

    23 comments on “Japansoc Blogger Conference 2
    1. mo says:

      Had lots of fun meeting other J-Bloggers in… semi-real life (well, something other than twitter anyway!) Fun round-up, looking forward to more events!

    2. mo says:

      Had lots of fun meeting other J-Bloggers in… semi-real life (well, something other than twitter anyway!) Fun round-up, looking forward to more events!

    3. Jon Allen says:

      It was certainly entertaining once we started to relax, Thanks for taking all the notes!
      I shall try and get round to blogging something today.

    4. Jon Allen says:

      It was certainly entertaining once we started to relax, Thanks for taking all the notes!
      I shall try and get round to blogging something today.

    5. Shane says:

      Great recap Michael! It was fun brainstorming with a lot of like minded J-bloggers and the future indeed looks bright if we continue to work together via events like this.

      Fingers crossed that we’ll get to meet you in person soon…

    6. Shane says:

      Great recap Michael! It was fun brainstorming with a lot of like minded J-bloggers and the future indeed looks bright if we continue to work together via events like this.

      Fingers crossed that we’ll get to meet you in person soon…

    7. Nick Ramsay says:

      Great review, and now I want a Poken, too!

    8. Nick Ramsay says:

      Great review, and now I want a Poken, too!

    9. Jamaipanese says:

      excellent recap Mike, you really are a legendary gakuranman

    10. Jamaipanese says:

      excellent recap Mike, you really are a legendary gakuranman

    11. Deas says:

      Great round-up, by the way, Mike. :-)

    12. Deas says:

      Great round-up, by the way, Mike. :-)

    13. Egmont says:

      Bah! I missed this one by a mere 15 minutes. :( I was so bummed. I’m looking forward to the podcast, methinks it’ll be a very good thing for the community.

      • Deas says:

        There’s no reason you can’t get involved anyway! Missing the conference is no biggie (except that it was really fun and it’s sad you couldn’t vote / voice any ideas “in person” with the rest of the bunch). You can still get active in a different way. Hit the sites Mike’s mentioned and jump in if you like! We’ll make sure to get better word out about the next conference so you’ll be able to get in on it.

        I mean – using Twitter this time around I know Chris Gaunt and I got a few folks in after it had already started by sending out direct links to the eduFire classroom. We’ll only get better at getting people in the room from here on out!

        • Egmont says:

          Ah, I didn’t know you could get in after it started like that. I had registered and everything, but I just didn’t get back to my room in time to make it in. But thanks to the article I feel like I have a pretty good idea of what went down.

          • Mike says:

            Yep, don’t worry about missing it. There’s plenty of stuff going on, so just keep up with the Google Group and such and you’ll be fine!

    14. Egmont says:

      Bah! I missed this one by a mere 15 minutes. :( I was so bummed. I’m looking forward to the podcast, methinks it’ll be a very good thing for the community.

      • Deas says:

        There’s no reason you can’t get involved anyway! Missing the conference is no biggie (except that it was really fun and it’s sad you couldn’t vote / voice any ideas “in person” with the rest of the bunch). You can still get active in a different way. Hit the sites Mike’s mentioned and jump in if you like! We’ll make sure to get better word out about the next conference so you’ll be able to get in on it.

        I mean – using Twitter this time around I know Chris Gaunt and I got a few folks in after it had already started by sending out direct links to the eduFire classroom. We’ll only get better at getting people in the room from here on out!

        • Egmont says:

          Ah, I didn’t know you could get in after it started like that. I had registered and everything, but I just didn’t get back to my room in time to make it in. But thanks to the article I feel like I have a pretty good idea of what went down.

          • Mike says:

            Yep, don’t worry about missing it. There’s plenty of stuff going on, so just keep up with the Google Group and such and you’ll be fine!

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