Jin’s Corner: Breaking the 4th wall

Hi folks,

It’s me Jin just saying hello to those readers that have visited me on this site. I’m nearing my 3000th visitor and about my 4500ish page view. Not bad for a site that has been in operation for a couple days shy of one month. I decided to break the ‘fourth wall’ a little bit to talk about the site, to tell you what I have been reading and talk a little bit about future plans.

One of the things I notice is that people treat this site more like a news site than an actual blog. I do post pretty regularly, but if you want the up to the minute details about gaming and manga news (about 90% about what I end up writing about), you’ll be disappointed. I’ll readily admit there’s plenty of websites that do that better than I can - blogging teams or a really on the ball individual who grabs all the latest.  However, what’s unique about this site is, well, it’s me.

Every article or post I decide to write is really an editorial choice. For a news item to show up here means I found the news (or just decided to post on a random topic), thought about, and thought it was worthwhile to write about. You’ll notice that most of the news items are reported in a factual third person perspective with my opinion coming at the end. I think that makes my news stories different. While I try to stay somewhat objective, I’ll still interject my thoughts, opinions and feelings.

As a relatively recent blogger, I’ve been reading a lot. Probably more than I’ve ever read honestly. Considering I have 4 years of college education and three years of post graduate education, that’s a lot of reading. But mostly, I’m reading because the stuff is interesting, and because I feel that I’m learning. There’s a lot to catch up involved with all this blogging business.  I find myself reading a lot of other blogs, mostly because I want to learn what makes their site so popular, how they write and how they do layout. I’ve seen some sites out there that have truly humbled me by how much detail and thought they’ve put into their layout, writing and overal presentation.

So what am I reading. Well, as I mention, a lot of stuff, but there’s a list of sites I go to pretty regularly. I’ll make a partial list:

• Danny Choo - as far as I’m concerned, he’s a pioneer. There are other folks who monetize their sites but he’s continuing to take it to the next level. Plus a lot of his original content, not the stuff he grabs from elsewhere, is pretty darn interesting. I don’t know if I’d ever be as comfortable as he is in exposing my everyday life as he is.
• Sankakucomplex - Artefact and crew run a mean and tight site. I’m pretty stunned at his output too, since I’ve seen him crank out up to 16 news items in a day. Sure, much of that is cut/pasted from other sites, but it takes a lot of time to format, add pictures and also add your editorialized comments for each article. I also think that Sankaku has become a source of news for many other sites as I see their articles linked in a lot of blogs.
• Kotaku - talk about a huge output of stories. If I leave my Google reader alone for one day, Kotaku will have at least 50 stories waiting for me. Their bloggers scour the net and grab everything and anything related to games. I can count maybe two times where I’ve beaten them on a story, and then only by a day. If you want to know about everything, then this is the site to read.
• Massively - not as prolific as Kotaku but focused on MMOs, which are what I am currently most interested in (though I don’t subscribe to any of them right now).  They break some interesting stories and feature stuff from bloggers that I’ve never heard of from time to time who post some great observations.
• Broken Toys - Scott Jenning’s blog. Sarcastic, somewhat angry and always on point. I honestly didn’t know who he was when I first linked to one of his posts, but now I’ve become a regular follower.
• Okazu - Erica mostly focuses on writing about yuri anime and manga, which is her passion. However interspersed in all that are really cogent observations about the anime industry. Also, her translations / summaries of Maria-sama ga Miteru are great.
• Jphinano - I’ve been following Hinano for over a year, even before I was actively blogging, and when she was still at her old domain. Probably the most entertaining anime blogger I’ve read so far, mostly because she interjects so much of her personality in her writing. Not sure why she isn’t monetizing her site, because she’d make a truckload of money if she ever decided to.

There are lots of others, but these are the ones that I find myself going to again and again.

So what do I want to do with this site? Lots of things. I’d like to see more user interaction. It’s why I removed the need for comment moderation, but in turn put in the CAPTCHA. I’d rather not have the need to do either, but I get a ridiculous amount of comment spam. What’s particularly onerous are those automated feeder sites that aggregate your post among a few hundred other posts they’ve collected. There’s a couple of anime sites that grab my anime and manga stories just about every time I post and try to put in at least three links back to their site every time. It’s annoying and it’s a quick way to get you banned.

While spam is a problem, I’m dealing with it. However, I would like to see more commentary and build sort of a community following, especially from regular readers (the few that are around at this point). So I plan to do more interactive articles, soliciting your opinion, putting up polls, maybe sponsor a few contests.  Part of the fun in writing a blog is to get to know your readers and I feel that this site has so far kind of fell short in that area.

I’d also like to know what you’d like to see as topics. I write about about gaming, manga, anime, science fiction and fantasy topics in that relative order. However, there’s a lot to choose from even in that. I’ve had a few bloggers tell me that I should just concentrate on one niche so I can optimize my monetization and concentrate my reader base into one area. That’s probably sound business advice, though I won’t follow it. Largely because a blog should be about what interests you, and I’ve always had trouble just focusing on one area in my writing.

Anyway, among the topics I write about, is there anything you’d like to see?  I’d like to write about professional Starcraft, which I think will pick up a lot of interest once Starcraft II is announced. Maybe even do some game coverage. I’d like to write more about anime, but probably that will go on hiatus a bit until there’s better offerings. I’m none too pleased about this season’s anime offerings. The only things I watch are stuff that have continued from last season: Maria-sama, To Aru Majutso no Index, Toradora and occasionally an episode of Skip Beat! I’m sure my writing on that will pick up when the new anime season is here in force.

Anyway, let me know what you like or don’t like about the site. What you’d like to see. Or just leave a comment to say hi.

Jin

P.S. The picture at the top of this post is of my dog, Roopa. He’s a4-year old lhasa apso and has become my site’s unofficial mascot.

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