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04 Aug 2008 Pablo-kun

The status report

That's how it's really played

The Quick Word

In my constant battle against procrastination, I’ve been able to bring myself to finish this post which as a matter of fact, was scheduled for publishing 2 days ago but alas my laziness got the better of me. I’m also to blame my continuous meddling with Hotel Dusk: Room 215, Final Fantasy Tactics A2 and Final Fantasy IV DS. For those of you who haven’t heard of/played these titles and own a DS handheld (or emulator) you might wanna take a quick look at them.

In regards to anime, While I’ve been watching some current season series such as World Destruction, Code Geass R2 and so on, I’ve also made efforts to watch some old series that for some unfortunate reason I didn’t watch when they were airing, I though I’d write about them. These are Mushishi and Inukami!

Read more…

03 Aug 2008 mellow_bunny

Interview: Extrange - Lolicon, Metrosexual, Manga Lord

I decided it’s high time we all learn a little more about the bloggers around us. All to often we dismiss the bloggers around us as nothing more then “entities” that exist only in our computers. So that we can all become acqauinted with one another i’ve decided to do a few interviews with fellow anime bloggers.

Today we hear from Extrange, I did my first blog post on Extrange’s old haunt XD! I’ve seen this dude progress in his writing and have been awed by his Manga knowledge and dedication. So here we go! Read more…

26 Jul 2008 mellow_bunny

himeGIMI: Upgrade coming very soon.

In preparation for the new version of himeGIMI the current version will be replaced with a splash page. Thanks to everybody for participating in the Alpha. In the new Beta version all those who have been in the Alpha will have their data transferred over. They will also be able to participate in the new Beta from day 1.

The new Beta version should be up by the end of August. Once the basic systems are in place the Beta will open to a total of 50 users. This may expand over time. As a heads up once the new version launches it will be hosted at http://himegimi.com.

21 Jul 2008 mellow_bunny

Ohayo gozaimasu! Toshiyuki desu.

In true weeaboo tradition the title of this post is all of the Japanese I can muster. Ok ok.. I used my phrase book. BUT! I am trying to learn Japanese by taking classes (BOOO WEEABOO .. wait classes? Nice). I’m new to both the anime/manga scene as well as blogging. I’m mainly here because of the Kyouki Project [site here] that mellow is starting up.

I hope to meet more of you soon, i’ve already met Pablo-kun and Extrange on the IRC channel for AnimeBlogger!  Till next time~!

Sayonara!

16 Jul 2008 mellow_bunny

Wordpress 2.6 WHY DO PEOPLE BAW?

I noticed that the newest version of Wordpress is out today. I was excited and why not? This new version has resolved the flash uploader issue by giving you a choice, it now features page and post revisions, it makes use of Google Gears to speed up load times if you choose, there is theme previews, a word counter, bulk management of plugins, better image management and much more.

Check this video out if you are interested. (EDIT: I forgot to post a link to the Wordpress Dev Blog.)

So with all these great features why do people BAWWWWWWWW?! I have a theory. People hate change. It’s that bloody simple. They got used to the old UI for example and can’t handle the jandal hence the thousands of posts about hating the new layout and how it sucks. The point is the software is making PROGRESS. Wordpress is becoming an even better CMS to work with. Deal with it.

So do you plan to upgrade soon? If you’ve recently upgraded to 2.5 or 2.6 what are your thoughts on the new features?

10 Jul 2008 mellow_bunny

Breaking that barrier.

I was perusing Ryan’s blog over at Aloe Dream today when I came upon his post “Micro-Blogging Revisted“. This post really got me thinking about our internet presence as a community as such.

Before I go on, Ryan is a really talented guy and he has this SUPER AWESOME project called Melative. I’m hoping to perhaps get an interview with him so I can fill you guys in on it. He has some awesome ideas and has created some sweet as things. Back to the story…

Although I may not have looked at the post in the way that Ryan intended he said something which sparked my mind.

Jyri makes a good point about “value” and while the steam of the otakusphere is “the current, the hot, the seasonal”, a couple months later it just doesn’t matter (editorials rule the time! glad to see more of these in recent months!!)

He made a really good point. The way I think about it is that small short posts of information just do not last and don’t hold as much weight in our community. Even posts that are off-topic as such or not about the latest thing can sometimes be lost in the wind. This got me thinking… Is our community of anime and manga enthusiasts able to support a microblogging system? Is it able to support a culture different to the view it has now? Are we forever going to be bloggers who want to create impacting indepth articles on shows we love?

We don’t value smaller posts or posts about off season shows as much as we do editorials or hot shows for instance in that they have no real lasting strength. Does this mean that our community will not be able to branch out into other avenues of blogging or sharing information?

That is what I want to know. Innovation I believe is probably the key to expanding, not changing our horizons. If we were to take all the random maybe fleeting thoughts we have on ways to enhance our online experience and share them with like minded individuals.. the likelihood for an age of creation is high (queue epic music).

It would be cool if perhaps a group of us (or even just one huge massive discussion) sat down and talked about what we see now in the online otakusphere, where it’s headed and what we could perhaps do (or are already doing re: Melative) to try and expand the horizons?

If you are totally lost about what I mean here then take a look at MAL and take a peek at Melative. These are web applications which are changing the way we as bloggers and as an anime enthusiast community interact. Why limit ourselves to just writing away using Wordpress. LETS GET INVENTIVE! Let’s create stuff which is awesome. Let’s make our part of the internet cool, let’s make it fresh and let’s do stuff that hasn’t been done anywhere else.

I’ve seen some really cool fairly unique ideas with some good backers out there. These include new ways to share information with one another, ways in which to challenge one another and ways in which to just have plain fun with anime.

What will it take for us to jump in and just have a chat about it all? Share ideas, ping pong the thoughts and perhaps come out better off for it?

Ryan noted in his post one thing which I know would make a huge difference to the way we all blog. Coming away with some way to simplify everyone’s blogging efforts would be a great result from a discussion.

If you want to see some cool new things arrive in this community then for noe’s sake comment. Let’s get excited about the community we thrive in. Let’s set a new standard for ourselves. Let’s just just crazy guys and girls (who don’t exist).

Holla at me if you are interested in being a part of some sort of open discussion to see what kind of ways in which we can make our community better. I’d love to help get this started and hopefully we can come away with a fresh look at our blogging community.

13 May 2008 mellow_bunny

It’s amazing what you will do…

Ok, so yesterday at work I was completely useless. I mean I was way beyond lazy. I spent the entire day chatting and browsing for anime pictures. Then JUSTICE striked at about 1pm and I got this killer headache. After some painkillers and some water I felt better but not 100%. Anywho I made my way home and GUESS WHAT! ZOMG the red wine was killer, my headache returned with a vengence. But anyways that was a nice side story.

I’ve had another idea for a site. Somewhat like Digg I guess in the way the voting works. But the idea being that whatever is HAWT basically is sitting at the top of a page. You know what.. i’m going to have to do a mockup to explain it. The idea being that things like memes, characters and shows can all be added into the voting cycle and we can either vote something as hot or not. Kind of like a gauge on what everyone thinks is cool.

Normally this would be determined in a more organic way via the blogs and irc channels. I’m thinking that if we pick off the gems from these awesome places then we might have a fun wee site to play with.

-mellow_bunny

02 May 2008 mellow_bunny

New Ideas?

I’ve been thinking about new projects and sites that could benefit the anime/manga blogging community and could help to grow it. These are sites which add value so to speak to the user experience as well as boost the ways in which contributors can share.

A good example of a ‘value-adding’ site would be MyAnimeList. MAL as it’s known to many, is an anime and manga community that introduces you to people, anime, manga, and helps you organize your collections. Features of the site include an extensive anime and manga database, recommendations and reviews and being able to connect with other members around you. MAL is often referenced to and many anime/manga bloggers use it frequently.

Currently underway is the Anime Blog Awards which is another site aimed at increasing exposure for bloggers in particular and giving them something extra to do and have fun with. The exciting thing about the Anime Blog Awards for me has been finding new blogs which i’ve never even heard of. As of today there are 190 bloggers listed. This can help us to see the size of the community as a whole rather then in seperate blog groups.

Interlude Image

I have a project coming up which I have asked a few (Lupus-sol, mike(Michael), Nagato and RyanA) to take a look at it and suggest any changes. It’s great to have good sounding boards to work with. The plan involves an e-zine format site, featuring fresh articles by different authors each month. Voting on articles will be available and the winner for each month will win a prize or prizes from that month’s sponsor. In the final month of the year (the 12th month of the e-zine) a grand prize voting round will begin and all the posts from the year will be up for voting again. Multiple winners will be chosen from among the writers as well as perhaps voters.

This site is something that I hope will help boost awareness of the community. There is also the encouragement to write something different then your normal style or topic. Each month will feature a broad topic which you can write under and it would be awesome to see authors stretching themselves. There will also be an editing team who will work with the authors to ensure that the quality (in terms of spelling, grammar and logic) of the article is up to standard.

This is just one idea that I have and hope to implement very soon. But it would be great to see more ideas starting to form out there and get made. The one scary thing can be if you have a great idea but can’t implement it. As much as you may want to hold the idea to yourself it seriously works out best if you share with those that can help. Talk to your web savvy friends, talk to those who have started these projects to help you think through your plans.

So many people have cursed at themselves in anger when they find that their “great idea” has been “pinched” because they haven’t done anything about it. DO NOT DELAY PEOPLE! Get creating! It’s fun, rewarding and can lead to greater things.

If you know of any projects out there which aim to add value to the anime/manga community then please post them in a comment!

25 Apr 2008 mellow_bunny

Anime Blog Awards

So I thought I better write a post about it :D! I am involved so it’s probably a good idea. As you know it’s an event for Blogger by Bloggers and we hope to get as many involved as possible. There has been some issues but Impz has addressed those as best as possible. Anywho you can check out some new banners I whipped up and some that Impz made:

I thought i’d shower everyone with some statistics. They aren’t accurate but they give an idea of the numbers involved. I’m sure i’ll be posting on the proper results once they are compiled. Poor Akai is tiredface and doing all the bean counting -.-!

Since the beginning of the awards (somewhere around a month ago) 150+ bloggers have signed up to be part of the nomination process. Most of you who have signed up are running your own blog and I think we only have a couple of cases of multiple authors from one blog signing up (this is ok btw).

We experienced the dramas of the faux DORAMA from the ABC which may or may not have affected the ABA. They are two seperate entities if you didn’t know already. Anywho over the month of nominating we had somewhere in the region of 850+ nomination comments. I think you could probably double that number for the number of actual votes considering most people posted more then one nomination per comment. Heck it could be triple that number.

According to Google apparentely our top search query is Best Manga. I don’t have access to the server stats at the moment but i’ll try get them off Akai for my next ABA post.

The site is based on the brilliant work by Derek Punsalan and his Grid Focus theme. I altered it around a bit and I made most of the graphics on the site as it is now. There are a few changes i’d like to make to it but I’m short on time. I have to finalise the award badges today as well as creating the People’s Choice Award. I’m thinking of a complete site redesign once this year’s event is over. Not to mention I think we will be running an Indie version in a few months.

The one major thing I have gotten out of the Awards are all the new blogs i’ve now seen. It’s amazing how my bookmarks have grown. I DIDN’T KNOW YOU GUYS WERE OUT THERE D:! It’s awesome to see! Reading blogs now takes me ages :P!

It’s kind of cool to be part of the Awards. It’s neat to see a better overview of who is out there in the Anime Blogosphere. As of yet I haven’t seen a very definitive chart or statistical analysis on the numbers of people who publish and those who read. It would be nice if there was some sort of site that could show us the extent of the community.

But anywho, I’ll write up another post once we begin the Voting. Also if anyone wants to have a crack at design ideas for the ABA I’m all ears. :D!

-mellow_bunny

31 Mar 2008 mellow_bunny

YO THAR Pablo-kun!

YAY! Another blogger has decided to jump on the mellowSPACE wagon. As I posted the other day mellowSPACE is available for all those wanting to post as they wish and not have to worry about “responsibilities”. Yes, it’s awesome.

Anywho Pablo-kun decided to jump in :D! SO here he is in all his glory. If you want to read up on his previous posts check out his old blog here at http://darkanimeotaku.wordpress.com/ :D!