The OEG attempted to jumpstart the half-dead blogosphere, but it seems to only cause people to question them or even outright show themselves as internet trolls by other bloggers and one blogger did their work for them already. The problem is that the Aniblogosphere in my view is alot less on Anime and Manga or anything exciting and more about just news on Japan, which we can get from ANN or even Danny Choo. We don’t need the same post on Final Fantasy XIII elixir… It’s already covered nor we need to know about random Japanese news or happenings… It’s been done by so many blogs that it’s not funny anymore… just look at the few posts I found on AnimeNano…
Posting news is pretty generic and not exciting in my opinion nor it will help solve the ever troubling problem of the half-dead Anime Blogosphere. Bloggers should not only review Anime, Manga or even anything related to it, they should drive innovation and do something that haven’t done like a project or something that will interests the readers such as sharing your thoughts about other things like visual novels or making commentaries on characters or anime you have interest in or do something creative besides posting news… That’s Anime News Network’s job, not yours. I highly doubt you will get a lot of viewers that way… It’s not wrong or anything, but bloggers should tone it down a bit and start doing something innovative besides copying like Microsoft copying ideas from Mac OS X and KDE/Linux/whatever for example. That way, bloggers can be more happier that the Anime Blogosphere isn’t half-dead anymore.
Remember, it’s you that can reignite the Anime Blogosphere by innovating… It’s not my job to push you to innovate, it’s yours. Otherwise, it will stay like that if nothing is done and most wouldn’t like a half-dead Anime Blogosphere, would you?
Well I agree that the amount of news blogs is dull. But just because they’re on Animenano doesn’t mean they are really part of the blogsphere. Do you consider ANN an anime blog? By that same elimination process I don’t really consider Banzai effect or similar sites to be anime blogs either.
I’ll tell you what really kills the aniblogsphere. People complaining that the latest season is made of crap. People who claim that they don’t have time to watch anime anymore and yet still post about their non-happenings. People who complain anime or the blogsphere being dead or half-dead.
For every 4 or 5 crap new blogs that die in no time, there will be one that actually produces quality content straight off the bat and one other ‘sleeper hit’ from a blogger that finds his niche only after a while of posting. Old blogs go through revivials every now and then. There’s always something worth reading. You’re just not looking hard enough
Scamp: Maybe that could be the problem, but the issue is that there isn’t a real good index with good anime blogs anymore… Anime Blogger Antenna is pretty much dead and AnimeNano is filled with non-anime posts and blogs… Isn’t AnimeNano supposed to be about Anime and Manga, not random, pointless crap about someone being arrested in Japan. Who gives a crap about that? I feel that someone should create a index with a feed of posts from GOOD anime blogs that actually blog about anime, manga, visual novels or any reviews on merchandise on the latter part.
I’m surprised on how much dedication I have put on this blog since reviewing and writing posts about these episodes is time consuming and I do not copy and paste from anywhere… It’s written from scratch. Usually takes 30-45 minutes to write one in-depth post on a episode, although it takes 15-25 minutes to write a post just with my thoughts and I have been doing this for nearly a year.
Do I consider ANN a anime blog… not really since it’s mostly a news site, although they do write editorials and opinions on various things.
Yumeka: I think this is true since writing your thoughts will make it your own, but I feel that some people just copy and paste the news and even news that is not even related to anime or manga…
double: Only if you view it that way… There are some thieves that can’t produce their own content and just steal from other bloggers… and that is illegal and infringing on copyrights…. didn’t you think about that? =p
I sort of agree with you, but sometimes the way a particular blog presents news, for example, inserting their own interesting thoughts about said news item, can be innovative.
I rarely post news because, like you said, so many other sites get to it before me. I mostly just stick to reviewing anime and writing essays or other posts that focus on my own individual ideas.
.-= Yumeka´s last blog ..Autobiography of How I Became an Anime Fan (2009 edition): chapter 3 =-.
You see, it’s no longer anime blogging, it’s anime copy and pasting.
I’d like to hope/think I’m not contributing to the decadence, but I’ll leave that for others to judge 😛
In any event, yeah, I can definitely see where you’re coming from with these complaints since I find photoshoots of someone’s latest figurine and the “dumb news” stuff you’ve mentioned to be overly dull and that the reason why I read some of the stuff I read is for the analysis. I like to see new ideas and have my current ideas challenged by new ones so I have stuff to think about. Unfortunately, as I mentioned over in an OEG comment, Sturgeon’s Law is alive and well and most of the stuff out there is indeed crap.
The only good thing is that it’s easy to differentiate the good from the bad.
Animeblogger was exactly the same as Animenano. Even before Sankaku joined the vast majority of posts were nothing figma shoots or some man in Japan gets arrested. If anything I’d say Nano is a step up because it doesn’t have it’s feed chocked full of Sankaku posts. This is not a recent problem, it’s been around since the dawn of anime blogs.
A site that only has feeds from good anime blogs is an interesting suggestion but where do you draw the line? What about blogs that report both news and editorials? I’m with zzeroparticle that figma blogs are even more boring that news sites. Do you cut them out? What about people talking about their trip to Japan, they’re nothing more than Japanese related blogs and therefore have nothing to do with anime…right?
Again to quote zzeroparticle, it’s really easy to differentiate the good from the bad on Animenano. You learn pretty quickly which blogs to ignore and what post titles aren’t worth reading. I’ll often go through two or three pages on Nano without reading a single post. Plus with the ‘recently joined’ button under anime blog directory it’s easy to see if any of the new blogs are worth reading.
I agree that the amount of figma and news blogs gets immensly frustrating and there are a bunch of other problems I have with the blogsphere. But a lack of innovation is certainly not one of them. There’s a new blog that reviews anime entirely through Haiku’s. If that’s not innovation then I don’t know what is
.-= Scamp´s last blog ..November Roundup =-.
Relax.
Do your best, and don’t get sucked into too much meta discussion — which is interesting only to other bloggers. I had a good run for a year (in terms of productivity at least) and burnt out too… but I’ll be active in December and January (at least).
I think I work hard at making interesting posts — I value being interesting more interesting than being right about something. That said I’m not here to represent, fix, or do anything else about the ‘sphere’ except have a good time sharing mai hobby.
.-= ghostlightning´s last blog ..No Longer Human: Love is a But Memory for Now =-.
What Nano needs right now is a button to hide flagged blogs. That way you get to filter out what’s absolutely uninteresting. I don’t follow Animeblogger anymore out of reasons already mentioned.
I think anime blogs had it easy in the past. What ever happened to spoiler blogs? You know, bloggers being badass raw watchers and all of that? They lost their crowds when simulcasts and super-efficient speedsubbing came. And news blogs, they had some merit back in the past when ANN was often late to report the news, inaccurate, and unprofessional. And what about personality blogs? lol, internet personalities. A lot of editorial blogs are reinventing the wheel because general discussion topics about anime have been around for a while now. Bloggers themselves are getting tired of rehashing old discussions. Blogs with real content that don’t rely much on discussion are staying strong, I guess.
Talk about innovation, the OEG is definitely something we haven’t seen before.
NovaJinx said it best, I think. What used to drive the anime blogosphere was a very tight community of bloggers. People who hung out on #animeblogger had collaboration ideas and so on, we’re seeing less and less of that. Twitter has loosened it, I guess.
.-= Miha´s last blog ..Seitokai no Ichizon 01-07 =-.
@Miha
Tight community = insular community. Insular means totally out of touch with the rest of the anime world. I remember some of those collab posts from back before I started blogging and they were incredibly dull due to the fact they only wrote for other people in that tight-knit group.
I think the widening of views has hugely increased the quality of the aniblogsphere. Plus as you can see from the number of copycat posts, such as reactions to the OEG and the fanart debate, there’s still certainly an aniblogsphere. It’s just evolved and some of the old crowd don’t like that.
Sorry for spamming this post. though. The OEG has ramped up my interest in improving the sphere. Innovation isn’t what’s lacking IMO. It’s improving what’s out there already
.-= Scamp´s last blog ..November Roundup =-.
ARGH!!!…I see my blog in your post….:(
I want to innovate but there is so little time to take care of my blog lately…
I feel bad now…but dont worry…I will insert something creative pretty soon…I hope
I do agree with you..kinda. Each blog that describes random pieces of news(bad grammar there, I apologize) do make their own twists and opinions on that certain piece of news. And also, some blogs review anime, manga, and news, so would they fit into the category described in the post as well?
And also, some news sites post news that even Anime News Network doesn’t have. In my opinion, I think the dead aniblogosphere is mostly caused by either people fearing the judgement of the OEG, or just being inactive for a rather long period of time.
I’m sorry I have the worst grammar in the world as well.
.-= SiRiRu´s last blog ..Treu Tears Episode 4-Okay, Splashy Splashy =-.
Holy crap! alot of comments flowed in since I was in English class, but I will get a chance to answer then.
@zzeroparticle: I guess you have some point here… There are some blogs are clones of Danny Choo which can explain why most would be disinterested in figurine reviews and random news. The problem is that blogs shouldn’t copy their model, but make their own, unique blog that isn’t a almost exact copy (which is OEG seems to emphasize alot.. wand also what I am realizing). Yes, Sturgeon’s Law seems to apply since most blogs die after a few months, especially the ones on WordPress.com and there isn’t much room to be creative since you really can’t change the themes and most are unprofessional (although some can be professional on WordPress.com)
@Scamp: Maybe innovation isn’t the right word, but quantity over quality. We are left with the same rehashed content and not being creative enough. Adding thoughts to your news is alright, but posting news shouldn’t be really overdone compared to your other content such as anime reviews and your editorials/commentaries/whatever.
@Miha: I know how some old timers feel… Things have changed significantly. The earlier part of the year, fansubs were harder to get because getting episodes off IRC require some knowledge and not everyone had broadband internet. When Web 2.0 came along and blogging became easier with WordPress and the availability of broadband and fansubs became easier, it seems that everyone want in and the blogosphere is flooded with some good blogs and alot of not so good blogs… Yes, AnimeNano does need a feature to filter out the non-anime related stuff and not so good blogs.
Although OEG looked like a troll blog, it does explain one thing… There is a crapload of not so good blogs and copycats, which brings the point of Sturgeon’s Law and Quantity over Quality. Just like with cheap computers, the cheaper they get, the less quality they have in them.
@ghostlightning: I know blogging is hard work, but I’m not criticizing everyone over it… but it’s a problem that is pretty much real and probably won’t be solved overnight.
@Toonleap: I forgive you. =p
@SiRiRu: Wouldn’t fear of the OEG would want someone to try and improve their blog? Yes, some of their points are outrageous, but they do make some valid points… I know some sites do post news that aren’t on ANN, but it shouldn’t really be overdone… like mentioned earlier…
And no, I never do any Hiatuses… doing that already ruins someone’s credibility… so one should at least update once a week.
This ends my long long comment. =p
One reason I delayed getting into blogging for so long was that I felt that I would simply be one more voice in a sea of voices. For some current anime series, there are going to be lots of people giving their thoughts on those titles so why add my own? However, the desire to share my own thoughts with the masses and somehow despite being a Johnny come lately to the blogging world, I’ve picked up a decent following over the last three years.
While my blog is mostly about anime or manga, on occasion, I find some element of Japan that I feel like writing about and sharing with the world. Indeed, I did a quick post to display a video feed of a guy living in Tokyo who spent Thanksgiving there. It is a fun piece and since many who are into anime and manga are also into Japan, why not share an interesting find?
As to ANN, I have to say that while I do go out there every day, it really is a poor news site. I don’t consider it a blog (though it is listed as such) but a site dedicated to some news aspects that they find worthy in addition to having their own features. I totally miss Anime News Service, which was written more like a blog, but contained a lot more information about anime and manga coming from Japan than ANN ever thought to do.
Bottom line is that the whole purpose of a blog is to write about what interests the writer. If some news about some game sets fire to 20 bloggers, does it really matter? After all, some anime series getting blogged will generate just as many (or more) posts when the latest episode comes out as a raw, officially translated, or fansubbed. No one said that anyone has to read anything any of us have to say. ^_^
.-= AstroNerdBoy´s last blog ..xxxHOLiC Manga Chapter 191 Review =-.
lol, I could say a lot, but I won’t. First is, aggregators are not the community and shouldn’t be blindly trusted; don’t expect to go there and see exactly what you want, as they are only partial solutions.
Second, bloggers need to learn how to use their blogs, because that’s what builds the community; screw the concept of content for now. There is some illusion out there that twitter is part of the blogosphere… no, no, no. Entirely different, if anibloggers were all over facebook, would we say Facebook is part of the community?
The shift is that bloggers are giving up on blogging because they don’t know how to use their blogs to achieve the same social structure.
Blogs have the same power as status-updates and more. (It’s called RSS and trackbacks)
Lastly, bloggers really need to be looking at the structure of the Japanese aniblog community, and not quickly jump at the idea of episodic blogs are so redundant… yes, that’s the point. You blog an episode and check out everyone else’s impressions.
There are way more episodic j-blogs than imaginable…. and the community is powered by RSS+trackbacks… not some other unrelated service (aka twitter).
So like I said, we don’t need to worry about the content, just post anything… otherwise the community will fully migrate back to forums and/or other closed services*.
*Closed being that you have to register/login to interact…. rather than just saying Name, EMail, Site.
(short version)
.-= Ryan A´s last blog ..ごきげんよう =-.
Okay posting here since the other post was locked…
Coming back to relentlessflame’s comment, I quite agree with the post. You can’t really tell people what to put on their blogs. Some might be doing it for news, some might be just doing it for their own selves, and that’s quite fine. I’m not too familiar with anime blogging community nor the history, but it was probably certain as time goes on, more and more people would pick up blogs. It’s kinda the same for books, movies, and so on. Eventually like Siruru said, ideas will get repeated. If you wanted specific blogs to look at, the only way is to filter them out manually yourself.
The subject of anime has expanded to not only just the anime and manga itself, but to cosplay, figurines, fan art, games, and so on. So is the blogging community it seems. So why should people innovate their ideas? Because you’re bored reading copy blogs? Just don’t read ’em then. If everyone is worried about the community, why not just stick to the “big blogs” and post there? Like AstroNerdBoy said, some people write about what interests themselves first before pleasing readers. If someone told me I couldn’t do episode reviews of anime I wouldn’t be opening a blog in the first place.
The OEG does point out blogs that do seem “a copy” and mis using the term “otaku” but they do it in such a way, it’s just plain rude. [But I will agree with the whole DC.com inspiration stuff, holy crap I see the same people comment on his posts and “I started diz blog ‘caz he made it kewl yo” Omg can I say fan club? -rolls eyes- ] In fact, after reading all the posts it has, I don’t know what they’re saying that is the real definition of “otaku”. Is it not filling the tag list with generic animes, or not posting pictures of common figurines? It might as well be who ever who made OEG is sad. That’s just like two people pointlessly arguing over which series is better. Why even pay attention to that site…
In conclusion, blogging shouldn’t be a competition on who’s post is better. If you like their blog, subscribe it. If you don’t, who’s telling you to read it? Many people around the world have a passion for anime and some blog about it whether it be episodes, or something Japan rated. Some may take it seriously and some may take it as a monthly thing.
Really…is there anything wrong with that? I don’t think so.
.-= Crystal´s last blog ..…The Kitten’s Lullaby. =-.
Well, I have to admit that I am wrong in some or alot of the points I made… but the bottom line, just keep blogging and forget about the OEG because that will pretty much save the anime blogosphere… I see some people just abandon their blogs and just use Twitter…
Twitter although is a nice tool to use, its not a replacement for an anime blog. Twitter does not equal Anime Blogosphere and it never had. =p
I like what Crystal said 🙂 The best thing we can do is subscribe to blogs in feed readers and organize them so we can taste-test and move along. It’s a perfect solution really, always has been.
Uguu~ twitter. I’m still trying to figure out what annoys me about it other than having to choose twitter if you want to interact (can’t use anything else because the damn thing is closed), but I think it’s the organization. If you check out the majority of aniblogger’s accounts 80-90% the messages are @replies D: … great, so the status-update is a decent [closed, but public] channel for “chatting.” The issue is that mixed in with all the replies are “content” updates, which could be splashed on a normal blog or something more organized. Content = blog entry, Conversation = comments (typically), it’s decent separation, but with statuses, everything is mixed together and useless.
IRC is a much better conversation tool imo, since 1988! Real-time, and can go to basically any server/channel you wish, no strings attached. If you want to say what’s up to someone, you’re free to go wherever they are and do just that.
Oh well, I’ll keep fighting for open channels. Shit, I don’t like 4chan but at least it’s open.