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AniBlogosphere

Chikorita Cast – Episode 2 – State of the AniBlogosphere (AniBlog Tourney Edition)

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Artist: swordsouls
It has been a while since I did a podcast, but it’s finally alive, for now at least. Since I don’t feel like writing about this subject in written form again, I’m doing it in video podcast form. Also, I got a new microphone, which is another reason I want to record one. However, I’m not perfect because I don’t make podcasts on a frequent basis.

In this episode, I will analyze some data I gathered about the state of blogging in the Aniblogosphere. The contains all the blogs participated in the first round with a few dead ones in the second round. So enjoy and feel free suggest other topics I should focus on in future podcasts.

Also, all the data that I compiled is here in PDF form. (Image Source)
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Status of the Aniblogosphere in 2012 – Haitus = Dead Blog?!

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Artist: nakada rumi

Just recently, the current state of the Anime Blogosphere doesn’t look great with a good number of blogs dying. In the last three months, We Remember Love, Kaminarianime, and Otaku Life: Anime Review hanged up their hats and call it quits (Moe Fundamentalism decided to go on hiatus before the author reversed the decision quite recently). Judging from my blogroll, there are 6 blogs that haven’t updated since October.

From the look of things, did the Mayans predict that December 21, 2012 is the end of Anime Blogging as we know it? Maybe, or probably we are overreacting. In a recent twitter conversation between Marow, Marth and myself concerning how long blogs last after Morrow mentioned a blog that only lasted two months (full conversation here), It gave me some thoughts where the blogosphere is heading. Early this year, I have covered quite a lot on blog longevity and the reason why blogs die. However, I would like to go over the current trends since there is a good number of blogs spontaneously dropping dead from the sky, which currently gives us this disturbing trend. (Image Source)
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Blog Carnival: Going Further with views on Animanga Blogs

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Just a month ago, I shared my opinions about the never-ending debate regarding Episodic vs Editorial blogs in a recent editorial. Since then, a fellow blogger named Foxy Lady Ayame started a project for bloggers to share their thoughts about a specific topic in the Anime Fandom. For this one, it’s focused on reflections on Animanga blogs. Since it’s closely related to what I have talked about a month ago, it shouldn’t hurt to talk about it from a different perspective. (Image Source)
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Editorial vs Episodic Blogs – Why it Shouldn’t Matter

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In the recent months, there is something nasty that has spouted out from the Aniblog Tournament, although this debate has been going on in the blogosphere for a long time. It’s the battle between editorial vs. episodic blogs to decide which one is better. For me, I feel that the debate is pointless since it shouldn’t matter for reasons I will explain below. (Image Source)
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Competition and Anime Blogging, is it Harmful?

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Given the various posts floating in the blogosphere about the Aniblog Tourney and competition that came after the first round, I like to share some of my thoughts about the negative externalities of competition and why it’s not necessarily a good thing. (Image Source)
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Anime Blogging and Longevity – The Challenges Ahead

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I want share some thoughts about Anime Blogosphere’s longevity since this post sparked my interest. Ever since the first Aniblog Tourney finished in 2010, good amount of blogs have died at the 1 to 2-year mark while new ones pop up. Only a handful ever passed the three years and beyond mark. There are many factors I have explained such as time management issues. However, there are other aspects that I haven’t covered, which I like to share. (Image Source)
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Reflecting on Today’s SOPA/PIPA Strike… (Update)

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As most people knew already, today was the SOPA strike and several anime bloggers like myself have joined in by either blacking out their site or spreading awareness by writing a post about it. If you haven’t known already by now, SOPA and PIPA are two extremely dangerous pieces of legislation that will severely harm freedom of speech, innovation, security and the openness of the Internet. Not only that, it will have profound effects on the Anime Blogosphere as we rely heavily on derivative works to share our thoughts about Anime, which protected under fair use. Most bloggers who didn’t participate and Anime Fans have to realize that this law will not affect everyone in the United States, but everyone if they were to get passed. Therefore, I have been proactively reminding others to keep a close eye on this and take action, even if you are in a different country.

Aside from that, I want to share an exhaustive list that participated or mentioned the bill’s existence (perhaps as an excuse to get out of a post):

With that, the blackout was a success as it caught everyone’s attention even though some very ignorant SOPA/PIPA supporters like Chris Dodd still paints this as a “dangerous” gimmick and usual mainstream media supporters like CNN still against the opposition. On the other hand, the large-scale protest had convinced three co-sponsors to drop their support for the SOPA bill along with thirteen senators dropping support for PIPA, which is good news. Still, the fight isn’t over yet, so we still need to keep the pressure on Congress and supporters for both bills. Continue to spread the word to everyone in the fandom, not just the blogosphere and contact congress! We need to effectively kill both bills so we can keep continuing what we enjoy most, blogging about Anime.

Update: Just today, the creator of the SOPA bill killed it off for good. Not only that, PIPA got delayed indefinitely. This is good news for everyone in the internet, not just our fellow Anime Bloggers. Even with this huge victory, we must stay vigilant so future bills that are similar to these won’t pass by us without our knowledge like the “Indefinite Detention” clause in the NDAA. Needless to say, I hope congress will get behind the OPEN Act that will attack the source rather than the free, open and innovative internet.

Anyway, let’s thank the tech companies, our fellow Anime Bloggers and everyone else who spread the word about this disastrous bill and saved us from censorship…

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Twelve Days of Anime – Prelude

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メリークリスマス！ (Merry Christmas!)

It’s that time of year again and thus marks a starting of another Anime Blogger tradition, the 12 Days of Anime Project. In this group effort, Anime Bloggers like myself share twelve Anime related moments on our blogs. It’s an activity that got started by a former blogger named CCY (also known as Canon-chan) 4 years ago whose blog pretty went into a vegetative state recently. Of course, there are many who want to keep it alive. So, I feel that I should share some of the holiday cheer.

Unlike last year where I have stopped half way because I got overwhelmed with too much finals that it drained my motivation to complete the last six, I’m doing things differently this year. Instead of 12 individual posts, I will squeeze it down into two separate posts. Each post will spotlight 6 notable events either from Anime or the Aniblogosphere. Hopefully this time around, I will actually finish it this time! So, check it out this Saturday when I plan to come up and spotlight the first six.

(Image Source)

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Reflection: 1 Year of AniBlog Tourney… Aniblogosphere’s Death is highly exaggerated.

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I can’t believe a whole year has passed by with the Aniblog Tourney happening 1 year ago. If you are new to the Aniblogsphere, the Aniblog Tourney was a competition with 96 blogs being assigned to a specific division in pairs randomly. When the poll for each division opens, people look at both blogs and then vote for the better blog to go on to the next round. While the tournament is mostly a popularity contest towards the end, it allowed for constructive criticism, which was helpful for bloggers to improve their blogs.

The competition between my blog and Anime Princess was a very close one with a few percentages off from losing. Ever since the Aniblog Tourney, I have taken an initiative to improve my writing, the blog design and accessibility.  Eventually, I brought a domain name and moved to paid hosting several months later to make a bigger presence in the blogosphere. (Image Source)
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Opinion: Elitism and the Aniblog Tourney: What happened?

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If these people are able to make up, why can't the Aniblogosphere?

In light of the drama, I felt that I needed to write this editorial because things went out of hand. People arguing each other saying that Listless Ink doesn’t deserve this victory and that Random Curiosity should have won. I have discuss this on my sideblog that I won’t go into detail (just read the post on my Sideblog if you are still interested). Still, this argument keeps going and going, which disturbs me. This editorial won’t be about Random Curiosity and Listless Ink, but other things that bother me about the whole situation.

Note: Fanart used in this post is made by 紅雪

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Splash Page taken over by Haruhiism

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Oh noes! Haruhi-ists took over my splash page for my Blog!
Oh noes! Haruhi-ists took over my splash page for my Blog!

You might be wondering, why are you copying some websites who replaced their whole website with a SOS-dan logo? If I didn’t, Michiru would butt taunt me. Seriously…

Maybe not for that reason, but I wanted to commemorate that Kadokawa didn’t troll us again and the first episode of Haruhi Season 2 have finally aired as promise… Does that mean I will drop all the series I’m currently watching… Absolutely not… but I will be covering Haruhi Season 2, but no long synopsis since other bigger anime blogs are doing that already..

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Is the Aniblogosphere being flooded with mediocre quality blogs?

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I have noticed a drop of quality posts ever since K-ON! started (no offense to people who like it). I have been seeing posts with only a picture with a few lines of text which spills quantity over quality.

I pretty much agree with this person because people want to read interesting articles about Anime and at the same time have readable articles with no grammatical mistakes.

To prevent pollution of the Aniblogosphere, I suggest the following:

  1. Don’t just post a picture and a few lines of text… It’s not interesting to the readers. If you have something minor to say, open up a Twitter account and have people follow you so you can share your interesting findings if you can’t write much about it.
  2. Proofread your posts before publishing! I suggest using the grammar/spell check and reading it to yourself so you can find the errors in your post.
  3. Be creative… Post your own thoughts about something thats bothering you about Anime or anything related to that. Don’t just post countless posts about something that people might know already, unless you really wanted to. That way, you can catch the readers attention and also have the potential for people to come back and read your Anime blog. Also, try to add interesting facts about the episode you might know or write in a different voice.
  4. Be creative with your blog layout… The problem with some blogs is that they use the same dull, generic theme that have been used by many blogs. If you know PHP or HTML and/or good at Photoshop, make your own theme so it will make you stand out from other blogs.
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