Transform Your Business Blog

My other, (much) more frequently updated website, Japan Economy News, has been featured by the Japan Times as part of its ongoing blogroll series.

The Japan Times has been pretty clued in so far in terms of integrating some elements of Web 2.0 into their website. They are using a Technorati widget to push their most linked to stories from blogs, and featuring blogs on the site is a big step. There’s still no commenting on individual stories a la Japan Today, and it looks like we’ll have to wait just a while before a big English language news organization in Japan goes that route.

The full list of blogs featured in the Japan Times blogroll can be seen here. Hopefully this continues into the future, as there are still a lot of good blogs out there on Japan that deserve promotion.

Ever wish you had a place to submit stories about Japan and vote on them? Now you do.

I recently stumbled on JapanSoc, a new site that looks like it’s putting a pretty good idea to work. On the site’s about page, it simply says, “JapanSoc is a social bookmarking site, devoted to news and stories about Japan.”

Creator Nick Ramsay has created a platform that anyone who uses Digg will find familiar. The idea is simple - when you come across a story you like that’s related to Japan, submit it to the site. Users then vote for the stories they like and the cream floats to the top.

Given the explosion in the number of Japan-related blogs and sites in English that we’ve seen over the past two years, this is bound to attract some attention. There don’t seem to be a whole lot of users on JapanSoc yet, but that will change once some of the bigger Japan blogs start linking to it and talking about it.

And then we’ll just be waiting for the Japanese version!

Recently I had someone ask me for some examples of blogs with content focused on Japan that I thought were well done. Two examples came straight to mind: Clast and What Japan Thinks. I think these are two good examples because they have such different styles. Clast is a corporate blog, which updates only a few times a month and takes a decidedly academic approach in its writing on marketing. Anyone whose work involves marketing in Japan should already be reading this blog, though it is certainly built for a wider audience. W David Marx’s recent piece on trends in Japan is certainly worth your time. My only complaint about Clast is that I wish it were updated more frequently.

The second blog I mentioned, What Japan Thinks, is also written by a single person, though it’s not a corporate blog. Ken Yasumoto-Nicholson updates his site frequently - almost on a daily basis - and provides one of the only sources for Japanese opinion polls that have been translated into English.

What Japan Thinks covers the serious, silly, consumer and even sometimes political angles. It’s an interesting read because although the blog is obviously filling a niche, it does not get too narrow and has plenty of space to breathe and be able to provide social commentary.

Well, those are the two blogs I wanted to introduce this time. What are you still doing here? Go read them!