Sunday, March 4, 2007

Bad-Ass Picture:
I've identified the key performance metrics for the network and built a super-elegant reporting dashboard to display how we're doing against those metrics month-after-month.

How did we do February?

Some great news, some good news, and some bad news. Thankfully, now I know exactly where to target our resources so it'll be mainly 'great' news moving forward :-).

I want to be able to put a full report of these stats online, so visitors can see a snapshot of the site's "health."

Here's one of the charts from the dashboard. These are the page views we receive per day, on average. The growth is spectacular, but it needs a lot of sobering context. I'd rather growth were flatter but with stronger numbers in different areas to be honest.

Still, if I had to bet, I'd say that theOtaku.com is the fastest growing anime site online. 11% in one month and 25% in four is insane. Now to improve some of the other numbers :-).


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Saturday, March 3, 2007

New podcast is up, go look!

(See, I told you none of you were right about the identity of our special guest.)

ADV is going to kill me when they listen to this week's show. (We still love you!!)

March looks to be an exciting month. We're back from the embargo and Massin, our developer, will soon become available again.
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Friday, March 2, 2007

Thanks for all your concern.

Wednesday night I go to bed early, circa midnight. I wake up an hour later and throw up constantly until Thursday morning (probably 10 times over a 10 hour period). I also have a high fever.

I sleep all of Thursday morning, afternoon, and night (over 24 hours). My mom came in so she forced me to eat, drink, take medicine.

Anyway, while I'm still weak now, my temperature has gone significantly and I haven't thrown up in a long time.

Whew. I'm pretty sure it was a stomach flu (or food poisoning). The last meal I can remember was at White Castle, I think that's a 'nuff said.
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Thursday, March 1, 2007

Oh my gosh i just woke up--3 AM--and feel incredibly nauseous/dehydrated/terrible. i have to take really deep breaths, i havent felt this way before, its awful:(:(:(

Update: One hour after waking I throw up :-/. Where did this come from?!

Update 2: I've been awake for 4 hours now and I've thrown up 3 times. I'm also freezing
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A Great Habit
I read every single day, between 20 and 40 pages. This translates to about 3-4 books a month, depending on length. It's a huge priority in my life.

I used to think that watching movies were preferable to reading books, since a good movie can cram a lot into a two hour span. However, I now see that this view was mistaken.

First, books are more an active activity, which stimulates the brain and is thus better at provoking thought/ideas. So many times I'll be reading and then randomly have a great idea. This doesn't happen near as often when watching a film.

Second, books build writing acumen. The best writers are also insane readers.

Third, books force you to give them more of your attention. With TV you can be listening to music, browsing the web, and doing 100 other things in the background. The disadvantage to this is that TV doesn't force you to sit down and take a break from the real world.

I generally read business books, psychology books, design books, and cheesy romance novels with pictures of half naked men with long flowing blonde hair on the cover. (One of those four is a joke, guess which one.)
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Wednesday, February 28, 2007

So much paperwork today(!)(!)(!)

I think I spent five hours just filling out paperwork and sending/receiving frantically crafted emails. There are a ton I haven't responded to as well.

Not that it was a bad day, I loved it and am thrilled I can get more than four hours sleep tonight...
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Tuesday, February 27, 2007

I'm back to my normal duties after the news embargo. I'll make an update when all our winners have received their prizes.

Today was Art Of Otaku day, tomorrow will be theOtaku day, and on and on.... :-D

I think, when trying to accomplish anything, you have to be able to visualize that thing in a finished state.

I see very clearly where I want Art Of Otaku to end up 1-2 years from now, same with theOtaku, same with myself, etc.

The best way to visualize is by putting to paper. If you're a writer, describe it. If you're an artist, draw it. If you're an actor, role-play it.

Review your visualization every night before you go to bed. Asleep your mind will work in over-drive to help you along the way the next day.

SomeGuy: Avatar will be canceled for season 3, according to a reliable source*

* Neighborhood hobo
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Sunday, February 25, 2007

Comic Con
-> I met a lot of A-level artists who I'm going to try and convince to join Art Of Otaku.

-> I walked into the American Anime Awards severely under-dressed. But it was an experience. I also briefly met Chris from AnimeNewsNetwork and folks from ADV.

-> I got my picture with Gary Coleman(!) and the "Who Wants to be a Superhero" crew(!). I also attended Kevin Smith's Q&A session and saw Stan Lee.

-> The best line of the day. I approached a booth and the guy there yells, upon seeing my press badge: "TheOtaku.com! I know you guys--you never post our press releases!" I thought he was joking but he badgered me about it the rest of the time.

-> I spent most of the day with super-sexy Lindsey (ElvesAteMyRamen), one of our Art Of Otaku artists and long-time members. She was joined by her two lovely friends, Angelica and Emani.

On her MyOtaku Lindsey wrote two incorrect things that I want to clear up.

First, she assumed that the reason I was teasing her about a huge red blotch on her neck was that I read on her MyOtaku that she had spilled hair dye on herself. Bzzt--I didn't know it was hair dye, I thought it was a giant hickey.

Second, she mentions being hit on. This is true, but it was by the two *creepiest* guys there :-). So no points for that.

Also, Lindsey has the skinniest arms I've ever seen.

(I tease because I love!!! Don't kill me. =D)

-> Overall, had a lot of fun.

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Saturday, February 24, 2007

During last year's NY Comic Con, I didn't have a press badge and my business cards were printed on cheap paper from Kinko's the day before.

This year, I have full VIP press privileges and don the hottest business cards ever, which should even be good enough to make Gail proud. They're glossy, feature gray/black text, and display snow fox's drawing, which we also had on our theO t-shirt.

Here's a pic:



BTW, you were all wrong about who our guest will be next episode.

I look forward to using our resources to create good, rather than to fight evil.
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Friday, February 23, 2007

theOtaku Podcast
It'll be next week, not this week.

But, to make up for it, there'll be a special guest :-). Who wants to guess who it is?
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