Friday, January 11, 2008

My Brother
I don't talk about family much here, but my younger brother is an artist/cartoonist/writer. You can find a blog with his work here. He has a very unique style (not an anime/manga fan btw, but he does like video games).

Some of his work is graphic/mature so I only recommend older people check it out. Sorry to the girls; he's taken :-).
Comments (8) | Permalink

Thursday, January 10, 2008

My new feature announcement tomorrow will be epic...and it's not even our BIGGEST announcement :)
Comments (7) | Permalink

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Do you think a site called "theOtaku" could ever have flourishing categories on popular TV/Movies/Fiction?

I know we host Pirates of the Carribean art, among others.

I'd love to expand into those areas down the line but I have the sense that the Japanese name of the site as well as the style might hurt us there.

What are your thoughts?

Also: One of the things I'm most excited about I call a 'vision backlog.' I have so many features and ideas and improvements in mind that there won't be much 'wait and see' after we launch, it'll just be announcement after announcement after announcement. There are even some features you'll see post-launch that we already have 75-80% finished
Comments (12) | Permalink

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Bagels > Sleep
Japan86 woke me up in time to go downstairs today. I took up a delicious bagel with cream cheese, a muffin, and a donut. All free

I was EXHAUSTED when she called though, I went to bed last night at 4 and woke up at 8:30

Strangely, though, I have an enormous amount of energy and it's been three days of only 4-5 hours of sleep. I think I'm just so excited on finishing that the adrenaline is keeping me active :)

I hope you enjoy the day-to-day revealing of new, killer features.
Comments (15) | Permalink

Monday, January 7, 2008

Hard to Balance
I love doing two things: Creating and Promoting

Sadly I'm dying to promote VV more, but creating it is more important, especially since I want to launch this month.

Progress is going well! Spaces customization is 100% finished. They really looks gorgeous and the customizations we allow are just enough to let you make them your own but not enough that it'll undermine an important part of Spaces

We are in crunchtime mode though and I haven't been sleeping as much as usual
Comments (9) | Permalink

Sunday, January 6, 2008

theOtaku.com Blogs
Maybe we'll just make it theOtaku.com "blogs" instead of spaces. It might be readily apparent what it is, that way
Comments (18) | Permalink

Saturday, January 5, 2008

Quick Notes
-> Japan86 has graciously volunteered to call me over and over again Monday morning to see if she can wake me up in time for free bagels and donuts. I am grateful. Reason #282 Otakuites rock

--> Whereas Massin and I worked almost all night 2 days ago, Mike and I were working all day today. We made incredible progress

--> I learned my lesson about politics here, but if I had to endorse a candidate personally, it would be Obama. So I was happy about Iowa.

-> I'm going to start announcing new features on the main page, but I'll start the first one here, to put some fears to rest:

theOtaku's new blogging-type system will be attached to your existing username BUT you also have the ability to customize the URL AND the title.

--> I've decided to let everyone keep their myOtaku sites exactly the same as it's been for the last 4 years, untouched. We're also keeping them ad-free even though that was supposed to be only a temporary thing. In addition you can still create a blog with our new system though new members won't be able to create a myOtaku

--> I'm getting really excited about VV; we're going to be hitting the fandom world HARD soon. We only provide the tools though, so I hope that you all do a part to take advantage of them. We're like an art supplies store in a way, we only provide the tools and you create with them

--> I owe you all a demo, soon. If you have any concerns about the new version express them in the comments here and I'll answer them tomorrow. If I don't answer something it'll be because it's related to a feature I'm still keeping secret/unannounced. Our new version will bring a lot of exciting things to the table but I understand that since I'm a little secretive now and we're still changing some things that there might be some confusion
Comments (24) | Permalink

Friday, January 4, 2008

I'm getting stressed, I was up until 5 AM last night, partly working with Massin and partly trying to figure out what to do with myOtaku

Part of the reason I haven't been communicative is because I've been so busy, but also because it's such a difficult technical problem dealing with myOtaku.

Here are some bullet points to help you out with where I am now. Being so close to launch I have a lot of late nights ahead just dealing with the monster that is myOtaku:

** Spaces is our next-generation blogging platform but, being honorable, we will still support you keeping your myOtaku site

** Spaces doesn't use HTML or JavaScript but you'll still be able to use HTML with your myOtaku site

** myOtaku pages' designs will update their look and we won't have a long left-menu with it anymore (you can put whatever info you like in the introduction instead). You'll have to re-customize your myOtaku page probably

** We'll still link to your myOtaku site, so people who subscribe to you will still see your updates

** It might be the case that anyone who doesn't have a myOtaku site now won't be able to create one in the future. I'd rather push people to create Spaces instead.

You can imagine what kind of a nightmare it is for us to have to deal with two blogging systems at once, one of which has been hacked to death by members and is utterly outdated. I often wish I could just start from scratch but this is where we are.

It'll be a lot more work than I anticipated dealing with myOtaku and since I really want to launch this month I anticipate a lot of sleepless nights

I was also close to posting a bit of gossip about my personal life but decided that might be distracting. ;-)
Comments (16) | Permalink

Thursday, January 3, 2008

Getting Close + Happy Birthday Panda!
Update: I was going to wait until tomorrow to post this but since Gail updated her site, please run over and wish her a Happy Birthday immediately!!!

---

Two things out of the way:

When we launch Spaces, our new blogging-type 'system,' it won't be as customizable as myOtaku but it gives you so many new features that I think you'll like it overall. It will use BB code instead of HTML (HTML/JS are disabled). I see many comments along the lines: "I hate that it's not as customizable BUT it's a major improvement otherwise," which is fine with me.

We also won't be able to launch with the Cosplay site; including it would delay our launch by 1-2 months which I can't afford. However, there'll be features related to photography which should hold cosplayers over methinks. That's all I'll say.

I think we will launch this month.
Comments (17) | Permalink

Wednesday, January 2, 2008

This is the best routine I've ever implemented in my life, by far:

Every night before I go to bed I say aloud or write down at least 3 good things that happened that day. More than anything it keeps me optimistic through tough times

I didn't just make up this habit, it was developed by a well known psychology professor from the University of Pennsylvania

The idea is that what you do before bed has the most impact before you sleep, so if you focus on positive things before you sleep, when you wake up you'll be more positive. Furthermore, your mind will automatically look for positive things throughout the day because it knows it has to recount three of them

I've been doing this for over a year now and have seen a dramatic improvement in the # of days I'm depressed. Try it for 30 days and you'll hopefully see what I mean
Comments (14) | Permalink