Sunday, October 7, 2007

Ask Adam Answers Part 2
will you ever make more categories on otaku to replace the ones closed down over the years?

I have 100 ideas for each of our current sections. Ideas for new features, new ways to make them more fun, etc. My philosophy is that we can make each of our current sections a LOT better and that's a more effective use of time than launching a new site, which if it does take off, will spread us thin, and if it doesn't take off, will have to be shut down.

For each site, there are a lot of things at work. One of the most important things though is the site's code base.

Each of our sites has hundreds to thousands of lines of code. Now, with our new version I'm consolidating the code between some of our more similar sites (like fan art, ecards, wallpapers). This will let us add features to those sites simultaneously VERY quickly.

Sites like Guru though have completely different code bases. Guru just works differently than Fan Art, for example, which means that we have to do a lot of extra work if we want to add a feature or update.

One of the major problems we had previously was that we had art sites mixed with sites with written content mixed with Guru. This was a nightmare from an architecture perspective and meant you saw very few new features added.

Another issue is we're at the point where we can't afford small successes. A medium-sized site might be overjoyed to have a section with 1,000 visitors a day but for us, it would be a failure. It's a far better use of energy to make the wallpaper site grow from say 10,000 people a day to 15,000 people a day instead of creating a new site and growing that from 0 people a day to 1,000 people a day.

Whats going to be the main color of VV? What got you into computer programming? Did you ever imagion that theotaku.com/myotaku.com would get as far as it has today?

VV will be different shades of blue.

My strongest talent is in business and creating projects. I'm also a good writer and have an eye for good design. Programming is something I'm NOT naturally talented in. I had to kill myself to learn it so that I could have more control over this network and implement changes quickly.

theOtaku/myOtaku is part success/part failure in my eyes. Version Vibrant will hopefully be all success.

How would you feel if you won a million dollars?

A million dollars doesn't go very far in NYC. I would take 10-15% of it and put it into the network, yes. In terms of lifestyle, etc. it wouldn't affect me.

Do you like chocolate chip cookies?

Who doesn't?

How fast can you type?

About 90-95 words per minute from last I checked.

Which anime do you wish you'd never seen? Is there a series you're dying/wanting to see but, for some reason or another, never get around to watch? How many hours a night do you actually sleep? ¬_¬

I saw one episode of Yu-Gi-Oh, didn't care for it. I'd like to see Mushi-shi. No matter how many hours of sleep I get, it's too much. Over-sleeping is actually a major problem for me if I have nothing planned the next day, I'm not a morning person and it takes a lot to get me out of bed.

What is an anime that is currently unlicensed that you think should be?

Honestly all the anime I've ever seen has been anime that's popular on theOtaku, which is all licensed and mainstream.

What would be the best piece of advice to give to a potential writer?

Well, from my perspective: Be obsessive, be an entrepreneur/marketer as much as an author, create a strategy to build an audience online, constantly put what you write to the test to see if people will actually pay for it, define very specifically the type of people you want to buy your book and how you'd reach them, then try to reach them on your own.

Most of the advice in Artpreneurship should work for authors as well as artists, so check that out.

The majority of authors will just mail their book to a bunch of publishers and if it gets rejected, will just give up. If you can create a little buzz on your own, get some positive reviews, etc., then when you approach publishers you might have a better chance.
Comments (13)