Category: Japan – Blogging

Just tonight I received two emails from new Japan-based bloggers asking to be added to my list in the right-hand margin (to go along with another email from one of the people behind Tokyonyc (“a new yorker’s view of japan”)). So that probably means it’s a good time for one of these posts. Without further ado, here are Japan-based blogs recently added to the list:

Achikochi
American Lawyer in a Japanese Law Office
Art Brain
Bluesocks in Tokyo
esthet (previously mentioned here)
Fred
Fukuma Hair Flap
Gaijin in Tokyo
A Geek in Tokyo
Gen Kanai Weblog
Japaneze
Life in the Hohan
Mikan Moblog
Sync A World You Want To Explore
Underwhelmed and Overrated
Video-Link Japan

There’s also now a Japan Blogger’s Webring, put together by MJ of Cerebral Soup.

In its worst nightmarish iteration, this is what you can look forward to when I start putting my nascent moblogging into high gear! (I can hear a stampede to the exits as I type). Seriously, it looks like a camera phone will be in hand soon (the above pic was taken a couple of weeks ago, by a friend — he sent it to Naoko for me, hence the hearts, which were added unbeknownst to me), so knock on wood expect something new and hopefully not too pedestrian in this neighborhood in the near future.

In the meantime, the First International Moblogging Conference has been announced, to take place July 5th at SuperDeluxe in Tokyo. One of the conference organizers, Adam Greenfield, recently offered yet another well-considered piece on moblogging (in part), and how his interest in it fits in with, rather than deviates from, his concerns of design and usability that many of his readers know him by:

[Moblogging] offer[s]… a potential way for people to comment on, to annotate their corner of the world: I trust this organic grocer, the lines at this bank are out of hand, I got mugged at this corner a year to the day after my friend did, and so on. It’s this otherwise invisible or difficult-to-retrieve information that can help people make better choices about their neighborhoods, their resource allocations, and ultimately, where and how they want to live. This is a lot to ask of some software that lives on your phone, admittedly, but there’s nothing here beyond reach.

I have yet to decide the why’s and wherefores of adding moblogged posts to this site (and like this site over the last year, chances are a decision won’t be made, but rather an ongoing discovery process will be set in motion), but suffice it to say, Adam’s vision is nearer to my heart than the above, er, hearts.

I’ve been linking to her for a while now, in the sidebar to the right, but today Tokyo-based “a photography, digital media, film, visual culture and techno-gadget enthusiast” Lil has “officially” launched her esthet.org site, complete with a wonderfully understated look put together with the help of MJ of Cerebral Soup. And a great found photo gracing the top that reminds me a bit of one of my father-in-law’s photos I wrote about here.

If you are at all interested in photography and art, be it from Japan or elsewhere, I strongly suggest you start poking around in her archives or use her search widget. Many treasures await you there, as do many great yet-to-be-discovered sites that Lil will undoubtbedly be continuing to turn up as she continues her “photo-trawling.”

Congratulations Lil and MJ — a job well done!