[PROJECT] New website for the 48 franchise (14/01/01)

Re: [PROJECT] New website for the 48 franchise

If people are worried about losing identity, having the content writers/producers/translators or whatever clearly identified would help drive attention to their own personal blogs/websites anyway. Most larger blogging aggregate sites have staff profiles with offsite links to other work by that member anyway, or at least some online form of cv/profile with contact details. So they'd be reaching a larger audience with their work which would then help drive more eyes to their own space/content.

As for forums, providing none are shown as favourite over another, and they are all given ample space to promote via a related to site link list or something, people then have the choice to go where they want for discussion, but they'll still have a home base to touch back to for main news etc

 

Re: [PROJECT] New website for the 48 franchise

I want to help. I've been running a news, opinions, lyrics blog/site for over 1 year. JBlogAsia , if someone wants the name. It was kind of popular and it worked pretty well. I did it alone.

If there's a need for a helper, I am totally volunteering.
Honey, please tell me. I will be more than happy to help.

 

Re: [PROJECT] New website for the 48 franchise

As I said, unless you want a static site where everyone has exactly the same front page layout, some people might want to prioritize LOD news, some concerts, some magazine, some blog entries, etc. Some people would like to only have the unread news to continue reading from last time, some the news from the day, etc. Some would like having favorites, and some would even want a rating system or having suggestions based on what others have read. Virtually anything you want to implement requires user accounts. It's not something you must implement at the beginning, but if you have to, I would prefer some standard way to log in rather than yet another proprietary database. OpenID is the best solution personally, but Google authentication, even Facebook connect would work.

If you ask me, I would prefer this news48-like site to be like Google News, cataloging information from various portals, displaying only the headlines, and directing people to the sites themselves. Of course, you can have your own editorials and original news, but a) I think it is a waste of resources if two sites hold exactly the same content (like some people have been doing, posting translations in blog48 and their own blog, when they could have posted them in the later and make blog48 point to it); and b) it would be much simpler for blog and site owners to just fill a form with the title, short description and credits, and have this meta-site index it.

I know it is not what you are proposing, but I think it would be easier for people to "not lose their identities", as you say, it would create a big index where users could sort, manage and review news, while at the same time redirecting traffic to individual sites. If you got the structure, you can cache the news from those sites so that, whenever one goes offline, you still have the content. As for threads, you would be able to associate certain news to threads in different forums, so that people would be able to go to whichever they prefer in order to discuss certain news.

 

Re: [PROJECT] New website for the 48 franchise

I agree it'll be convenient to have the ability to favorite and check read/unread posts. Not necessarily a fan of all those web 2.0 gimmicks, but I guess we'll be able to implement something like that quite smoothly.

Sure. Of course the eventual goal is to get a number of people from one place to another once they realize the advantages. One other issue is what i wrote about in a previous post (second point):

Spoiler

Too much really valuable information that should be available to everyone gets posted in forums (of course done twice or three times by separate people over separate forums) and doesn't receive the appreciation it should be getting. In the end it gets lost in dozens of pages. That's one thing I'd kind of like to improve a little bit.

The underlying idea of the project is to get the fans to unite and work together on something. You know... get people away from that "split fandom" mindset. By just linking to dozens of sites, no one's going to really have to do any additional effort at all. We won't be able to solve the problem of multiple people doing the same thing either.
If I can get people to sit on one table and have us assign positions I'm sure we can greatly improve the enjoyment that our target audience is taking away from the fandom. The site might very well end up being something just like you're suggesting. It's a possibility. For now I rather set the hurdle high though instead of starting out humbly before we even have all the people on board. I know it probably sounds easier than it is in practice, but I believe there's far more potential to get out of the foreign fanbase.

 

Re: [PROJECT] New website for the 48 franchise

I agree with HRP about uniting the overseas fanbase.

I mean, I'm a relatively new fan and even I've noticed how much the AKB fandom is divided into what basically amounts to highschool cliques. One group of fans don't like how another group of fans thinks or does things, or the material they focus on, etc. Most people just stick to their own corner of the internet in this regard. It's a little bit sad to me because there are already so few of us around compared to the larger Japanese fanbase.

I think a place where we can forget all that and coalesce into one body is not only a really good idea, but necessary if we want to achieve greater things as fans. My super-organizational mindest also loves the idea of having a one-stop shop for good news, translations and whatnot. A place where I don't have to chance upon a link on a forum to know whats going on or ask "hey, what are people talking about when they say (soandso)? When news breaks I don't know about it until I get lucky and find it.

When people make projects like the birthday, fan letter and album projects, it seems like they have to try really hard to reach a wide audience by crossposting multiple places. I'm sure it would be much easier to acheive things in this vein if we all knew we could go one place to check it out.

So I'm totally behind this project...even if I had my own blog or base of operations I would be behind this. It's not that I'm trying to convince anyone with this post, but actually just stating my strong desire to see this happen in the way HRP describes it. As a fan of the 48 groups, I really want a site like that.

 

Re: [PROJECT] New website for the 48 franchise

Also, we don't have much time left. Akb is clearly going in a turning point of his life, answering or not the following question : will the second generation be able to take the first one legacy, and keep the fanbase strong?

As Silenka said, we need to stay as one to bring forth our own support, which consist of overseas packed letters and birthday card.

About the 2.0 gimmicks, it is absolute necessary to have those tools to be a reference for the Overseas community. As Tokyo Hive, we should have the "facebook like and share" button and the possibility to write comments like DISQUS allows us to. I forgot others, but if we are going to create something, why don't we surf the wave at the same time instead of doing an old fashioned newsite that everyone are use to?

 

Re: [PROJECT] New website for the 48 franchise

Sure DISQUS is no problem (although we do have a forum here and in other places already) and an option to 1-click share articles on Twitter is of course going to be implemented, but Facebook? Do we need that as a login option or is it really just for "liking" things?

 

Re: [PROJECT] New website for the 48 franchise

All the usual social media things like Facebook, Twitter, G+ and the like should definitely be there to spread the content of the site as far as possible, but is DISQUS really necessary? Echoing what HRP said, I feel forums like stage48 would be more than enough for discussion of any articles or translations or whatever we post (all they would have to do is quote a link), and actually would be a better place than a comment section. Forums encourage people to get deeper into the fandom than just normal news sites do, and I think such an organized site would be a great way to drive people to join our AKB48 community and share our passion, rather than just leaving a short comment and then moving on.

I actually really like this name, out of all the ones suggested. The meaning behind it is strong, as if we're offering backstage access to the 48 family. For a lot of the overseas fans, all this content that we'll be posting on the site will be as "backstage" as it gets for a long while until they have the chance to visit Japan for themselves, and we're doing our part to give them the "access" to the group of "idols you can meet."

I know some people may be concerned about how similar to stage48 it sounds, but as Gingerninja said, as long as we can have like a list of links to all the forums so that people can pick and choose which forum they want to go to for discussion, I hope that won't be too much of a sacrifice. I guess in the end, when we have a more solid lineup of who's going to be contributing, we can ask those from ebi, NGG, JPH!P whether they would really disagree with the name. Otherwise, I think that was a very clever name by Minoru, and definitely one we should keep in the back of our heads before it gets lost again.

 

Re: [PROJECT] New website for the 48 franchise

glad to see a Stage48 staff supporting the "backstage48" name idea. And indeed, i think this is much of a sacrifice since we just want to spread akb love instead of trying to dominate the others forum.

For DisquS, well i assume people on the net are lazy; not because lazy lazy, but because Information stream on internet is insanely fast and people got used to it. My point is even one little subscription that will ask them 2-3 min on their time will ultimately scare them away. Sometimes people want to react to an article, but because they need to register on the site, they give up and loose somehow their interest. Having DisqS option allows them to react "on the block" and so they may be more interested to it. DisquS makes it easier to "connect" with the article we may post on Backstage48. And if they are truly starting to get interested into Akb48, they will join our forum on their own via our links. But we must "ignite" the curiosity or the will to do so.

Forum are not as easy to access than internet 2.0 tools can offer. The easiest they can express themselves, the more they are intended to do so. You just have to see the "likes" of facebook : for a photo of a celebrity, you got like 10k likes, but only 500 are actually putting a comment. That's how "lazy" netizen are.

As a conclusion, i think we still need to pick disqus on the site. Not because the forum are not reliable, just because it is cost effective between the time we spend to put it(like 2 minutes of coding the php) and the passer-by netizen feeling like making a comment or "like" the article.

 

Re: [PROJECT] New website for the 48 franchise

I wanna suggest some titles for the new website,,

Akip48 - since he is the founder
Galaxy48
Academy48
Planet48
Around48
Sakura48
Legendary48
United48 -since it will be a bigger site.
Formula48
Project48
Theater48
Engine48
Vintage48
Worldof48
Channel48
Operation48
Station48
Search48
Mission48
Center48
Data48
Franchise48
Domain48
Nippon48
Online48
Daisuki48

Noodles48

 

Re: [PROJECT] New website for the 48 franchise

^ Sakura48 seems nice, as with Channel48

Since I have no idea on how to translate Japanese nor anything else I think i'll just contribute ideas for the site naming

Pass48
Fort48
Gate48
Season48
Ring48
Alliance48
Power48
Generations48

Hope the name ideas are good ^____^
I can also help with some banner making for the new site if needed (be it for individual members or the groups) [clap]

 

Re: [PROJECT] New website for the 48 franchise

I can help barring any sort of daily/weekly commitment needed because I won't know what my schedule will be like in a few weeks. I guess I can do pv or some blog translations (I did Takamina's on here for a while when I had time). But I can definitely agree with some people here that in the end not enough responses killed my motivation to do stuff. I guess people like to see their work spawn some discussions or the like.

I'm not good with naming so all I can think of is Scoop48.

 

Re: [PROJECT] New website for the 48 franchise

Backstage48? In short: BS?

Name is secondary to content; whatever short if will work as temporary, it will work always.

 

Re: [PROJECT] New website for the 48 franchise

I'd like to weigh in a little on the Disqus topic and the Social Media topic.

There's almost no reason not to use Disqus. Forums get ZERO attention on sites that allow users to comment. Look at TokyoHive. Then again, even with a super simple system like Disqus there are VERY few people that actually leave a comment. NihonBeat is new so our traffic isn't HUGE or anything but we regularly get 1-2000 unique hits a day and it spikes on days with big news. Even with that level of traffic we struggle to get ONE measly comment. We even give away free stuff every month to one user drawn from the pool of those that have commented during that month and still...no one bothers.

I personally chalk this perceived laziness up to the number of communities out there. Every fandom seems to have one...so rather than comment at the place they nabbed the article from they'd rather copypasta it (sometimes without even telling people where they got it... :angry: )over to their home forum and talk about it there. Still just have disqus there for the fun of it. There's no work involved to put it in...so just do it.

In response to "surfing the web 2.0 wave"...

Any site that doesn't have social media buttons is really at a disadvantage and it's far from challenging to put them in. It's like 2 clicks. There's no reason to not have that kind of thing....unfortunately, people are LAZY! So lazy, in fact, that they don't even click those buttons!

Couple laziness with the fact that not everyone is necessarily comfortable sharing idol content with their friends and family and you get next to no benefit. Even so, you may as well have them. Why is there even a debate over whether or not they should be there?

Oh...and while I'm at it: I saw some mention of banners. Good websites don't have a big banner at the top anymore. They just don't. All you need is a memorable logo. Anything more than that is just slowing your site down in this era of mobile browsing.

Another thing that really concerns me is the mention of vid48. If the site planned to host pirated content or use pirated content then I'd have to graciously withdraw my offer to help. My reasoning is not something to be discussed in this thread, however.

 

Re: [PROJECT] New website for the 48 franchise

Piracy content is a very hard topic to discuss about. however, if i understand it correctly, this project was about helping the fansubbing crew to develop their work as one instead of splitting or doing the same thing, in order to increase our manpower. Piracy would have been putting a tracker, and HRP was opposed to this. It only depends on the definition of the word "piracy content" to you.

As for myself, i became a fan of Akb48 while watching every episode of Akbingo in a dailymotion channel. I wouldn't be there if they weren't those subs. We are not making money of it, just spreading how great those girls are.

PS: 2000 visitors a day is very very good.

 

Re: [PROJECT] New website for the 48 franchise

how about 48Idol or 48World ? It's easy to recognize by most of overseas fans .

Or 48horizon is a good choice too , it sounds catchy .

Or akih48ara ?

But if we want to get rid of __48 , how about oshiworld ? But i think it's better with __48 , so mostly of many new fans will easily recognize the site .

 

Re: [PROJECT] New website for the 48 franchise

The 48 is too symbolic to throw away out of the title tbh if you want a unifying website.

 

Re: [PROJECT] New website for the 48 franchise

Lol I don't think it's realistic to use cause most people dislike/don't get the 'l33tsp34k' thing but I love akih48ara XD it's just clever.

 

Re: [PROJECT] New website for the 48 franchise

^ I automatically read this as Akih8ara and it puts me off. Not to mention for many people it would be unspeakable: Akihfortyeightara?