Finally some new hot searches

Ok ok.

Yes, finally some new hot searches. I have been really bad about approving new hot searches over the past 2 weeks or so...

Not good.

Here are the new ones:

genpatsu shinsai

anti-groping software

free manga

Remember, to see past hot searches visit the Archives

Also here are a few search suggestions:
Keeling's Guide to Japan

Japanese mascots

My fellow Japan-enthusiasts...

"Stay hungry; keep searching!"

Kaizen and the Nipponster Japan Toolbar

Kaizen, Baby!
We are trying to make the Nipponster Japan Toolbar better and better all the time

Kaizen (改善) - continuous improvement

If you are out of the loop when it comes to our Japan Toolbar, and the cool tools we've been working on, check out this previous post: Free Internet Broadcast Japanese TV!

And it you haven't downloaded it yet DO IT NOW! --> Nipponster Japan Toolbar download page. We think you will thank yourself for it later ;)

The Nipponster Japan Toolbar is the first Japan Toolbar, the first Japan-enthusiasts toolbar. It is the first toolbar to bring all the gadgets a Japan-enthusiast needs together in one place: Japanese dictionaries, Kanji cards, free Japanese typing software (Japanese language support), language practice, radio language lessons, 24 hour Japanese TV, and all kinds of useful links. And don't forget Nipponster Search (the first Japan-related search engine).

So how did we improve a toolbar so chocked full of goodies?
We've added three cool new things to the Japan Toolbar:

1. More new free Japanese internet TV links
2. A web app that let's you type in Japanese without software
3. Cool gadgets from Labpixies

New free Japanese TV channels:
We've added Impress TV, Channel J, Biglobe, and NHK (English & Japanese). Here is a screenshot:



Type in Japanese without software:
A great tool to use if you do not have a Japanese OS and you don't have (or don't want to install) Japanese typing software.
It is a good idea to bookmark this link (http://ajaxime.chasen.org/index.html) on Google bookmarks, etc. (or save it somewhere like in your gmail). Here is why: Let's say you take a little trip to Australia and midway through your trip you need to email someone in Japanese. But there's a problem, none of the PCs available have Japanese typing software. Not good. But wait, now all you have to do is visit this link and you can type in Japanese without installing software! Awesome.
Here is a screenshot:



Cool gadgets from Labpixies:
There are a lot of gadget goodies but the best in my book is Labpixie TV. This is probably of more interest to foreigners in Japan, whereas the Japanese TV is interesting to people outside of Japan. Missing TV from home? LabPixie TV has programmable TV stations. Click on the first button on the right and it will take you to their website where you can choose your channel,... by country!
Screenshot:



They even have some Japanese stations on there but it is all user submitted and some of the .asp links (streaming tv links) may have been changed. They seem to get changed pretty often, that is why in our tv section we link to the homepages too.

Well, that's it for now. What's next? Video search?! (uh. oh. looks like I let the cat out of the bag...) Stay Tuned!!

And let us know what you think by giving us some feedback!
We do it for you, the Japan-enthusiasts.

-Tori

Stay Tuned!

I was super excited today.
I just finished the major work I had to do on some improvements we are making to the toolbar.

I will be posting more about that soon. Good stuff it is.

We are also cooking up some fun with the search engine.
Something new and exciting.

So do as the title and please stay tuned!

35 years of Shinjuku in 10 seconds and some new hot searches!

Found this on the Nipponster hot search I just archived Tokyo time lapse video
(Thanks to sparkplugged)

Here are the newly approved hot searches:

secret Okinawa pact

rice patty art harvest


And a timely and fun suggestion:

Rubik's cube championship


"stay hungry; keep searching!"

Advert policy - Why there will be no banners on Nipponster.com

D.B.E.

We were contacted via email recently by a company that offers popular advertising solutions for websites. To reap a profit from it, the service would likely require the posting of banners on this site.

Though this particular company's service seems to be becoming ubiquitous on sites with a focus similar to ours, we declined them.

We were congenial in all of our correspondence with them and although we declined we even offered to interview them on our new blog Daily J (because we think their service is ok, it's just not for us). But there was no reply...

So I am sure that declining their offer certainly won us no friends in that company but we have
to stick to our guiding principle:
"Does this make things better for Japan-enthusiasts?"

In this case we decide that the answer was "NO" for two reasons:

1. It would distract from the purpose of Nipponster. That purpose is to quickly give our users only the information they are looking for. Not the clutter they are not looking for.




2. The service is a "freemium". It's free for the basic functions but if you want to get the full service you have to pay a fee. There's nothing wrong really with freemiums, but Nipponster was started with the goal that everything we provide we provide 100% free.

In the end we are crazy dreamers, right? So regardless of any monetary benefit we would have reaped we would not and will not give up our dream and our principles.

We hope that is clear to everyone and I personally hope that will never change.