Saturday, March 8, 2008

Be Patient Friends
We're not killing myOtaku, there are some temporary issues that I understand, but we're a small site and don't have a lot of resources, so it sometimes takes time to get to them. I personally spent a lot of time redoing parts of myOtaku to keep it online after launching Version Vibrant

For example after I launched VV I noticed that comments on myO stopped working because the two were so closely linked. I spent the entire day re-coding all of comments on myOtaku but I'm not a great designer so the layout looks ugly but at least it works

Have patience friends, I still love you all :-)
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Friday, March 7, 2008

** Waves **
Visit me on my worlds page. That's where I will do all posting moving forward--
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Monday, March 3, 2008

*Proud*
Things are going surprisingly smoothly so far, despite it taking a little longer than hoped.

Our new hardware works and we've been able to migrate both OtakuBoards and myOtaku over.

This just leaves theOtaku, the big dog.

Data transfer is taking longer than expected, the data should be over by 11 PM tonight ET and I'll either have to make the decision to launch really late tonight (like 1 AM or 2 AM) or whether it'd be better to get a good night's sleep and launch earlier tomorrow
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Sunday, March 2, 2008

I've been fighting myself like crazy the last 48 hours

I've been having a lot of anxiety issues which has been crippling my ability to work on the site. It's kind of like being in a war with your hands and feet cuffed together. You can still kind of head bash but you're limited

HOWEVER, it is possible for us to launch tomorrow if this anxiety doesn't get the best of me.

If I can break free of these cuffs and work like my usual self, we're going to launch strong tomorrow...wish me luck.

(What other web producer would EVER blog about anxiety/personal issues?? I don't think it's ever happened before, but I like to be honest with you all.)
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Friday, February 29, 2008

I'm Really, Really Being Tested
Back in NYC...it's always darkest before the dawn:

* I'm having a lot of personal anxiety issues (not site related)
* I'm exhausted from my quick-trip to Texas
* Our host/site went down for an hour tonight mysteriously
* The IRS says something was wrong with our 2006 returns and now sent me a MASSIVE bill that I have work out with our accountant (I'm 99% sure the bill is in error)...
* I have an infinite amount to do tomorrow

Crap...
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Thursday, February 28, 2008

FUNi
Had a lot of fun showing off Version Vibrant to our friends at FUNimation today. All very nice people and the office is HUGE and very, very otaku.

They all seemed to like the new site when I demo'd it, which makes me optimistic.

I also have, beside my hotel room bed, literally a **mountain** of FUNi DVDs and box sets they passed along.

Oh my, how will I carry this all to the airport...

(I'm watching Ninja Warrior, a show on G4. It's from Japan. Picture American Gladiators but with impossible obstacles that no one can pass)
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Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Hello From Dallas
Had an easy flight, am kind of in the middle of nowhere right now, so it's not the best place to be tourist-wise.

Am looking forward to tomorrow! I tried to get a lot of work done today but am so exhausted from the many hours flying and travelling
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Tuesday, February 26, 2008

Wish me a pleasant flight
Will be off to Texas tomorrow morning...wish me a safe and pleasant flight. I hope the internet at the hotel I'm staying is fast, so much to do! Looking forward to myO posting tomorrow night from there.
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Monday, February 25, 2008

Quick Notes
-- I'm visiting FUNimation's office this week to show off Version Vibrant. I'll probably be programming on the plane since we're launching so soon. I'll be sure to take pictures!

-- There'll a "Personal" meta category which you can use to store publishable personal fiction. If your fiction is in the anime/manga style you can put it in the Original Anime category

-- I used to love writing fiction. You couldn't stop me. Then I stopped, for personal reasons. I'll probably upload an old story I wrote about 7 years ago while I was just a college freshman

-- I want to eventually have sub-categories for areas like TV, Movies, Comics/Books, but we're just going to keep them general at launch and add sub-categories as it becomes apparent what people are submitting. We might have a few though to start like Avatar, Harry Potter, etc.

-- I saw the movie Gattaca, it's a good one

-- I'm glad you all agreed with my decision yesterday. I think PG-13 is just right for us, and I apply the same standard to WORLDS/myOtaku as well.

-- So much to do, still...I really need a vacation.
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Sunday, February 24, 2008

Adult Fiction Decision
Thanks all for your feedback. I read every single comment and have been reading fan fiction on other sites to get some sense of it.

This is a VERY difficult issue for me personally. I have nothing against the adult fan fiction community and I know that offering adult content would increase our audience.

Sarah/Dagger said that the most important thing is not to backtrack. I agree with this. Allowing content and then taking it away or censoring it would be too upsetting to members.

We're probably going to launch and not publish any works above a PG-13 rating...by keeping it strict at the start, we'll avoid the backpedaling problem. We can always pedal forward, though, depending on how things go. We'll also solve the problem of ratings, since the difference between PG-13 and NC-17 is much wider than the difference between R and NC-17.

I know that this move will alienate some fiction writers and readers and communities. The best I can say is that we never had a fan fiction site before, so you're not losing anything, you can still keep your adult stuff on other sites and if you want to promote your general purpose stuff, we'll be happy to host your works. It's the same with our community of adult artists who upload their normal content to us

My hope is that, since 80-90% of all fan fiction on fanfiction.net is appropriate for teenagers, that we'll still build a healthy and thriving community.

In many ways theO is an extension of myself, so not all decisions I make are purely related to building traffic or making everyone happy. A lot of the decisions I make are related to what I feel comfortable with personally, you know?

I hope you understand and that this doesn't deter you from submitting your general audience work to us, I just don't want to lead you guys on and would rather get this out of the way now..
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