blog好き

May 12 2003

Categories: life

1 Comment »

I’ve noticed something really different between the typical American and Japanese personal sites. The American sites have evolved into blogs, like this one and others in the community where we post stuff that goes on in our world. Generally, these blogs are powered by something like b2 (what I use), Moveable Type, etc etc etc. They also exist in multicolumn format with one primary column fitting all of the entries with the sides flanked by links, adopted cyberpets, and other nonsense. Generally, a person’s breakdown, like age, what they like, etc, are provided on these side columns. The more l33t blogs feature forums rather than lame guestbooks.

The typical Japanese personal site has the following, almost mandatory, phrases: “Japanese Only” and “Link Free”. I understand the “Japanese Only”, but “Link Free” took me a while to understand… appearantly, it means that you can feel free to link to their site… duh! I do this regardless of getting permission for not. They also have links for “Profile”, “Diary”, “BBS”, “Illus” or “Gallery” or “Gallary”, “Circle”, and “Mail”. Most of the time, strangely enough, these menu items are in English. “Profile” gives the typical info found on most American blog sidebars. “Diary” is simply the “What’s New” section. “BBS” can be either a guestbook for a forum. Most Japanese forums are the old threaded type that were popular, oh, 7 years ago. Very rarely will one find any Japanese site running vBulletin. “Illus”, “Gallery”, and “Gallary” are where to find pictures, either of “Original” creations or “Copyright” fan art. Sometimes they’ll have photos or even photos of models of anime characters. This section is also home to “Gifts” where they post images sent by other people to celebrate things like “4567 Hits!” or “Happy 19.2 Birthday!” “Circle” is their links page, and “Mail” is simple enough.

I just feel that their websites are what most personal sites were a few years ago for most English speakers. This was what the web was like before blogs swept and conquered all. While I’m not going to miss the days of seeing “My name is Bob, here is a gallery of my cat Bubbles”, it does make me feel a bit nostalgic.