#5 The Japan-related Web. Part 1: What it is
So far we have broken down the things Japan-related sites offer into seven categories:
1. News,
2. entertainment,
3. services & web-tools,
4. instruction & education,
5. personal stories & experiences,
6. classifieds,
7. e-commerce.
Today we will focus specifically on news.
The range of sites offering news runs a full spectrum from major news portals (think The Japan Times) down to individual blogs.
The different categories of news are equally broad. They range from general/mainstream news down to the specialised, local, and obscure. There is political news, economic news, and so on.
Rather than straying off into all the areas covered, let us look at a few general questions:![]()
1. Who is looking for what kind of news?
2. Why?
3. Why online?
4. How are they looking for it?
The kind of news that an exchange student, a Nova English teacher, or an expat businessperson may need is probably going to differ.
How do you find the news you need online?
Share your experience with us!
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If you are just joining us, this month Bill from Rising Sun Of Nihon has invited me to use his blog as a platform where we can all come together and discuss the Japan-related web! Here is today’s snippet.
Today we are talking about news on th…
My interest in the news is primarily from a social standpoint - i.e. what is going on, upcoming events, etc. I have the main English newspapers bookmarked and I review them most mornings. I have my feed reader broken into pages, one of which is the various Japan related blogs that I follow. I also review a few feed aggregators but not regularly.
If something peaks my interest I just search via the web to see what other information is available.
I try to avoid the news as much as possible! If it’s really important, someone will tell me. Anyway, I don’t want to go off topic, so call me back when you get to Entertainment
@ Nick
Hmm. That is a strange comment from someone who just started a Japan-related news social bookmarking site
I jump on sites like news.yahoo.com about once or twice a week just to keep up to date a bit on things back home. Other than that, the news I get is usually goofy stuff that hits my rss feed from japanprobe and similar sites. I also try my best to understand when it comes on TV, but I still have work to do there.
I would like to see a site that had Japanese sports news. I don’t really care at all about baseball or soccer, but if there was a site that kept me up to date on Japanese MMA or sumo, I’d read it.
I predominantly read the news and unfortunately, not much else. Where’s the time? The job of RSON is to pick out news events that have an effect on/in the business world. Since I am part of a network and the job is to find readers, I aim for newsy topics that will attract readers.
If I had my druthers, I’d write about…
Hi Thomas!
Japan Times Sumo
and Sumo Talk
might be what the doctor ordered
@ Bill,
What are some of the news sites you search for Japan-related business news?
I start with Nikkei Net, then Mainichi, Japan Times, Daily Yomiuri, Asahi, NewsOnJapan. I also refer to the METI site and a few others.
How about you?
Thanks for the sumo links. I’ll check them out.
@Thomas,
No problem
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