Today I’m happy to announce my blog’s one year anniversary. Even though it has only been here for a year, it’s been going through many changes, so today I’m giving you a roundup of the year and as a thank you to all my readers, I’m ending this year with a giveaway.
Let us take a look on how the blog has evolved through the year, where it began and where it is now.
The Design
Design wise, this blog has been going through major changes two times during this year. It started off with the first design, KAME v1.0, a design that was running on the Blogger template “Rounders” with only minor modifications. This was when I decided to get my own .com domain and start with blogging seriously. But even before that, the blog was running under the name “Dorama Dream”, but unfortunately I don’t have any recorded history of that. Dorama Dream was running on the same template as the first version of KAME, just with another header.
The second major design change was when I went from using Rounders as the base template to using a highly modified Minima template. This came to be KAME v2.0 (see slideshow below) which has been, and still is, the base for this blog’s design. And instead of having me talking endlessly about the updates, take a look at the slideshow:
Click here for bigger version of the slideshow.
Today, as you might have realized from watching the bigger version of the slideshow, my design “KAME” is now in version 3.0 and is now only going through minor changes from time to time.
The Posts
The posts on this blog was from the beginning meant to be about Japanese dramas, and it still features many posts in that category. However, for this blog to stay alive, I had to write about other things as well. Other genres that became common was design, technology and music. Today, I’m for the most part only writing about things related to Japan in some way, and it’s likely to stay that way. But if you’re interested in the history of this blog, feel free to check out the featured articles page to see posts you probably never thought you’d see here. Many posts have also been drafted for various reasons, some of those however might be re-published sometime in the future just for the fun of it.
The Future
As the Japan related networks keep growing all over the internet, I’m seeing a bright future for my blog. I will continue to keep my posts focused on Japan and work on getting the community bigger. I have many people to give my thanks to and people I’m very happy to have gotten to know during this year, many of you are on Chris’ list of Japan-related Twitter users on his blog, Nihongo Notes. I recommend you to follow everyone on that list, and if you’re not using Twitter yet, you better go sign up right now to make the Japan-related networks grow bigger. And follow me while your at it.
So that’s the roundup, this post is already pretty long so I’ll stop this part here. Now let’s get on with the giveaway!
The Giveaway
As I promised back in early November, I’m starting doing giveaways. What I’m giving away is going to be very varied and not really on a regular basis, but every once in a while I’ll have something that I don’t need and can give away to my readers.
Today as the first giveaway, I’m giving away an Oxford Japanese Mini Dictionary and a Japanese phrase book & dictionary by Berlitz. As I got myself an electronic dictionary a couple of days ago, I don’t need the dictionary anymore and the phrase book isn’t really useful to me. However, they’re both good, especially for starters, and they’re barely used so they’re just like new (see image below).
So what do you have to do to win this? Well, the only thing I require for you to enter the contest is a good comment on this post. The comment may be about anything, really, but to be a bit more specific I’m giving you a list of what I think would be a good comment (choose one or more, or surprise me with something not on the list).
- A good reason why you need these books
- Tips on how I can improve this blog (what do you not like about this blog?)
- What do you want to see more of in the future?
- Know something I don’t that I should know about?
When I do giveaways, I’d like to benefit from them as well. For this giveaway I require at least 20 good comments from different people, so please feel free to tweet or tell your friends about the giveaway. And please, no essays, but one line won’t get you far either. If it’s too hard to decide who the winner is because of too many good comments, the winner will be decided by a lottery between the best comments.
That’s all I guess, I hope all of you were satisfied with the first year, I’m looking forward for another year of blogging and networking with you guys!
Thank you.
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{ 17 comments… read them below or add one }
Hey!
I am not entering the contest but I’d like to add to the comment pool so someone else will stand a chance.
Congratulations on your one year anniversary blogging and I wish for you many more!
Thanks for the support, and you too!
Nice post ^^ I don’t need the books, so please leave me out of the competition. I just wanted to say your blog has progressed well over the year, although if I had to choose one theme I liked the best, it would be the final version of your SanoKame theme. Not to say this theme isn’t good – just a preference thing, you know? ^^
Thank you!
Actually I’m working on a new solution for the header, thinking of making the current header about half the size so I can fit in something else beside it, like some featured post or an airing drama.
Well lets see… I need those books so I can start watching Dorama without having to find ones with subtitles, and of course the Music too :)
Keep blogging as you are now, I would probably do some quick fire posts about up and coming films/drama/songs maybe once or twice a week.
I would like to see more Dorama as it’s hard to find quality reviews or previews from learned viewers.
Skillster http://twitter.com/skillster
Good points!
I like your tips, I’ll keep them in mind in the future. I’ll also write about dramas as often as I can :)
Thanks.
By the way, what plugin are you using for that slideshow? There are so many around I’m having trouble picking out the best one o.O;
I’m using Flickr’s embedded slideshow :)
First of all, congrats with your 1 year anniversary, with many more to come.
The books will come in handy when I talk to some Japanese friends of mine.
Thanks for the support! :)
Seems like you like blogging a lot. I try to come back here, every so often. I like the slick design you use in your blog. And in the past your movie/J-dorama reccomendations helped me to find new favorites. :) Thanks for all this, and good luck and succes with your blog.
Yes I do like blogging a lot! I’m glad that you come here every once in a while even though I don’t see you in the comments section too often. I’ll continue to write about dramas so look forward to that!
Thank you.
Congrats on your One Year!!
Thank you!
* A good reason why you need these books
* Tips on how I can improve this blog (what do you not like about this blog?)
* What do you want to see more of in the future?
* Know something I don’t that I should know about?
Very nice blog. I started a blog about 1+ years ago much like this one too so check it out if you’d like. So here’s my entry…
Reason: I’m studying Japanese so a jisyo would be very helpful. I have an electronic one but it doesn’t always have everything so the more jisyo the better :P
Tips: Design-wise, everything is very readable and clean. That’s a very big plus already. If I must name something, it’ll probably be to darken the text for links just a tad. It’s a bit too bright on the white background.
Future?: More Jdrama.
Finally, you can just remember that the sun rise in the East and set in the West by knowing Japan (in the East) is the Land of the Rising Sun!
Thanks for the great reply!
Checking your blog out a bit right now, so far I definitely like what I see. I’ll bookmark it.
I see what you mean about the links, but they probably turn out differently on everyone’s displays. For me they’re not too bright, but I’ll take a look and see what I can do about it.
I’ll definitely keep my focus on dramas, seems like that is what most of my readers like.
Thank you! :) Yeah, drop a comment now and then. I don’t have a schedule but I keep ends up writing every Friday (sometimes).
I’ve added yours to my bloglines account. Keep up the good work!