Introducing Japaneta, Microblogging Platform for Japan Lovers14

I am glad to introduce to you Japaneta, a microblogging platform for all the Japanese culture and sub culture lovers. Whether you are interested in Japanese learning, Japanese music, idols or Anime, you are totally free to share you findings on our network. If you are already using services like Twitter, then it’s even easier to get started. Unlike those big network where you are feeling like sinking under the surface (like the famous fail whale Twitter), Japaneta is a niche platform and will sure satisfied your daily Japanese digests.

The reason I start this platform is quite simple: to speed up the sharing of news and resources. Sometimes it is a bit difficult to keep our readers updated, especially for all those news and events happening around our niche, due to the lack of hands and the time that we need to write a post and compile it before publishing. The process sometimes can be difficult and time-consuming, and at the end of the day, we might be able only to come up with one post, with limited time spend on blogging. I thought about user submitted contents, but it also needs further editing and at the same time the news and information have already blown the industry away. Thus I came up with a solution, why not letting our readers share these resources themselves? It’s quite easy, when you find something interesting about Japanese pop culture, write a few lines and attach an image to it. It only takes a minute to do so and you don’t have a feeling of messing up things as you do while writing a blog post.

What is behind Japaneta?

If you are already using services like Identi.ca, then you should be very familiar with Japaneta. Backed by the same technology from StatusNet, Japaneta inherits all the features of a microblogging platform like Twitter, but extends productivity to another degree. Japaneta runs on the most popular microblogging platform StatusNet and is able to deliver necessary features that traditional services like Twitter and Facebook cannot. Japaneta is an open community, users will be able to connect people on different networks via OStatus, a new standard that helps you to follow (or to be followed by) people on different social network.

What differentiate Japaneta from Twitter is, you can only share resources, send messages within the Twitter network, while with the power of OStatus, you can easily follow people, send them messages to those who are not within the same network.

Why Microblog on Japaneta?

Regardless whether you are a blogger, you should start microblogging. Or you probably have already used some of them like the well-known Twitter and Tumblr. It’s good, and it’s fast to share your interested topics to your followers. Japaneta is more a Twitter like site where you are input a maximum of 280 characters instead of 140 limit of Twitter, upload any interesting photos and video through your web browsers, desktop clients, Emails or cellphones.

How to use Japaneta?

It’s extremely easy to start talking on Japaneta. Japaneta not only has all the popular features from Twitter like @-replies, hashtags(#), provides search and private messages, but also provides more to encourage better and deeper discussion and engage. Imagine how terrible the experience is when two Twitter users discuss a topic with each other and find it extremely unreadable when they look back. Japaneta has a threaded view of every topic which you can easily access to and find things a lot easier. You can create a group for people with a similar interests too. You can use ! to send message directly to members within a group, it’s that easy and quick.

What’s more, you can even send message to Twitter (other services are coming) directly from Japaneta. When you get started, you will find it lovely to use Japaneta as a client where you can easily access different networks. The improved threaded view gives you a clear look at the popular topics and what people are discussing about, making it extremely easy to join in the discussion.

You are in control of all your data, you can even delete your account if you found Japaneta is not your type (I hope you will never feel that though)

Join Japaneta and have fun!

Japaneta is currently under beta, register and activate your account (or connect with your OpenID or Twitter account) to have fun. If you find it interesting, you are most welcomed to invite your friends to the platform using the invitation button on the right sidebar. If you are happy (or not), feel free to drop me a line on Japaneta (simply using the Twitter style @username, i.e. @you, or send message to the official group by using !japaneta).