Name of your website?Japanga
Your name?
Simon Clegg
Your Location (city, etc)
Manchester
Please give us a short summary of your website?
Japanga is intended to provide access to a range of Japanese pop culture from anime to jpop and jrock.
What inspired you to launch your own website?
I lived in japan for seven years and I am a web developer by trade, so Japanga was a great way to marry my two favourite obsessions!
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
My very first website was http://loquela-languages.co.uk. This website was for a language school that I ran with my wife after we returned from Japan in 2005. The language school no longer exists but I still own the URL. I'll probably make use of it again someday.
How did you decide on a name for your website?
It's short and snappy and sums up the site neatly, I think.
What makes your website different from other, similar offerings?
The website is a personal project, there is nothing commercial about it whatsover, so it's not littered with distracting ads and links to other websites. It is a new site so I am constantly adding to it and making improvements. It is also one of the very few sites on the internet that allows the listener to listen online to rare Japanese indie tracks and download the mps that he artists have made freely available to the public. It also has a very nice free anime e-card service.
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
Japanga is a labour of love. It allows me to express my interest in Japanese culture while providing a perfectly satisfying way to practice my web development. I currently have no commercial aspirations for the website but I would like to eventually evolve into a very popular interactive community portal for other lovers of Japanese pop culture. To have thousands of like-minded japanophiles enjoying and contribting to the site would be my ultimate goal.
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
As I already said. It really is a labour of love. The internet doesn't have to always be about making money, there is far more to it than that in my mind. I simply get a great deal of satisfaction and enjoment from working on the site and sharing it with others.
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
First of all I think I would hire a really cool graphic designer to give the site a real facelift and develope the brand. Next I would add a few extra features like user blogs and user galleries and buy a massive stock of cool prizes, I would then have monthly competitions for who can contribute the best content. As content creation is for me the most time-consuming aspect I would probably also hire a bunch of paid volunteers to help me populate the city guides which I haven't started yet. Finally, I would probably place some Google Ads to kickstart interest in the site.
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
Not a problem. As a freelance web developer I have my own dedicated servers so infrastructure is not an issue. In terms of maintanence moderation, if the site got that popular I would hand pick a bunch of my most trusted users and ask them to help out.
What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
None really. The only challenges I face aretechnical and they are what help me live and breath (Geek!)
What has been your biggest challenge?
See above.
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
I've done nothing so far exept place a couple of banners on some of my other sites. Japanga was ranked 3 by google within as many months.
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
No real expectations, so no real surprises.
How long have you run the site already, and how long will you continue to keep it up if you don't enjoy big gains in traffic, income or popularity?
The site went live on March 3rd, 2009. I will keep the site going as long as long as the ideas to improve it keep flowing.
What is your website address?
Japanga
