Otaku.fm

UPDATE: This post is outdated - please go to here for details and request. Requests left in this post will be ignored. Announcing the launch of the first site to join the DC Network - Otaku.fm. The DC Network will comprise of sites that use the dannychoo.com member account to manage user authentication and login.

Otaku.fm is a way for me to say a big thanks to Featured Feed members for driving traffic to dannychoo.com. So what does Otaku.fm do?

• Aggregates all Featured Feed members blogs. All blog posts are available in the main view and are also sorted by popular categories such as figures, Japan, otaku etc. Each of these views has its own RSS feed.
• Thumbnails are generated from the first image found in a post making it easier to choose what you want to read.
• Click on a members name to see all their posts. Members posts are available in stack and grid view. Grid view makes it particularly easy to choose the item you want to read.
• Members can monetize by placing Google Adsense and Amazon products on thier views and detail pages.
• All pages are search engine optimized to drive as much traffic as possible to members blogs.
• Particularly useful for bloggers looking for content to blog about.
• Increases discoverability of bloggers content. Many blog platforms bury previous posts. Otaku.fm displays posts in a way so that previous posts are easily available through the thumbnailed grid views.

If you dont have much time then you can stop here and go to Otaku.fm to look around - or you can read more details below. If you have a blog then I encourage you to read until the end as there is a possibility that there are aggregators out there who are stealing your affiliate earnings.

Below: The top page of Otaku.fm - all posts that have thumbnails are aggregated here. This is the first place I check when looking for stuff to write as I want to make sure that I drive as much traffic as possible to Featured Feed members.
Posts where thumbnails cant be created are dumped in the "NoThumbs" category. There could be many reasons why a thumbnail cant be identified including...

• Original feed has images disabled.
• Site owner does not allow images to be displayed outside of their domain.
• Post does not have images or img tag not formatted properly.
• The RSS parser I'm using needs refining.

Members who have not categorized their blogs will end up in Misc. If you find your blog under Misc, you may want to choose a category in the edit profile page. Once you have done that, your blog should start to appear under your chosen category - can take up to an hour for changes to take place. Previous posts will stay in Misc so you may want to change your category as soon as you can. Below: This is Dark Mirages posts in Stack View. Below: Use the menu below the title of the page to switch views - there is an RSS feed which includes the thumbnails too. Below: Dark Mirages posts in Grid View. Notice the Amazon products on his page. These are products that he has chosen to recommend. Each of those items contain *his* amazon affiliate tag. If anybody buys these products *he* gets money from Amazon.
Below: Lets take a closer look at a detail page. You can also see that the Google ads also belong to Dark Mirage. If anybody clicks on these ads *he* gets money from Google. More details about how to make money with Google Adsense in this post.
Through Otaku.fm, I want to help you monetize from your own content as much as possible. If you don't feel like having ads on your real blog - you can stick ads on Otaku.fm instead - all these settings are available through your edit account settings on this site.

Now here is an important bit of information for current bloggers. Some bloggers who have their blog registered with certain aggregators have a strong possibility of having their adsense earnings stolen. For example, lets say you wrote about "Gundam 00." Your post is available on your site and the aggregator site. When one does a search for "Gundam 00", the search result page at Google/Yahoo etc will show the aggregators page above or near the actual post on your site. If a person clicks through to the aggregators page and clicks on a Google adsense ad, you have potentially lost money to the aggregator.

Otaku.fm prevents this by making sure that the Google adsense placements contain *your* tag. Its your content - dont let others monetize and take advantage of you. The publisher-id cant be left empty and defaults to my tag if you do not designate one - make sure you do as you have nothing to loose and much to gain.

If you are registered with the number one anime aggregator Antenna then you need not worry as they don't create detail pages for each of your posts.

If you are registered with other aggregators that create detail pages and place Google adsense on your content, and if the thought of money being generated by others from your content turns you off, then you may want to request that your blog be removed from their indexer.

You work hard on creating content and are monetizing to pay for hosting fees and a few figures - dont let anybody steal your earnings!

Below: Your Stack, Grid and detail page views contain your info saved in your dannychoo.com account. Below: If you are logged in at dannychoo.com, Otaku.fm will recognize you and display your menu making it easy to jump to your Stack view through the "Your site directory" link. Below: A monthly archive example of James blog Japan Probe sorted by month - the calendar menu is available at the bottom of the screen. The month views are paginated but only available in grid view because they are archives. Example of a figure view. If you are looking for figure news around the blogsphere then this is where to look. Dont forget that there are Japan, otaku views etc. If you have a blog and are interested in joining in on the shenanigans then read up on Featured Feeds. Once you have my feed up on your blog, mail [support at dannychoo dot com]. Also have a look at the new Blogging Tips category to help you make the most from your blog. It really does make sense to share.

I mentioned that this was the first site to join the DC Network. Figure.fm will be the second. All Figure.fm accounts will be merged into a dannychoo.com account - I will announce the merge process soon.
The thousands of registered members at dannychoo.com will be able to use their account not only to post on figure.fm, but to also use the other community sites that will soon join the DC Network.