Tokyo Live Bloggers

The feature has been live for a few days now and folks who frequent the site will see updates from the Tokyo Live Bloggers on the top page. Folks who are more of an RSS person can keep up with our updates in the Feed Burnder RSS feed instead.

On the top page of DC, you can see the Tokyo Live Bloggers section which is the first widget in the left column. You can click on the spotlight tabs to do an ajax load and see updates from that Live Blogger.

Introducing the current live bloggers who are:-

Steve is a social media specialist, consultant and writer who lives in the heart of Akihabara. You can view his full profile at his Linkedin and his current live posts in his live stream.
Steve will be in Singapore for a week from next Thursday. Folks in SG interested in meeting up with Steve can do so by contacting him through his Twitter account.
A few words from Steve below.

Hi. This is Steve. Danny has been kind enough to let me post some of my wanderings in the Otaku capital of the world: Akihabara. Feel free to let me know what you think of my pictures and Tokyo's famous Electric Town.

Alan runs is own web consulting business in Tokyo where his firm handles online strategies for domestic and clients overseas who are seeking to enter the Japanese market. You can read more about him in his profile. Alan's live stream is here.
A few words from Alan below.

I have been living and working in Japan for the last 20 years, mainly in the Shibuya area of Tokyo. I enjoy photography, golf and writing about Japan.

I particularly like the Japanese character goods and how they get used with major brands. Most countries don't encourage their brands to be cute and friendly like Japan does.

Ken is a student just finishing up his PhD in Engineering at Keio University. He blogs about life surrounding his student activities and is also a class iPhone developer who is working on the Mirai Gaia iPhone app.
Read more about Ken in his profile and you can see his current posts in his live stream.
A few words from Ken below.

Salutations! My name is Ken. Danny has bestowed on me the bodaciously great honor of joining him in bringing Tokyo to my fellow comrades at DC.com. I hope you'll enjoy reading about my Tokyonite adventures as much as I do enjoy sharing them!

Chris is a fellow Brit who has been in Tokyo for nearly a year now. He works with me at Mirai Inc and is a superstar engineer. He runs a blog at Nihongo Notes which hasnt been updated for a while - not because I'm overworking him but because hes taking time to relaunch it on the Mirai Gaia platform where it will be a Japanese learning community. You can see his live posts up until now in his live stream.
A few words from Chris below.

I've been living in Japan for about 10 months now and plan to stay for the future. I live in Saitama, and work with Danny at Mirai Inc in Tokyo, so I get to enjoy the peaceful community life in Saitama whilst experiencing the city life of Tokyo. I hope you enjoy my photos and a big thanks to Danny for inviting me to post.

Will be inviting more Live Bloggers to bring you life from Tokyo as it happens.

A few guidelines for up n coming Live Bloggers.

• Live Blogging is for folks who want to share their daily life and introduce some of the local culture at the same time.
• The Live Blogging feature is linked to your dannychoo.com account - your signature is displayed on each post so there is no need for a "see more at my blog." The current signature is a bit small but I will make it bigger.
• The idea is to not only share your life but to also build your online brand and if you are constantly doing a "you-must-visit-my-blog-for-more" thing then you loose reputation.
• Folks who are invited to Live Blog should upload images to their Flickr account from their mobile device. The email to use is here > http://www.flickr.com/account?tab=email
• You must also enable the "Who can download your stuff" to "Anyone" - this is because we can fetch the original size of your image.
• Photos must *not* be wider than 900px.
• Photos should be of relatively good quality. the iPhone takes good pics depending on the steady hand. Folks using an iPhone should post in the default 800px x 600px format.
• Live bloggers should tag photos uploaded to Flickr from their phone with "mg_iphone"
• Only approved accounts will have their Live Blogging photos show up on dannychoo.com
• Photos should ideally be posted soon after they are taken. If one has bad reception, then post as soon as you can.
• I recommend Perfectly Clear to folks using an iPhone to brighten up their pics (if necessary) before posting.
• Live Bloggging is not limited to posts from your mobile device. If you can post stuff taken on a digital cam/SLR then thats fine too but it should be soon after it was taken. These photos must not be wider than 900px.
• All photos should have a short title and if possible contain either "Japan" or "Tokyo" for folks Live Blogging in Tokyo.
• All posts should contain some blurb about the photo and if possible share some cultural aspect of the subject or scene in the photo.
• You should be able to post 2 - 3 times per day.
  
• You must not enable the "hide exif data" in your Flickr account settings.