Wow. We actually have a lot of interesting/exciting site news for you all today. Normally it’s pretty uninteresting, I think, but today we will be revealing a whole bunch of neat stuff I’ve been getting ready for a long time now. All of it should help you with your Japanese studies in some way, at least. That is the goal, anyways. Please go through our new features and give us your opinions on it using our brand new fancy comment system (gasp! Spoiler!).
New Comment System:
I already ruined it, so here it is. Starting with this post, we’re using this nifty website called Disqus that makes our comments more like a forum. You can upload an avatar (sorry to people who already did a Gravatar, but you’ll have to do it again), rate people’s comments, and even reply to comments! Now we can actually have some sort of discussion without saying @Erin or @Viet or @Koichi. It’ll be so much more convenient and fairly nice looking too, I think. Good for asking questions, anyways.
Store is Up! We’re Only Selling Free stuff:
“What?” you ask? “You’re only selling free stuff?” That’s right, we don’t have anything worth actually selling, so we thought we’d give it away free for now. The store button up in the header goes somewhere now, though the only available option once you get there is the “free” section (best section though, right?). The only thing in the Free Store is a kanji worksheet made up by yours truly. Although it might take a while to complete one worksheet, by the time you’re done you’ll definitely know whatever kanji you were studying really well. There are a ton of different exercises that force your brain into learning a particular word several times, several different ways. I think it’s a cool system, but why don’t you check it out and tell me what you think before listening to me?
But wait, there’s so much more!
Tofugu Facebook Page:
We created a Tofugu Facebook Page, somewhere over on Facebook. Because I’m morally and spiritually against all things Myspace, we won’t be setting up shop over there anytime soon (sorry Myspace fans). Eventually I’ll be making my own Facebook page, but for now, please head on over and join our page. You’ll get little updates (or whatever facebookers do). Go head on over and join!
Twitter Account Up and Twitterin’:
Twitter seems to be getting more and more popular with each passing day. At first I was unsure about it, but now I see it’s potential. Basically, it is a service that allows you to “tweet” (i.e. tell everyone and anyone something in 140 characters or less). People can follow you and see what you have to say whenever you say it. A lot of people use this to update people about their lives, but I thought Tofugu could use it in a different way. We’ll be Twittering about Japanese language / culture / news, most likely once a day, tweeting about things that don’t deserve their own articles but are worth knowing and mentioning. Just think of them as little tidbits of information that could be useful if you are learning Japanese or ever planning on visiting. Go check out our twitter page.
iPhone Icons:
I don’t know how many of you have iPhones, but now if you add Tofugu as one of your home screen webclips, you’ll get a nifty little Tofugu icon on your screen (see image above). I know all the cool kids are adding it.
So there you have it. That’s a lot of news for one day, and a lot of stuff for you to look at if you haven’t. Whether or not you’re interested in our pages, definitely check out Twitter and Facebook, they’re a lot of fun regardless of how full of tofugu they are. Please let us know what you think, and what you think we can improve on. All these changes and add-ons are based off of your requests/demands/suggestions, so keep them coming. They definitely make for a better product. Thank you!
PS: Also, don’t forget about our RSS feed. You can subscribe to our feed and get updated the moment we post something.