Here we are now, entertain us! Two new sites, one focusing on Japanese video game industry news, and one on Korean entertainment news. (UPDATED)

This week we have gotten around to talking about a topic that anybody can agree on: entertainment. While it’s enjoyable (for the most part) writing about mainstream news on things such as politics and the economy, it's nice to deviate a bit. The sites on this week’s platter are Joystiq, a site that covers the video game industry in general, with information from Japan, the U.S., and Europe, but the focus here will be the Japanese video game industry. The second site that’s been picked out is entitled Yummy Celebrities, which is an Asian celebrity website with up-to-date news on virtually all Asian entertainers, and the focus will be on the Korean celebrity news that it features.

Joystiq, while not specifically being a Japanese video game industry site, has a great amount of information on the Japanese video game industry. The main page of the site has a search function, and typing in “Japan” and searching the Joystiq database gives readers all the information they could ever want on today’s Japanese game industry.

As most video game aficionados know, the Japanese and American video game markets are not alike, as Japanese and American gamers have different tastes and preferences. One of the great things about Joystiq is that the writers of the news articles on the site are aware of the differences, and they don’t fail to make light of this when writing their stories. For instance, the Japanese have historically not been very receptive to gaming products made outside of Japan, as Microsoft and its Xbox 360 game console have not had much success in Japan. A couple articles comment on the “rare” success of some Xbox 360 games, such as the game Blue Dragon. The article explains that while the Xbox 360 system has been struggling in the region, this game for the system in particular has been a runaway success, with many people buying the game in a bundle along with the Xbox 360 system, therefore making the game a seller of the system. The article, written by Joystiq blogger Jonti Davies, is very well written and stylized, flowing in a way that you would not see in a more formal news article where information is given in brief increments. A similar Xbox 360 Japan success story on the site was on the game Gears of War, which unlike Blue Dragon was made with American audiences in mind, and features run-and-gun gameplay and copious amounts of blood and gore which usually do not appeal to the Japanese. Apparently the game has done well enough to sell out in the country, and it was highly rated by the top Japanese video game magazine, something that is a bit surprising.

On the flip side, the site features an article by James Ransom-Wiley that explains that the trade in-value of a Nintendo DS Lite, a small portable system made by Nintendo, a Japanese company, is a full 1,800 yen more than the trade in-value Microsoft Xbox 360, which is a stand-alone console that costs more to buy and has much more technology incorporated into it.

Stories of this sort expose how Joystiq is great source of information for people who know very little about the Japanese video game industry. With the site being blog-like in nature, comments are welcomed, and the site gives readers the option to easily email articles to friends, and to see who has linked to specific articles. The articles on the site are adorned with pictures and video clips, making the site quite visually appealing. The site uses a blue theme, and it fits the site quite nicely. A fair amount of advertisements exist, but thankfully they are well placed on the pages. Most of the advertising is for video game related items, such as games and accessories, while others are for travel, movies, and AOL links.

Yummycelebrities.com, as has been aforementioned, is a site that is about all Asian celebrities. The front page features a thorough list of Asian celebrities, along with individual categories for Korean celebrities, Indian celebrities, etc. but the site appears to be very Korean-oriented, with the vast majority of the main page featuring stories that concern Koreans. The site also has a few articles on western celebrities, but there is only a small amount of them. Although the site is done in a blog style that is not much different from the one we are doing for this class or from Joystiq, the site features a good amount of news stories at its disposal, written in a traditional news style.

The most striking aspect of the site that will garner attention of most viewers is how graphically appealing the site is. Every article the site has features at least one large picture, and some stories even feature videos. The site features a simplistic white and pink style, but the well-done placement of the stories on the site combined with the fact that advertising has been kept to a minimum (the only advertising on the site are a few ads from Google for celebrity photos, ringtones, etc.) makes the site very maneuverable. The aforementioned list of celebrities is something that would come in very handy to somebody who is interested in one particular celebrity, as each link for individual celebrities features complete biographies on the celebrities, complete with dates of birth to information on the star’s rise to stardom. These links to individual celebrities also feature the latest news stories on the particular stars toward the bottom of the pages, along with picture and video sections.

The Korean celebrity news section features a wealth of articles going back several days, as the site features a copious selection of backlogged news stories. However, where Yummy Celebrities falls a bit short is in the length of its articles and in spelling and grammar. For instance, a story on Korean pop artist Rain, who injured his left elbow performing in Hong Kong, features two very large pictures, but the actual article is very short. Furthermore, the story features some grammatical errors, such as, “Rain was unlucky to injured his arm on his 2nd concert” and “Rain’s spokesmen later told the press that Rain’s twisted his elbow.” Another article, which reports the death of Korean actress Jung Da-bin, has a grammatical error in the title of the article, with it stating, “Korean Actress Jeong Da-bin died at 27” instead of “dead at 27.” Note the two differing spellings of the actress’s name that are used in this article. These grammatical errors don’t necessarily detract from the information that is being provided, but when the articles are so small in size, these errors do stand out a bit more.

Jung Da-bin Rain

With this being a blog-styled website, the site does make it easy for readers to contribute their opinions, and every article features a way for people to contribute. Readers are able to comment on stories and talk amongst themselves on the particular story at hand.

Both sites are great at doing what they do, and that is gathering information on forms of entertainment. Because Joystiq does such a good job getting news stories from Japan, the site could look into creating an entire part of the website devoted to Japanese game industry news in English. Everything else on Joystiq is well done, so it easily earns a rating of nine out of ten. Yummy Celebrities is a very entertaining website that would please anybody wanting information on Asian celebrities, but the fact that the articles can be a bit short and have spelling and grammatical errors detracts from the experience of the site as a whole. Still, the up to date coverage and the good amount of videos and pictures make it a great site. Yummy Celebrities gets an eight out of ten.

Even MORE websites on Japan! (UPDATED)

This week's prescription for the blog is either websites focusing on national politics in Tokyo, or the national economy of Japan. I have chosen to talk about the national economy of Japan, which I have already done before actually; if anyone actually is reading this blog out there, (besides the people administrating this class) they would know that I have already done quite a bit on Japan already. Fortunately, although I had to search around a little bit more for the websites this week, I found a couple other websites with some goods on the Japanese economy that I have not done before. This week we have The Daily Yomiuri Online and a website called Economy Watch. First off, it is important to note that Economy Watch is not a news website per se. While it does have some news articles thrown in here and there on the homepage, it doesn't address Japan specifically; in fact, the website states on the front page that it is centered on the Indian economy, and is a "user-friendly site [that] offers a wide range of information regarding the current world economy and India's performance in the era of Market Friendliness." Since this week's topic does not specifically ask for news websites, this is a good time to examine such a site. True to its creed, the entire right hand side of the front page is devoted almost entirely to Indian economic concerns, such as India's budget, India and the global economy, India's external sector, jobs in India, etc. The site's layout and style appear good to me, with a burnt-orange, light brown, and white background scheme that just seems appealing to me...I don't really know why. Furthermore, the site is very orderly, with no elements overpowering or under-powering any part of the site. Something that I particularly like about the site is that it gives detailed contact information, such as an address and phone numbers at the bottom of the site's home page.



Since this is a blog about the Japanese economy, what I'm most concerned with is the site's world economy section, which houses an information section that is totally devoted to information about Japan's economy. At the top of the economy info page (as with all the other pages devoted to different countries), readers can get information on economic indicators, the structure of the economy, export and import news, insurance news, mortgage news, and finally stock information. The economic indicators section, for example, explains that Japan is ranked 9th in the world in terms of population, 65% of the people live in urban areas, and that the adult literacy rate is 99%. The structure of the economy section explains that Japan’s economy since the 1960s and today accounts for just over 20% of current-price GDP, that Japan is the world’s largest maker of machine tools, and that Japan is one of the world’s most important iron and steel makers. While Economy Watch is great for factual information such as this, the arrangement of some of the elements of the site are done quite poorly. The export and import section features informative graphs on exports and imports and the balance of payment, but they are far too small to be much effective and can’t be enlarged on the site itself. The advertisements on the page are right in the middle of the textual material; in fact, most of the Japanese economy section has the first line of text cut off by a large advertisement box, with the rest of the text continuing after the advertisement. Sometimes this happens twice in one section, with more text separated by advertisements. To the right of each section there is also a bar of advertisements. To top it all off, clicking the different sections of the Japanese economy information page presents the reader with a pop-up ad. While most of the advertisements do not stray too far away from the subject of the economy, with most of them regarding insurance, it is still too much advertising for most readers to take.

The Economy Watch logo

The Daily Yomiuri Online is your more typical news website, with stories, editorials, columns, and the like. Its front page features everything anyone would want from a news website, similar to the ones that have been reviewed before, such as individual sections for national news, sports, business, world news, and features. The main page of the website features a graph for the weather in some of Japan’s biggest cities, and the site has multiple up to date stories with links. However, for a proper English news website on Japan, especially one that is an online version of a print newspaper, the site appears a bit too bland.

The business section of the website features a good amount of articles, about twenty on the main page, and every one of them is dated. However, nothing is really stylized well, with every article being bulleted with a generic diamond shaped icon and a plain font for the text. The background for the entire website is plain white with very few differences, save for a little bit of green and blue. While the business section has its own section for information on stocks and the current exchange rate with some fairly well done graphs for displaying information, but that is the extent of the visual presentation.

Keeping in tune with the site’s low-key appearance, the site features almost no advertising, with only a few advertisements for the Yomiuri Daily itself, hotels, and communications companies.

As far as the actual news stories go, they’re a bit of a mixed bag. All of them use the “one-line-at-a-time” system that makes reading them a bit tedious, but the stories are all satisfactory as far as grammar and spelling are concerned. Some stories are from outside sources, such as the Yomiuri Shimbun, with no writer identified. Others are written by Daily Yomiuri staff writers. One particular story that I found interesting was written by Daily Yomiuri staff writer Yosuke Sakurai, and it explains that Fujio Mitarai, chairman of the Japan Business Federation, said on Monday that an increase of the consumption tax rate from the current 5 percent to 7 percent by 2011 and to 10 percent by 2015 was inevitable to help reduce massive outstanding public debt. The story is very informative on the matter, with many direct quotes from Mitarai himself on the issue. The articles unfortunately lack trademarks.


Economy Watch is a very informative website, very much unlike the websites that I have reviewed before. While it does an admirable job of informing readers with hard facts on the Japanese economy (and other world economies) the amount of advertising on its pages is far too much. With this issue being addressed, I can see Economy Watch being a extremely useful site for people wanting to know about the Japanese economy. I would rate Economy Watch a six and a half out of ten.

The drab appearance of the Yomiuri Daily is a bit disappointing, it does make up with what is most important: well-written news. The Yomiuri Daily could improve itself by making it a bit more visually appealing and professional-looking. The Yomiuri Daily gets a rating of eight out of ten.

Asia's industrial growth is a burning hot topic...(UPDATED)

Best: Peak Oil News websites

Worst: China.org.cn

This week we have been instructed to find out environmental news or news relating to energy and or resources for one country, and the country that I have chosen for this blog is China. The two sites that I have decided to focus on are Peak Oil News, a website that has news on just about every country and region, but does contain a lot of Chinese environment and energy news that is easy to search for and find. The other site that I have chosen is China.org.cn, which is a complete Chinese news website that has an entire full-fledged section devoted entirely to China’s environment.

.com site's main image

In the case of Peak Oil News, there are two Peak Oil News websites that are out there: both work in conjunction with each other, as links on one will lead to links on the other. One is a .com and the other is a .info site. The one I have concerned myself most for the purpose of this blog is the. info site. The .info site's rather low-key appearance is a bit disappointing, (especially considering that I just got done reviewing some rather unattractive websites for last week) with its pages being entirely white save for some red and black splashed here and there, and not to mention the site's car style gas gauge that serves as its logo.





However, unlike last week, there isn't much searching around for what I want; the site thoroughly lives up to its name, and has numerous sections breaking down articles on energy into specific categories, archives going back several months, the ability to contribute articles, message boards...the site is a prolific energy website. Of particular interest to me of course is the information that it has on Chinese environmental news, and typing in “China” into the site’s search engine yields the information that I want (here’s a link for searching for Chinese environmental news.) Among the first results of this search are stories on the UN doubting that China will overtake the U.S. in carbon by 2009, China blaming the west for global warming, and the resistance in Africa to China’s influence.Like some sites before, the Peak Oil News websites are not news websites in their own right, but rather gather information from other sites. This is nothing that detracts from the sites, and it is admirable that these sites exist. One article on the .info site that caught my attention was one about China’s pollution targets for this year and how the country’s plan to reduce major pollutants by 2 percent may be too high. Clicking on the link on the .info site takes readers to the .com site, where there is a write-up for the article, complete with a nice graphic of an old man sifting through papers with the word “policy” at the bottom indicating the category that the article falls into. The article is linked from China Daily, and was posted on Peak Oil on February 13. The actual article on China Daily, written by Sun Xiaohua, is very well done, with no noticeable spelling errors, good grammar, and a great amount of solid facts and figures, such as that when China drew up its pollution reduction and energy conservation plans, it was assumed that the country was growing at a rate of 7.5 percent a year, but that China’s GDP grew 10.7 percent last year, and that experts have suggested that the country will grow at a rate of 9 percent through 2010. As I was talking about graphics, the .com site is the slightly more pleasing site to the eye. The main page has a more stylized logo, with other logos for news, discussions, resources, members of the site, and localized Peak Oil pages. Besides the old man for policy, there are also graphics for technology articles, environment articles, and production articles. Also at the top of the .com website is a graphic for their “What is Peak Oil?” article, where it’s stated that peak oil theory is that “any finite resource, (including oil), will have a beginning, middle, and an end of production, and at some point it will reach a level of maximum output”. The .com site also gives readers the ability to download files, (such as a food storage FAQ, a Peak Oil poster, and a disaster supplies kit) MP3s of songs, and links to other sites. One interesting difference between the .com and the .info sites is that the forums (where members post and read messages from others) on the .com site are hosted by Peak Oil themselves, while the ones on the .info site redirect readers to a different site altogether called Alternative Energy News. One energy article pertaining to China that was posted right around the time that I update this blog on the .com site is one linked from The Standard, a Chinese business newspaper magazine, and it reports that China has just cut thermal coal shipments to Japan and South Korea due to tight supply and high domestic prices. The article, which does not state the writer, also makes light of the possibility of China becoming a net coal importer in the face of the country’s need of energy. Its up to date articles like this that really make Peak Oil (both sites) an ideal place to find news on China’s ( and moreover Asia’s) growing need for energy, and I definitely recommend Peak Oil to people looking for information in this area.



China.org.cn is a very professional looking website, and it should: it is put out by the Chinese government, and besides offering the site in Chinese and English, it also lets readers read in Japanese, Russian, Arabic, German, Spanish, and more. As aforementioned, the site has its very own section for environmental news, and that individual section looks like its own site unto itself. The site’s orderliness is what is striking the most; the front page of the environment section features a host of current up-to-date news stories that are situated right in the middle of the page, with bolded links to them. Below this is a section entitled “Spotlight on,” which highlights things like the impact of global warming on China and the SEPA warning of a crackdown on foreign waste imports. Below this are SEPA press releases and news on ecological disasters, and then to the right of all this is a features section, which has features on things like panda facts, and saving Tibetan Antelopes. Also, in the lower right hand corner of the main page, basic information on things like land area, rivers and lakes, climate, etc. is given. On the very left side of the main page, there are sections for ecology, public endeavors, and international cooperation. So, to state things plain and simple, the site is rife with lots of useful information.

The problem with China.org.cn is yet again that it is a Chinese government website and is biased in the Chinese government's favor. For instance, at the time the website was accessed, the front page of the website featured a current story on China supposedly being no threat to global energy security, which was stated by Ma Kai, minister of National Development and Reform Commission. In the article, Ma goes on to state that this year's GDP growth target of 8 percent is "aimed to encourage the country to focus on transforming the growth mode, adjusting structures and improving the quality of economic development". Right below this article on front page is another story about the US and China trying to resolve industrial subsidy concerns. Since this is an English website for the Chinese government, these articles may perhaps be indicative of China trying to simply improve its image to U.S. readers, as China's growth is not something that Americans are particularly fond of hearing about. In the actual environmental section of the site, the whole right side of the page is devoted to information on the upcoming 2008 Olympics in Beijing, which are being touted as the "Green Olympics." Upon clicking the large logo for "Green Olympics," readers are given a list of stories that highlight things about how the city has successfully disposed of 90 percent of its urban sewage and is ahead of schedule, and how the mayor of Beijing has escalated the greening effort to make the city beautiful for the games. From the articles that are featured, it is easy for a reader to believe he or she is being fed what the government wants put out, as articles that are harsh to Chinese matters are not readily seen. Another article indicative of this is one that explains that 131 tons of waste from Japan were intercepted in Hong Kong and and promptly returned.

The actual articles themselves are quite well written, and they feature good factual information from authoritative figures complete with quotes and comments. The site appears free of grammar and spelling miscues, and every article is dated. While the actual writers of the articles are not referenced, the source of the articles and the date they were first published is always made available.

To wrap things up, I would give the Peak Oil websites a collective nine out of ten rating. The only real way I think the sites could improve is if they both got a bit of a web design upgrade. China.org.cn is a very visually attractive website that provides important information, but the feeling readers will get from the site is that they are being told what the Chinese government wants them to know, not necessarily what they should know. I would rate China.org.cn a seven out of ten.