[MOD] Obligatory New Year Post!

[fascinates]

Ofurotaimu's 2011 has been remarkable in terms of growth, reach, and activity. In this year we opened a lot of new connections (facebook, twitter, last.fm, etc.). We also added a few more posts (guides, odottemita spotlights, etc.). We had a lot of memes (bananas, sheep, and recently #smiling2012). We also forged connections with a lot of people from different places. There were a lot of, let's say, bad things that happened for both the community and the fandom, but in general 2011 has been a year of success for Ofurotaimu. And we thank you for that!

This is the first time we have a New Year post in the comm so we made it special by having each moderator of the community (from this comm and in tumblr) to say a few words. We hope you'll have the time to read them :).



TUNE seraphictune

Hi! This is Tune♪ I’m one of the moderators of ofurotaimu. I help update the ofurotaimu tumblr daily (well, almost daily) with new uploads. Like Stephie, I’ll write a spotlight once in a blue moon, or less. This year has been really eventful and I’m grateful for everyone I’ve met. Going through the utattemita tag daily, I’ve seen rather unnoticed utaites slowly gain in popularity, such as Kanzentaicell (hnnghh that ikebo) and Cocolu, and I’ve seen fun bandwagons such as PONPONPON and Maji Love 1000%. My Japanese has improved a lot more this year so I’ve gotten to know some utaites and producers better. I had the chance to help out Eon with his song title, Nameless Road, and to help edit a Smiling rap (project coming out in 2012 so look out for it!). Putting together a finished product requires a lot more work than one first realizes, so I’m also grateful for all the mixers, illustrators, animators, encoders, and organizers that I’ve met so far as well (and of course ofurotaimu members!)

My resolutions for next year would be to stay on top of releases, what with shiny events like Comiket and Vomas happening all the time, I tend to forget who’s on what CD XD Also, I would love to start up listening to namahousous again; there came a point when I listened to one all the time but then school came and the number I was able to listen to plummeted to zero (。▰ˇωˇ▰｡)…I’d also like to write more spotlights but I have to practice researching and comprehending music first >.>;; I’d also like to meet a lot more people! Anytime is ok~(*ゝ∀・*)-☆

More interaction between ofurotaimu members sounds like it could result in more fun memes like bananas and jumping sheep 8D I hope we all continue to get on swimmingly =w=b I can’t believe how much the community has grown since I first joined and how much we’ve expanded, I hope to see us grow much more from 2012 as well! I’m happy to have met you all, thank you for all the flaily, fangirling/fanboying times~ I appreciate all of the staff’s hard work and everyone who has come to take a dip in the ofuro☆


LEN southerncross

Hello! <3 I'm Len! I help update the tumblr but due to so much work, Tune is doing all the work now. ;A; I also wrote a couple of spotlights -- mostly utaite spotlights. I'm proud to say that I'm one of the first members of ofurotaimu back when Nikki started it in 2009. (I was forced into the fandom by Nikki D: But I'm not complaining. XD) Probably my best role in the community is to encourage Nikki and Stephie with their crack. It's hard work, mind you. XD

2011 is a fun year for me. Apart from all of those releases from my favorite utaite, I'm really happy to see how the community has grown. I've met a lot of amazing people -- all of which has made my stay in the fandom so enjoyable. :) I've gotten to know more utaite and encouraged more close friends to enter the fandom. I look forward to meeting more people from the fandom. I only know a handful from Twitter and Plurk but I'd like to meet more! And that would be one of my resolutions for 2012! To get closer to more fellow fans! \o/

On top of that, I am going back to listening to namahousou again. I tend to get sidetracked and not listen to my timeshifted lives so they expire. ;A; I also resolve to writing more spotlights again. ;A; I will also venture into vocaloid more too since I only stick to vocarock producers most of the time so I'll widen my range and listen to more producers! And of course, continue discovering new utaite!

For this year, please continue supporting Ofurotaimu! Thank you for contributing to the community! I hope everyone comments in the entries more so that there'll be more interaction! Enjoy your stay this 2012!!! <333


STEPHIE stephieku

Hello! This is Stephie, or Stephanie! I am one of the admins of ofurotaimu. I do most of the news and namahousou updates in our Twitter account and in the respective pools at the community. I also keep watch over the community/Twitter, answering questions and moderating posts. Once in a blue moon, I fill in for Vocaran or write a spotlight.

My resolutions for next year are to try to keep more up to date with new utaite and producers, and try to keep up with the rankings. Nowadays, I tend to pay more attention to CD releases over uploads, so I’ve been getting more and more behind on things going on at Nico Nico Douga. I used to catch namahousous everyday, but recently I only can pop in once in a while. A lot of new utaites and producers have been popping up, and I have a bad habit of sticking to my old favorites, and I need to be more adventurous. I also need to be more careful and stop tweeting on the wrong account or tweeting typos/incorrect information XD. Sorry about that! I also want to participate more in writing more posts or articles for the community, but first I need to gain more knowledge on music, genres, and singing first! I also want to be more proactive and think of more cool things to do with ofurotaimu and its members. Also I will try to continue to break people’s brains with puns and strange ideas :)

As for a wrap up this this year? This year felt really long for me, so it’s difficult to recall a lot of things that happened earlier in 2011, but overall it was a good year? …I don’t have the greatest memory, so sorry if I forget important things ;_;. I guess the biggest thing for me was being given the chance to write an article and do simple illustrations about Mikunopolis for Ann-MeltsP’s doujin “Los Annmelts”. It certainly could not have happened without help from Nikki and being part of ofurotaimu. Also I was really happy for the messages for my birthday and ofuro anniversary! I’m grateful to have great friends and members in this community and fandom, and no matter what happens in real life, I never feel alone. I hope next year will be the same in this regard! Sorry for the cheesiness XD I’m really grateful! Even for those of you who don’t know me that well, thank you for visiting ofurotaimu and please continue to visit in 2012!


NIKKI fascinates

Hello, this is Nikki, Ofuro's founder and admin. I'm mostly responsible for maintaining the portal (ofurotaimu.net), composing the Vocaran and Utaran writeups, as well as writing producer and utaite spotlights. I update the Facebook page and help Stephie in posting news in Twitter. I also act as a liaison between the English fandom (mostly Ofuro people) and the Japanese fandom (mostly producers).

To be honest, it has been hard maintaining Ofurotaimu last year. As some of you already know, I work in a publishing company and you know how terribly busy it can get (for those who watch Sekaiichi Hatsukoi, yes, that is the kind of 'busy' I am saying XD). It was hard juggling admin duties with RL so most of the time I've been away or missing scheduled posts (I'm sorry to Stephie for that ;;). Still, I'm amazed that we were able to do a lot of things in this comm. One of the hardest yet most rewarding was translating and providing information during Japan's big earthquake on March. It was when I had to translate Japanese info for English speakers then translate messages from English speakers to Japanese people. Another difficult but worthy thing I encountered was trying to bridge the Japanese and English Vocaloid fandoms, which has been quite hard. There were a lot of questions on how much fans outside Japan know about Vocaloid and how the impact of Vocaloid is to some countries, especially the Philippines. There were long discussions, but I learned a lot and I hope I've also somehow enlightened them ^^;.

Fandomwise I'm thankful for many things that people did. The fandom is growing fast and recently, the trend was all about odorites (Nico dancers)! That is why I'm eternally thankful for monocian's help with the Odorite spotlights since while I love watching them, I don't know a thing about dances. I also appreciate Utaran-san's decision to cross-post his rankings to the English Nico Nico so that people who feel scared/bad commenting in English in the JP website will feel at ease. I'm also glad that we've managed to encouraged some VocaloidPs to sell their stuff in sites that offer international shipping. I hope you also have taken advantages of these things, since they were catered specially towards the non-Japanese fandom.

I have a lot of things I want to fix this year, starting with my schedule so I don't mess up with the postings here in the comm. I also have concentrated more on Vocaloid last year so I'm trying to even it out and be updated with all aspects of the comm. There are many plans we want to implement this year, so we hope you'll also look out for them. As always, I couldn't say in so much words my gratitude to you guys for making this comm as successful as it can be. It's probably one of the fastest-growing NND-related communities outside Japan, and we're glad you're having fun in here. I hope I can make more interactions with you this year, not only in Twitter/Plurk but also in this community! Your comments mean a lot to us and makes writing the post worthwhile! Not only that. Since most of the posts here are linked to our twitters, producers and utaite can read them (Stephie and I know a few who are actually community regulars! D: ). So, commenting on a spotlight of your favorite utaite/P might actually mean a lot to the said person, too, when they read the entry.

This has gotten long. To those who've been long members of the comm, thank you very much! To those who are new, welcome and I hope you'll continue to stay! To those who don't know me, well, you're not missing much but I hope to talk with you in the future. That said, please continue to be part of Ofurotaimu all throughout 2012!



Okay, now that the greetings and all that are done, let's go with the more interesting aspect of this post. That is, STATS. You might remember we got ofurotaimu a domain as a portal and we also got it a paid account for Google Analytics. Although the analysis of visitors to the comm only started this September, I think it would be interesting for you guys to see :).



I wanted to upload screenshots of the analytics but they might be too boring, not to mention my Internet connection is so fast, so we'll just have text!

Note that these stats are from September-December 2011

Total site visits: 54 332 views
Total page views: 117 028 views
Estimated visits per day: 500 views
Pages read per visit: 2.15 pages
Unique visitors: 17 019 people
Returning visitors: 69.31%
New visitors: 30.69%

Most visits: October 26, 2011
Most page views December 30, 2011

Top countries in terms of number of visits:
1. United States (10 464 visits)
2. Canada (3848 visits)
3. Singapore (3710 visits)
4. Philippines (2302 visits)
5. Indonesia (2273 visits)
6. Malaysia (1811 visits)
7. United Kingdom (1669 visits)
8. Australia (1236 visits)
9. Thailand (1103 visits)
10. Japan (1051 visits)

Top pages/tags viewed
1. Nico Slang for Noobs
2. Nico Guide V: Namahousou
3. Namahousou Sched: October
4. Namahousou Sched: December
5. Namahousou Sched: November
6. News Pool: October
7. Guide to Buying Vocaloid/Utattemita Merchandise
8. Utaite Spotlight tag
9. Weekly Vocaran tag
10. PONPONPON Matsuri

* This is just an added bonus, but Stephie and I think it's interesting XD. Here are some keywords people used to search in Google and they ended up in Ofurotaimu. If any is yours, you're free not to comment XD.

- wakotsu
- ofurotaimy ; ofuro time
- what is utattemita
- vocaloid songs on crack
- kogeinu face
- noisy rubber soul
- what is mi-chan's ustream address
- soraru english i am pen
- utaite lon girl or boy
- loli lon
- is lon a guy utaite
- nero and clear relationship

Well, there you go XD! We hope the numbers will grow in time! Happy 2012!

Comments

keywords

[(Anonymous)]

Kogeinu face....LOL///////////

[ravient]

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!! I'm glad this comm is growing this big~ XD; *been a non-active member though* orz

Thanks so much for all of ur hard works, mods~ u're the best!! ^^

kogeinu face....... *feels guilty coz it's her fault entirely* orz

[stephieku]

lol.... those keywords XD;; A Vocaloid songs on crack post, do want!
I'm surprised the namahousou pool gets so much views... I should try updating that more frequently...

But to a great 2012 for ofurotaimu! I love you guys!

[attie]

Happy new year! You guys are the best ♥

Thank you for all your hard work in keeping us updated via so many channels~ I'm especially partial to the twitter updates!

[kagamite]

LOL those keywords. The last half of that list is particularly amazing. xDD

Thank you guys for all your hard work over the year! Ofurotaimu is a wonderful network of sites and accounts, and I'm really grateful for it. Here's hoping to a good 2012! (๑>◡<๑)

[arya3087]

Lol "kogeinu face"... XD

Happy New Year! I hope the new year will be a great year for you! And for the comm too! :3
Thank you for your hard work to keep the ofuro network updated~

[bankai]

Thanks so much for all of your hard work and dedication!

[jakuu]

happy new year everyone!

i hope ofurotaimu will grow even more in this year. and of course, thank you to all the mods and everyone else for contributing to this community, whether it is posting or commenting!

may this year be a wonderful year <3

[bunnyjinx]

Happy New Year guys! Thank you for all your hardwork in maintaining this comm <3 May 2012 be a wonderful year too(●´∀｀●)

how did the "nero and clear relationship" keyword results in ofurotaimu <><>

Them keywords!

[dog_and_wolf]

I may or may not be guilty of Kogeinu's face

LOLOL

BUT YES

Happy new year everyone!

[illuminis.livejournal.com]

happy new year! thank you for your hard work!

lol @ "vocaloid songs on crack" :D

[crystaligems]

I THINK I'M THE REASON WHY "Nico Slang for Noobs" IS THE MOST VIEWED. WWWW /hides

[crisyah]

Happy New Year and thank you for all your hard work, everyone! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

Even though I haven't been able to comment/participate much this past year (damn work!), I've always enjoyed reading the rankins/spotlights/etc!

[dakedo]

happy new year!! thank you for your hard work ;w;

i'm still a newbie but ofurotaimu helped me a lot with everything nico nico related :'D Let's go 2012!