Today I came home to a great surprise. Got a free copy of the December 2009 issue of Otaku USA Magazine. Why did I get a free copy? Well, that's because you'll find us in the magazine ^_^.
Ok well, not exactly a story on us (yet), but on page 117 you will see a banner for this site and the store. Very exciting and this issue of Otaku USA has lots of good stuff, particularly about Clamp (duh) and all the series Clamp is responsible for like the recent Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle and who can't forget Card Captor Sakura and Chobits? Just browsing through I saw a very cool article too on the beginnings of anime with stuff that would make Gigantor look new.
I know many of you miss NewType being in the states but Otaku USA is probably the biggest anime magazine in the country with over 300,000 subscribers and can be found at many news stations and even at Walmarts. Been trying to get an ad together for them for some time now and hopefully this won't be the last time our banner is in there as well as hopes of being in there in an article. I am responsible for a BusinessWeek article so it's only a matter of time ^_^
Many sites have this, the ability to post their feeds with thumbnail photos, but my God is it a pain to find out HOW to do it, even for a programmer, like me. Even more of a trouble is that my blogs are all run from my own server/sites; so, despite this being a "blogger" blog, I get no customization love from Google being that this isn't a .blogspot blog or Wordpress blog -_-
Having thumbnail recent posts and label posts looks far better than the regular text feeds we commonly see with RSS feed aggregation. Thanks to a new reworking on the feed2js by engadgeteer.com's Bryan (who btw is also an anime fan), I was able to finally automate, thumbnailed posts for my blog and their labels. Of course, I'd like to have the code be local to my own site for SEO and security purposes, but this will do for now till I work a deal with them.
Check out some of the areas I've added recent posts to, like the front page (at the bottom), here (check below), and even on sections like anime figures, cosplay and anime music. Now with this, I can bring back old sections of the site like say Final Fantasy VII Tifa's section and have all posts about Tifa show under her gallery of photos automatically. This will then be integraded with the Member's Blog for more exposure to your posts.
Speaking of the member's blog, um, some of you signed up to blog and possibly win Nendoroid Kureha but haven't posted a single post -_- You have to be in it to win it guys, and being in the contest means posting on the Member's Blog .
Thanks again engadgeteer.com and their developer, Bryan for this much needed feature.
Got an iPhone? Well, now you won't have to wait too long for my site to load. As of today I made a very simplistic but somewhat useful mobile section to the site. as of this post, if you go to the main part of my site, chucksanimeshrine.com and you have an iPhone, you will be redirected to the Mobile page. From there you can view that anime, figure, idol photo galleries and the mobile version of this blog as well.
If you don't have an iPhone, you can still bookmark that page. The links should still act accordingly for your phone since the blog link goes to the rss feed and the gallery link goes to the MoblieMe gallery page directly , thus if your phone can convert an RSS page and if the MobileMe site can detect your phone...it should work ok. Also, as you can see below, a few week ago or so I added an iPhone web icon for the site so this site can almost act and look like an iPhone app.
If I can, down the road I'l add the video, music and store sections...but for now, lets keep it simple ^^;
Something I should have done long ago, but up is the Chuck's Anime Shrine Flickr group. Post what ever anime/otaku related photos you want up there. This adds another way to submit fan art than just the MobleMe part of my site. The group is new but hopefully it can help gain some eposure for all of you ^^;;
Just a little addition I did for the site in preparation for an iPhone/mobile friendly version of the site. I made an iPhone webclip icon for the homepage of your phone. It's from the picture I drew and looks a lot better on the iPhone/ iPod Touch springboard than the typical screenshot.
So, if you want to add this site to your iPhone, go ahead and the image above is what you'll see ^_^
How To Create an iPhone Webclip Icon for Your Website:
Create a 57x57 pixel .png image
Name it "apple-touch-icon.png"
Add it to your site's root folder (web docs root..not your server)
Last Tuesday me, along with a select few got the honor to visit the BusinessWeek headquarters in NYC. We were nominated as BusinessWeek's top readers of 2008 and the purpose of the meeting was to go over what BW and the BusinessWeek.com site should improve on and try to portray in this coming year. At the top floor of the McGraw-Hill building we were greeted to a wonderful and very talkative cocktail party and then a very tasty dinner and dessert.
The view from the 50th floor (in dire need of a better camera ^^;)
The whole set up was thanks to BusinessWeek's Editor-in-Chief, John Byrne, and his top editors of whom we got to meet with. It was wonderful to see such a large media company take the time and effort to reach out to their readers like this. John and the staff are all very down-to-earth and a pleasure to speak wit. In no way, shape or form did we feel belittled by them being there. (Can't say the same about my p/t job's boss though.) One of the obvious truths we are seeing in public media is that the media is being diluted by the numerous blogs and of course the dwindling newspaper sales thanks to the good old internet.
The one of the biggest topics we talked about though was the workings of different comment systems on the website and on sites in general. Currently, BW has a more welcoming commenting system than say engadget.com or youtube. For the most part you can state your opinion logically like an educated adult and not get too much slack. The balance of whether to have comments or not is always a big choice for a webmaster. There are times that garbage and childish comments by "trolls" can ruin the image of a story or site, yet the user ingagement make the site come alive so you do need it to some degree. One good example just from here on CAS is the fact that I had to make it so members only can post on the "Otaku Blurbs". This was after a troll or two got a hold of the feature.
So, what comment system would be good for both here or on a site on say, BusinessWeek?
A quick shot us at the table
The other major topic that came up has been the current buzz on the web for the past year now. I'm talking of course about Twitter. In the coming months, BW will be utilizing both the comment system and Twitter together in different ways, most likely with use of # hashmarks to better categorize the events in business and throughout their site. Finding a use for Twitter outside of its obvious social fad has been the main question for many in both social and business circles. I mentioned a bit of a site I just started working with, beamagpie.com in which you can approve tweets to broadcast on your account and the more followers you have..the more you can get payed. Not certain on how well it'll work and I'll assume more like it will be down the road. Granted of course, my goal is to never come off as money grubbing advertiser on Twitter. Such actions by any person there will prevent any meaningful followship and might cause many of the issues that plague Facebook for the site as a whole.
I'll ask you, the readers of CAS... what do you find useful about Twitter? For me right now, it drives traffic to my site...and is a great place to vent with listeners.
...
After a 4+ hour talk we all parted our ways and we even got some great parting gifts as well like a shirt, BusinessWeek bag, flash memory card and flashlight. Another little tidbit is that this might be the first of many meetings with a potential creation of the Business Week Readers Advisory Panel.
Part of our parting gifts, a BW flash memory card
Here's the awesome BW we got
To everyone I met there at the meeting, I had a great time and it was an honor to meet you all, both the wonderful readers and the BW staff ^_^ Sorry I didn't mention any names, didn't want to single anyone out at all.
Here's to a great 2009 and hopefully more insightful meetings like this one.
Just added a new feature today. For those who want to advertise say their anime con, anime store, video game store, sushi restaurant, etc; you can now do that on the site. The link can be found under the Sponsors section or where you might see this cute pic of Yuki Nagato.
The traffic on my site has been on the rise over the past year. I was thinking of doing what otaku guru Danny Choo does by selling adspace at a fixed rate, but my site has yet to even reach half the views he has ^^; (Danny gets about 10 or so million unique visitors a month and his ad prices are actually really good for that kind of exposure..so check it out if you can as well)
Currently, as of this date, my average daily unique views are about 2000 with it growing every week (or about 60,000 a month). My alexa ranking is at about 190,000 and about half or more of my traffic comes to the blog here. I'll be posting stats from my webhosts her on this post or on futrue posts...so you guys know exactly how much is coming in.
The ad box is done by projectwonderful.com and instead of giving a flat rate for ads, they let me simply auction off the spot. This makes it fair for any would-be advertisors since you can determine the daily price of your ad. Its starting off free, but won't be that since somebody can out bid you at any time ^^;
Ad info:
Size: 300px x 200px Prefered ads: anime, game, japan, gadget, otaku related items (yep, I own an anime store but I don't mind anime store links shown there as well)
For the second time I once again grace the front page of BusinessWeek's website. This time, instead of poking fun at Secretary of Treasury Paulson, I got my own article up there. The article might not be anything of use for my fellow anime fans but in it I talk about how email is the number one form of communication between me and my customers, which is usually fellow otaku. Business has been getting rather busy but even so, I'm not answering phone calls like a maniac as seen in my day-job or in many other businesses. Granted, the anime fan demographic is that of people who are in this century and who would use email instead of a phone to answer simple questions.
Basically, we all know jobs could and should be kept here in the US (for those of us living in the US). I know many people, anime fans or not would love job opportunities to open up if major companies just keep their international staff internationally. Anyways, check up on the article if you'd like.
I know, I'm a bit late on this now that it's Jan. 4th but here's my little look back of 2008, my anime site during 2008 and other cool events.
For many, it was a crappy year. The warnings I gave many who threw their money and time into things like expensive college degrees for so-called "good jobs", to stocks to a new home sure got their rude awakening. I feel bad for those who didn't fair well in 08 and I do hope for a better 2009 but I'll say it again....if you don't get control of your life (instead of depending on a job or boss to take care of you), this will happen over and over again. The financial morons who caused many problems will go away free and those who thought that working hard for a job will once again get the short end of the stick. You all work hard, so do what you love and love what you do. Don't get a degree or job just because your parents said "There's money in it" That's nothing but slavery with a paycheck attached to it. Anyways, on to the anime site.
As some of you know as of a few weeks ago I claimed my freedom from my job. Well, I'm still at my job but only on a part-time deal (two days a week to be exact). I did leave out of anger and frustration plus the anime biz has been growing like crazy. The full "Leap of Faith" will happen but I'm basically a free man as of x-mas eve.
Anyways (sry ranting again ^^), some of you might have noticed a lack of updates..that's mainly from the the anime biz getting well...busy. Economists and the public cried how sad sales and business was for 2008 but I sure saw different. Here's a list of what happened in 2008 for me:
(Please note that I'm not doing this to brag, I wanted to show you all that 2008 didn't have to suck and if you just follow your dreams and ignore society's crys for unneeded extended college time, jobs and drudgery, you'll do fine. Of course anything you do, you got to work for it. Make sure you work for yourself and you are not wasting your life filling you're boss's pockets and ego.)
Aquired anime.fm
Started my own personal blog at charlesgaffney.com
CAS version 4.0 redesign
Gave out figures for contests
Gave out Free Death Note Movie II Tickets thanks to a deal with Fathom Events
Anime sales in 2007 $40K. In 2008: $90K! Thats a 125% increase in sales! Screw 2008 economics
became a videogame reviewer
expanded current anime items on hand from $2000 to $12000 making my store the largest storage of anime figures this side of NY!
Got on BusinessWeek's front page a few times
CAS traffic maxes out at about 170,000 rank on alexa.com...that's about 2000 people a day. Not amazing but not too bad.
Qualified for a Google Adsense check for the first time.
Became a BusinessWeek columnist
turned my day-job into a two day a week p/t (almost a no time ^^;) thus making me a full time anime blogger and store owner!
See! 2008 didn't suck for everyone. Us otaku don't follow the norm and while everyone was crying we just stayed in our own anime-loving world doing what we like.
I really want to thank all the fans of the site and all my customers for making 2008 a wonderful year. 2009 will be even better. I do plan on doing at least one anime con appearance and with my store, I should once again get professional passes to SDCC . It's one heck of a trip from NY but it would be great to first see it in person.
The countdown has begun. I did it. After years of claiming one day I will, after years of doing a network marketing company (hence why between 2004 and 2007 I was absent) and now the almost two years of running the anime business, I've finally put my two weeks (more like week and a half) resignation into my job. I was originally claiming that I was doing this before my 25th Birthday in November but, due to being offered health insurance, I stayed. This past Friday, the second week of working mostly from home, the stress my job gave me along with the back-lashing because I was home finally made me throw in the towel. On Dec. 24th 2008, the one year anniversary of Danielle and I's engagement, I will no longer be an employee. From that day on (as long as things go well of course) I will be working this site, anime.fm, charlesgaffney.com (BuisnessWeek connections) and the figure biz full time. My "title" will be a full time Otaku, writer, blogger and Anime Store Owner. Gone are the time cards, the morning commute, the pointless belittling that occurs in all jobs. As long as things go well, I will finally, finally own my life and Danielle will soon also do the same (no more Bob's Stores!).
The economy sure is scary right now. Lots of lay-offs are happening. Loads of people won't have a home or a job to go to, while you have me, a 25 year old otaku, a Computer Science semi-grad who is telling the corporate world "please take my job, for I don't want it."
I'm trying to prove my mantra as true. The truth that you can run your own life by following your dreams and doing what you love. Too many times I've seen people toss their dreams for a so-called "good job." When the schooling for that job, the boot licking and the stress caused by this job along with the inevitable layoff has done nothing but hurt you and your future. Chances are you don't want to do what you do and it's the very thing that causes us all to age and die from the inside out. If it wasn't for the Internet, yes, getting a good job would still be a good deal since starting a business would be that much more harder to do. Times have changed though society, schools and even our parents won't think that is so. While jobs fall everywhere, these pillars of our life will think it is still in our best interest to spend tens of thousands of dollars in college when, truthfully, if you don't have the scholarships and you have something like a business, a possible music, writing or art career, that that path would actually be the better route to take and more fulfilling to your being. Here's part of my letter to my boss:
"...I've made myself seem like I'm just some lowly worker who just follows orders like a child but despite the childish behavior that constantly comes from the unneeded, frantic panic at work; I've always just took it and did what needed to be done. I have been grateful for the chance you gave me to work from home and the other help you have given me when things were down but since my being at home seems to offend others and I must be a babysitter of some sorts, I'll come in next week and the week after during the normal times and even on Tuesday the week of Christmas but Christmas Eve will be my last day or any time sooner if you see fit."
I want to thank all my current and future fans/customers for helping me do this and I will bring back contests and other cool stuff as this site and the internet in general progresses.
Hey, and I think its pretty cool to be a "full time otaku." So enough of the deep talk. Time to celebrate ^_^. Below is the video I always wanted to show as my victory dance...
This is a few months late but I just had to write about this. After reading Sanjo-chan's blog on it I had to put in my two-cents. Many of you otaku know that Toonami stopped airing in late September. Many of us can thank Toonami for turing us into otaku. I started right at the very beginning in 1997 and I've seen up until about a year or two ago when Toonami only had Naruto as their only anime.
When I stated in the past that it was Final Fantasy VII that helped me become an otaku after years of just being a gamer, that was just half the story. I am still upset of the downfall of Toonami and anime in general on Cartoon Netwoork so I feel I have to let you know my story and where I'm going as an otaku because I might have a hand in what is to come. If you'd care to read on, here's my story:
Back in 1997, which was now 11 years ago, I was in the 7th grade. (Yeah, I turned 25 as of last Saturday so I'm an older otaku). Back then my days were basically that of playing baseball, hockey and football watching the New York Ranger's hockey and playing lots of video games after school. In September of 1996, Pokemon came to the US and I would watch it every morning at around 6am. I watched it not because I was an anime fan but because I was a fan of the game, which BTW still holds my record consecutive play time of 13 hours. Yes, I one day played Pokemon Blue for 13 hours straight. Sure wish I could have that kind of free time now. Anyways, anime's height in America at the time was the rare showings on Sci-fi channel and the occational Miyasaki runs on pay-per-view (Princess Mononoke to be exact). Finding anime was tough here at the time and as both a jock and a gamer, anime wasn't something I really knew of.
The popularity of Pokemon woke up the execs of Cartoon Network and thus Toonami months later came to be with its first host, Moltar from Space Ghost Coast To Coast; Cartoon Network's only in-house production at the time (more on those in a bit). During the spring of that year I was introduced to Final Fantasy VII by my long time friend, Tiago Barros. He had a Playstation and I was just a Nintendo boy so I went to his house often to fight him in Dragon Ball GT Final Bout, Bust-A-Move and of course watch him play FFVII. He would tend to leave mid game to watch Sailor Moon and Dragon Ball Z on Toonami. I didn't know what the appeal was and I just played the games while he watched. Shortly, I began to watch Toonami with him and with my love for Tifa in FFVII, I was all over the internet (aka the World Wide Web at the time) looking for more info and getting into Toonami and anime. It was then I became an otaku. I of course went beyond Toonami in terms of series to watch since not all anime was shown on there, but it was Toonami that got me into it in the first place (along with FFVII).
Fast forward to 2001-2002, I was in the 12th grade and I was in Miss. Beris' Web design class in New Field High School, mainly to kill time. A project was due to create a full working website and thus this site, Chuck's Anime Shrine, was born. Thanks to Newgrounds.com, in which alot of the design ideas came from, my site became popular with otaku since it was one of the few places pre-You-Tube to have AMV videos to view. Because of this site and my anime fandom, I met Danielle who is now my fiancee and turned this site into a business that is on a roll. Sales will be double of last years, very close to $100K and as of last month, my profits matched my job's income...even when I only listed and sold a fifth of the items I have on hand and not even a tenth of items on the way. I can safely say that my job is now completely expendable and my originally failed plan to escape the 9-5 rut is only a few months away or less.
As you see I owe a bunch to Toonami and have lots to be upset for them being gone, but here's the surprise you get for reading through this very large blog post; I'm going to use my newly gained anime presence to try to bring back something like Toonami or Toonami itself. Remember my good friend Tiago who I thank dearfully for converting me into an otaku? Well, for the past 5 years he's actually been working in Atlanta with Adult Swim and more recently with Cartoon Network headquarters. Toonami's death and anime's slowdown on Cartoon Network can be blamed for Adult Swim's transformation to Cartoon Network First Party Only shows but once I'm freed from the chains of a 9-5 job, I'll make this one of my big goals. So, Tiago, if you are reading this, I'll be in touch with you soon on some things.
Anime.fm is a site I recently aquired that even got the attention of our favorite blogger, Danny Choo and if you are reading Danny, turning Anime.fm into what Toonami was would be a great idea for us on it if you still want to work with me on it ^_~. Let's also not forget that I'll be training to be an anime voice actor along with making video games for Flash, X-box 360 and Apple iPhone so very soon my dream of being a force in the anime/game industry will be a reality. In other words, I have connection in the right spots.
Hope you guys like the new look of the site and the lack of updates was because of the huge number of anime orders I had to deal with so check up on my updates as they will be more frequent again. Though I didn't quit Berger-Bros like I wanted to a few weeks ago, the time is soon and with all that is in front of me now, my days an a meager employee are almost done. Below is the final broadcast of Toonami but I'm using this blog post to let you all know that anime won't die if I have something to do about it, since I might be in the coming months.
(Also, don't forget that Toonami still lives on with its Jetstream website)
After a long weekend and a rather buggy computer slowing me down, I'd like to introduce you to Chuck's Anime Shrine version 4.0. Now the completed product is still in the works but I'm sure you have noticed the difference here. Here's a list of what is new, what is gone and what's on the way:
New: -Recreated the whole look of the site to look like... well, a shrine!
-random backgrounds at the top (6 for now)
-a smaller blog address (thanks to redirects)...but the working url is still the same; new blog link shortcut: chucksanimeshrine.com/blog.html
-twitter : you get to see my twitter status, of course I do what you all to do tweets from here as well in the future
-addthis.com button: a simple button for adding posts to a large amount of news, blog sites
-fewer ads
-less cluttered blog
-broader page size
-MobileMe embedded gallery
-Fanart gallery that you can submit your work to
-an idol section; yes, you can now view japanese idols here as well
-anime figure gallery
-anime music section; the same system I have on anime.fm
-all older sections of the site are in the sitemap for now but will soon be integrated - "Non-series" pictures are all now part of the anime gallery with new pictures -all old fanart items will be added soon
On the way:
-If you are viewing this from the home page, I promise it will look nicer and will be more useful than just a text copy of the blog
-more contests: submit your fan-art to the new fan-art section because the best ones will be selected in the next contest and hopefully future ones as well
-more picture submission albums in the gallery
-all the anime series I currently have (not many) will have all their pictures in the gallery soon
-More anime series sections and pictures
-a better amv section, if possible
-this site to appear in Otaku USA (for the store mainly)
Well, there you have it. Version 4.0 is not a 100% but now the stage is set for a more functional site and more content for me to easily add and you all as well. Now I'm off to watch some uncut season one DBZ, I'm beat @_@.
If any of you went to the anime store section of the site, you probably noticed a huge bunch of items are now gone. Don't worry though, I did this to fully optimize the store for the coming x-mas season. The store is over a year old now, and my original method of doing business was to have a few items from my only dealer at the time and put those in a "special category" to show that they are ready for immediate shipment. Everything else on the over 3000 item list was items I could get from that dealer but I'd have to wait almost 4 business days to be able to hand them out plus there were times that my wholesaler said were in but they themselves needed to update their site. Granted, the items I have kept for the store constantly come and go thanks to my amazon.com and ebay.com branches and I've held a perfect customer record on both sites. This year's sales are also very close to $100,000 but with the main store's site lagging in performance and with weird shipping amounts, I simply had to fix it. Also over time I have added a bunch of dealers including one for videogames that I have yet to utilize plus a very hefty stock of about $15,000 worth of items in storage at my house ^^;
With the success of the store, I've begun even more expansion with get this, about $40,000 worth of anime figures, manga, DVDs and more now on pre-order! This is for the coming months up till May of 09, with much more to be added to that list. Browse and shop the store all you like and the exact quantity of what I have to ship asap is there, plus all orders in the US that are over $100 get free shipping! As of today, the list looks small but I have loads of items on hand that I have yet to add along with an even bigger list of figures and otaku goodies for pre-order.
This is all part of the transition to version 4.0. Speaking of version 4.0, take a look below to see a quick peek at the new look of this site and hopefully the store as well ^_^.
-The final layout will look even better than this early image from about a week ago with the images behind the shrine randomly changing behind the shrine (yes, it'll acually be a shrine). Page-refresh backgrounds are nothing new on the web but a much smoother look with new features coming as well. (Sorry about the small iPhone images ^^;)
Looks like my comments about the US economy got me on the front page of businessweek.com! My anime business and my old health business got me to realize different sides of the financial spectrum and as some of you know, many of us (including myself) were furious about that now failed Paulson $700 bailout plan that was going give the crooks who stole from the US the money back. I know this isn't really otaku related but I would assume that man of you can't avoid the news on it so I''m extra happy to see that my comments got me to the front page of the biggest business site on the web. You have to be living under a rock to not know that the US economy is in the crapper. Caused by the nepotism between Wall Street and the government, greedy Real Estate agents and loan sharks and an overpriced and overrated college system that teaches everyone to be worthless 9-5 cubical-slaves, this economy was just a house of cards that was ready to fall. All isn't doom and gloom though; one of my anime wholesalers, Diamond Comics did a report on the increase in sales anime and collectible goods and the turnout at the New York Anime Festival 2008 sure doesn't show signs of a recession there. Thankfully the internet has given all of us a voice and I'm very humbled and honored that I'm featured on the front page of one of the biggest business sites in the world. I of course commented about the incompetence of Treasury Secretary Paulson. Here's my entire comment:
"Secretary of Treasury Paulson was the CEO of Goldman Sachs, turned the company's $30 Billion debt into $100 Billion. The guy is not even qualified to count your cash as a teller at any bank let alone come up with anything that deals with money or in this case, have the US taxpayers write him a blank check. The guy hardly qualifies enough to flip burgers since there would need to be someone there to make sure he doesn't miscount the orders!"
The number 8 is lucky in Asian cultures and although I'm not Asian I'd like to share you some great news as of today for my anime business since its 8:08pm on 8/8/08. As of today I have finally got the capital outlay I needed for all my products that will insure me not just a safe trip out of the job world but hopefully a 2009 with a six figure income. On a previous post I mentioned that for my first year as an anime dealer in 2007, Chuck's Anime Shrine did roughly $40K in sales...that mark was already hit around April of this year! Basically from this point on, I'll be working to simply profit and get the heck out of my job. I did state that Sept 19th might be my freedom day from the 9-5 drudgery, but if things don't go as 100% planned... I'll just set it sometime before my 25th BDay in early November.
Another cool tidbit is that I'm in the works of dealing directly with Milestone, one of Japan's figure manufacturer and creators of that amazing Elena Varenskaya Nurse figure. This would make Chuck's Anime Shrine eventually be an anime wholesaler and help even more in my quest to be free from a job.
If that's not all on this lucky 8 day, I got an email from a BusinessWeek editor who will feature a little blurb about me and the anime biz on the BusinessWeek site. More on that in the future.
So why should you care? Well, first off I don't intend to really brag. I'm just truly excited that my days of working a job are now really numbered and no job means much, much more time will be focused on the anime Flash game, "Project Fumi", AMVs, a better store with more stuff and of course my dream of turning this site into one of the best resources for any otaku. This also means I'll have more contests with even better prizes ^_^ Thanks goes to you all for being great fans of this site and my store.
Looks like here at Chuck's Anime Shrine the site's traffic continues to grow. As of a few days back, the site's traffic has finally reached high enough where it is now viewable on the number 1 tracking site alexa.com. As of this post, chucksanimeshrine.com ranks roughly 300,000 out of all the sites on the web in traffic but this site's weekly ranking is now at 170,000 of all sites. In other words, the site is on the grow and will probably beat the 100,000 rank in the coming months. At first I got scared this wouldn't happen because last week traffic fell horribly thanks to me cutting one of my traffic sources by accident ^ ^; A rough estimate shows that the entire site altogether gets about 500 unique viewers a day or about 15,000 a month. This is nothing compared to the 2.8 million my favorite site outside this one, dannychoo.com gets...but a ranking on Alexa at 170,000 sure beats the old ranking I had at the end of '07 at around 1,300,000.
I really want to thank the fans of the site for helping it continue to grow and I will continue to add more content to the site and also back into the anime galleries as well. FYI...there is a contest going on to win a free Fate/Stay Night Rin figure so jump on it if you can ^_^
A quick look at the site and you can easily see there has been some changes. Gone are the boxes that showed up mainly due to Dreamweaver table glitches and incompatibility between the major browsers. Hopefully now the site looks better on your computer. Most people have a 1024 x 768 resolution so if you have that or larger, the site should be much less cluttered and should fit well on the screen. Sorry if you have a 800x600 screen resolution, you'll have to side scroll a bit but with that resolution or lower I doubt you don't do that for many sites. If you use firefox or IE the site now will look almost 100% identical in both browsers which is not always an easy task. Hope you guys like it ^_^ Now that the template is more cleaned up, updates and new sections will be even more of a breeze.
No, this is not a late April fools joke. As of today I purchased the domain rights and the space for anime.fm. This site used to be an anime radio station but as one can expect, the bandwidth charges got too much for the former owner. Back before youtube and animemusicvideos.org when Chucks Anime Shrine was one of the very few places you would find amvs, I almost suffered the same fate. As much as I loved that everyone enjoyed our music videos, many people placed them in their forums, on the signatures in their forums and on their xanga (pre-myspace) page. Of course much has changed since 2003 and now web convergence, blogs, rss feeds and streams is the name of the game. The main goal for anime.fm is to make it an anime blog central location linking many anime blogs and the like and yes eventually as the site matures (and after making all the correct legal actions), I do wish to have streaming music from anime and video game titles. If anyone has any ideas for the new site please pass them over to me. As for past fans of anime.fm, hopefully it is of some relief that an anime fan and site owner took over the site. Too many times I see sites get taken over by some loser domain purchaser who just turns the site into a bland sea of links that are nothing but google adsense links in order to profit from every click on the site. Misspell any popular site and you'll know what I mean.
(I'll also make sure to get a better logo soon too)
Here is the first figure I wish to show you guys. I'm pre-ordering this item for my store and I just wanted to know what you all though of it. In case you didn't know, Shunya Yamashita's work includes Sera-Chan, Mirei-San, Shii and others. These tend to sell through the roof and for good reason. This one is expected to come out in January 2008 but I'm hoping it could come in before x-mas. Pre-order it here.
