Gigapets? Rhett Miller? Sushi? What IS Big in Japan? Big in Japan is a (surprisingly Texas-based US-based) company in the process of completing a "Web 2.o toolkit" which includes a number of valuable services to help bloggers promote their blogs. Big in Japan calls its products "pro-sumer" products since they are for promotion purposes and made to mix, match and mash. Big in Japan claims:
"Use these prosumer blogging tools and you can be Big in Japan."
The services in the toolkit are as follows:
- PodServe - podcasting tool offering a simple way to create, host and list your podcast.
- FrankenFeed - syndication tool which makes it so easy to combine multiple feeds.
- elfURL - URL creation tool allows you to shrink giant URL's to more manageable units.
- InstantFeed - syndication tool which enables feed delivery to your instant messenger.
- QwikPing - ping service tool for getting the message out once your blog has updated.
- FeedVault - feed reading list manager which allows you to manage your OPML reading list and save it in one safe place.
- MailFeed - syndication by email for people who are not down with RSS and atom feeds.
- SocialMail - email via syndication for people who want email delivered via RSS.
- StatsTool - metrics management tool which enables you to pull together all your different metrics packages into one place.
PodServe may be the most well-known service. However, StatsTools sounds very useful as it will allow you to pull together the metrics of all your different blog offerings. So in essence I should be able to see my FeedBurner, Google Adsense, Amazon and a load of other services all in one place. The Big in Japan tools are built on the Ruby on Rails version 1 framework and several of the services are not yet available but I am anxious to see them completed. For updates be sure to stay tuned to the Big in Japan blog.
