What would happen if you combined Google Maps, Wikipedia, and personal experiences of English speakers in Japan?This is a question that Kiyotaka Maruyama decided to answer by creating Japan-Hopper.com, an interactive website that lets you use English to search for a place in Japan, and then either read a related Wikipedia entry or a review from someone who actually went to the place you searched for.
In the media
Reading personal accounts, together with pictures, and covering details such as access, prices and accommodation is such a good idea that it has earned Japan Hopper a mention in the Japanese newspaper “Nihon Keizai Shimbun†and on Radio Nikkei.
Looking for authors
Japan Hopper has been up and running since 2006, and the database is filling up with articles, but obviously not quickly enough because Kiyotaka is looking for more authors, and he’s willing to pay for it, too!
Get paid for writing about your experiences in Japan
It’s a deal which should appeal to English teachers who have lots of free time, little money and the desire to see Japan:
Update: Japan-Hopper have changed their site around and it seems impossible to find the page offering the writing work from the website itself. However, you might find it here. Â
With japan-hopper.com, we want to recruit people experiencing Japan and wanting to write about it. Although you still don’t having experience in writing articles, you can use this way to achieve experience writing on Japan Hopper.
1. Article requirements
ï½¥Article concerning Japan
ï½¥The written language has to be English
ï½¥The article should contain a minimum of 200 words.2. Earning
ï½¥The average fee for one article, depending on the contents, varies from 1,000 to 2,000 Yen .
ï½¥By contributing high quality photographs, the fee will increase.
ï½¥By writing more detailed information in the article, the fee will increase.3.Contract
Contents purchasePlease send the following information to the person in charge’s address, if you are interested.
1. Name
2. Age
3. Gender
4. Article writing experience
5. Good topicsinfo@japan-hopper.com
Help our cash-strapped friends, promote Japan Hopper
I think Japan Hopper is a useful site with great potential, and the financial incentive to submit an article is more than fair. However, I don’t think it has had the exposure it needs among the foreign community to really grow, which is why I’m helping to get the word out. I’m sure all of us here in Japan know someone who could do with some extra cash in their pocket, so why not give Japan Hopper a mention?
Thanks to Daily J for the heads up.
If you like, you can find me on Twitter at @nick_ramsay. I'd love to hear from you!
This is a pretty interesting idea. Considering how hard it is to find things around Japan in English (well … on Google and Yahoo.ca, that is), I’m surprised that this site doesn’t rank higher in the results.
Perhaps instead of paying so much for an article, Japan Hopper could invest some of that money in advertising on GaijinPot or something similar 😕
Either way, it’s a great idea and I’ll be sure to post any info (with pics) for sites I think are missing. Although I haven’t been to many places, yet, it would be nice to write something positive and share some pictures with others who would like to enjoy the many sites this country has to see 🙂
With the amount of writing you do, you could probably pull in a nice monthly bonus from this… except you’d spend it all visiting the places you want to write about! 😛
mmm this sounds like an interesting opportunity. I’m going to Japan for three weeks in the Spring and surely I will be able to write some articles for it! Thanks, Nick!
I think it’s a great way to get contributors but when I looked at the site I don’t see much advertising so I’m not quite sure how he plans to recoup the costs. Maybe I overlooked something or else there might be plans of advertisers after he has more content.
Advertisers come when a site is popular. To be popular he needs good content, hence buying articles. I’ve outsourced article writing myself and had good results from it. You just need a good plan, patience, and cash upfront. 😉
Seems to me that he would benefit more from a JapanSoc style promotion method.
Get bloggers to write in return for backlinks/traffic.
I think that could be the best source.