Making some changes

A few of you may have noticed last week that my CNet blogging days have come to a end. This was a tough decision for me to make because CNet Asia has really been fun over the past few years, and I don't have anything but praise for my editor and the other CNet bloggers. When asked to recommend a replacement I couldn't think of anyone better than Hideki Francis Onda, and I was delighted that he was willing to take over in my place. Do check him out.

Onwards and upwards

As for me, I'm starting fresh over on Gizmag.com. I'll be writing about the latest gadgets here in Japan, and I'll be posting a little more frequently than I was on CNet. On occasion I'll be doing some event coverage at trade shows here in Tokyo, so I'm excited about that (here's my first attempt). Although Gizmag might not be as recognizable as CNet, my exposure is going to take a jump. One article I did for them last week has a quarter million views already! It's nuts. So if you'd like to keep tabs on my Gizmag posts, you can check them out here:

URL: http://www.gizmag.com/author/rick-martin/

Note that there isn't any author-specific RSS feed, but I've hacked together one if you'd like to subscribe.

In other news...

Besides Gizmag, I recently completed a piece about Final Fantasy XIII for CNNgo and I hope that this is the first of many as well. It was the first gaming piece I've done since my DS Ninja experiment, and it was a lot of fun.

In addition to these gigs, I'm still doing more writing and editing for a few other publications and companies as well. While I didn't fully intend on writing for a living when I came to Tokyo it has kept me more or less afloat, though occasionally I've had to dip into my savings from China. I've also taken on a 1-hour-per-week English teaching gig near my home and even though it's been a while since I did any teaching it has been a lot of fun so far.

I think I'd still prefer to land a full time job rather than juggle multiple freelance gigs. But for now things are ok.

Oh yeah, before I forget... TokyoSocial.com is coming along pretty well too, although it's still not open for public viewing. I'm learning a lot from Alex, who seems to have the patience of saint in the face of my Drupal questions. The more I think about what TokyoSocial should be, the more I think it needs to be functionally similar to DalianDalian.com.  I've been blogging some of my thoughts over on Journalism 2.0, for anyone who's interested. On a somewhat related note, watching Chris and Takaaki's web/programming adventures recently has been super fun and educational as well, so hopefully I can keep learning stuff from all three of these guys.

I'm also peripherally involved with Cindy Mullins' and Doug Jackson's venture Media Tectonics here in Tokyo, and the media-related seminars that they've hosted over the past few months have been interesting. For me, prying my head away from the tech scene is refreshing, and the media types that show up at these events are always pretty fascinating.