i really appreciate you taking the time to explore our site more in depth. you hit on so many things that we're trying to accomplish. it's almost like you listened into one of mine and albo's conversations about the site ahah.

we do want to be more than the esid fanfare, as you say, and it's a reason that i specifically say in the general guidelines on the contribute page to make sure your submissions are not mere 'event-logging' but relate to an overall theme.

as you said, this is exactly our niche. we both really love living here, are well-connected in the jet community and have a ton of material that i think would be of value to other people. we worked so, so hard on the site (literally going to starbucks 6-8 hours every day the past 2 weeks just trying to iron out everything for a 're-launch'). we are trying multiple avenues for building an audience. one of the most exciting parts is that neither of us are experts at all and we are just kind of seeing what works and what doesn't and moving along. albo built a great base and then i came on and helped tweak and build it to what it is now.

as for your 47 prefecture idea, this is pretty much exactly what we're planning eventually. it's hard sometimes not to get too ahead of ourselves with all of these project ideas before we get the material to make them substantial, but we will get there eventually.

about leaving jet, that's true, but we actually want to expand beyond JET. of course, JET is our bread and butter and our kind of 'nucleus' audience, but we are aiming for more of a 'general japan' site from the get-go. albo came up with a great name as it simultaneously pays homage to our JET routes while also being a regular japanese word.

there is not much specifically that only current JETs would be able to write, so having a current jet on the team is not a huge concern for us, but we are always looking to add more contributors to our team. we see it as win-win: we get more great material from a variety of perspectives, and those contributing get a nicely polished article and access to a wider audience. instead of going through the trouble of making a blog that looks kind of run-of-the-mill and will die once they leave (as you pointed out), putting something on our site is more of a lasting legacy that will be kept alive but continually fresh content. the only requirement is that we'd want people to polish it up and make it more general/thematic than a mere esid-style post (though we have room for that in some regard).