Massive Metanorn Update: 4 Million Hits & the New Team!

You have been seeing a lot of NEW stuff lately, for some old-timers even the site but hells yes I have things to report:

NEW Theme, NEW Hits and the NEW Team~

It has been some time that I posted an update but work has been very hectic lately so the delay. With the new post by sassy the regulars sure know that the judging has ended after the whole hubbub over finding some new talent for Metanorn. Though, I have a lot more to talk about than just that so let’s start, shall we?

The NEW Metanorn: What didn’t get royally ducked

If you have been around, you’ve seen Metanorn struggle under bandwidth issues, network/server errors, threats to shut down (for content) and what not throughout the years. Specifically more so this year as we had both good and bad tidings. However, the bad was pretty much overcome and all in all it has been brilliant year for Metanorn because we saw growth in regular readers and the more reason for me to add varied content gauging the need.

From the admin point of view, I knew we could not forever burden the KK servers because of increased traffic. Not to mention the old theme was very heavy, cluttered and took too much time to load. When push came to shove, I finally decided to acquire a dedicated domain and hosting. Even that was a reality check because as Mint put it, their systems couldn’t take the awesomeness of Metanorn. This is where Kabitzin referred to a hosting services which is already housed SS!AB and some other aniblogs via his reference (he sure is doing much good out there xD). Even when the pricing is premium, I didn’t bother because I wanted a hassle free solution. So, enjoy fast page-loads and a wider, clean layout. I’ve tried my best to get rid of the old clutter.

Will being his awesome self volunteered his techiness and man, am I glad I could kidnap him from the DDD! He programmed the new theme just as I imagined it (ignore the not so straight lines, I had limited resources during travel); not to mention is still working on a wish-list that continuously changes with user feedback and internal QA. HUGE thanks goes out to this dude, who made our nifty and highly addictive Chatbox from scratch. I keep on tinkering with things while he fixes them. I’m a happy admin because of him. ^^

The NEW Hits: 4 MILLION & Counting! Ffffff-
Hato reminded me when I recruited for the first time; I posted about 3 million hits and now within a season I’m doing the same with another big M added (4.04M to be precise). I thought we’ll barely touch this figure by year-end but lo and behold, we reach this by November, even when it was a bad month because of all the migration, new domain and downtimes. It was only made possible because of our regular and faithful readers. You know who you are! THANK YOU for all the love!

Some shout outs from the old active authors before we go to our final round. That’s right, they have now graduated to senpais and getting their very own slav- err, kouhais to mentor.

Hato: Us old new Metanorn writers have been around for four months now, which is crazy. In a few weeks, the remaining few of us will have finally blogged and reviewed our first half / full series which is a massive achievement for us! What’s even more awesome is the fact that we have survived what seems like an endless amount of server changes, down-time, late nights, sleepless nights, hair-ripping nights and even more nights that involves so much panic and stress I won’t even begin to describe. Thankfully, our knight in shining armor, Will, came to our rescue (we kidnapped him) and we’re now on a stable server, with a bunch of awesome authors, awesome users, an awesome community and out awesome and lovely Overlord, Kyokai. The four months have been awesome, and hope I’m here a lot longer. These reviews aren’t gonna finish themselves! Long Live Metanorn!

Overcooled: Metanorn. I used to just lurk in the darkest corners of the site, but now it has become my home. Part of my second life, if you will. I like to imagine all the meta-bloggers live in this one big house, and it’s like a reality TV show where we yell at each other and act trashy. Our house burned down in a fire. Twice. (server changes). Luckily, handyman Will helped us make a new house, and we just kind of kept him in our basement for all eternity (Finally, the new site works!). Kyokai wouldn’t even be in the house, she would be an all-powerful goddess hovering about it and controlling the fate of our entire lives. I could go on and on with this, but sadly (or maybe luckily), we don’t actually live in a big house called Metanorn. We contribute from all over the world, and still manage to stay in contact despite what I would call “crazy bad time differences.” I have loved every millisecond that I’ve been a Metanorn blogger, and all of the readers and people who support Metanorn just make it all the more enjoyable. You’re awesome, and we’re awesome…We were made for each other. Thank you for 4 million views!

Hoshi: It seems like one week ago I was fumbling with the Metanorn structure of ani-blogging and waiting for my ridiculously large screencap batch to load as I wrote my end thoughts to the side. I’ve been through many cursing rants due to the old server, been through the second season ending of my all time favorite series, Kuroshitsuji, with tears in my eyes, and been through quite a bit of stress, and yet…I’m still here and kicking it, folks! There have been times when I couldn’t take the tough juggling between school and anime, and sometimes even doubted my own skills (all in four months, really), but I thought why should I quit something I’m so passionate about? It’s a bit of hard work at times, and I’m sure the new blood—err, writers will come to know that soon, but in the end its fun and I love it!  I feel like I wrote too much now, hahaha xD Well, congrats to the new writers and much love to Kyokai and Will, who work extra hard to make Metanorn much more awesome than it already is! Since I don’t have a catchy phrase to end this, I’ll go out Kuragehime-style; OLE~!

The NEW Blood: Slaves for hire

Hato-kun: And now, onto the crux of the post, for most of you. As you may have known, we at Metanorn have been looking for more authors. It’s not that we can’t handle Metanorn on our own, it’s just we think it would be much better if we shared out the awesome. We received A LOT more submissions than when me, OC and Hoshi applied, and to make it even easier (harder) on us, a LARGE percentage on the submissions were REALLY GOOD. So, we made sure to read all of the submissions and judge them accordingly.

Kyokai: It’s a reality anibloggers are either here to stay or visit for sporadic jaunts whenever time allows. There are times that even seasoned anibloggers take hiatus because of overflowing RL schedule. Just like how I can’t blog three-four series simultaneously because I don’t have that kind of time anymore. So, yes, people go on hiatuses, breaks and what not and it’s a given. No one can expect everyone to blog full time and thus I decided to expand the team for such absence and continued site content.

I have to say this time it was pretty hard to choose because we got so many good applications! It was a very tough judging the lot we got but we finally picked five, out of which Fosh would be joining as a guest blogger from BM. Like previously, we got more girls than guys in case of applications and even during selection. Who says there are more male anibloggers? Seems like they are quite missing in the active authors of Metanorn and the site is pretty much ruled by queens. xD I hope you would extend your support to the new team members in becoming better and blogging exactly the shows you would like to read about.*Drumrolls please* Of course, I took some liberties in introduction… Fufufuuu~

Sassy – the Loli-killer

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Hime – the Masochist

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Captain – the Loli

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Ness – the Trap

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Foshizzel – the Reverse-trap

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End Drabble: I want to thank Overcooled, Hato-kun and Hoshi for creating examples to look up to. I would not have been able to manage this site without my team; Ryuuko, Masu and Flags get special mention even if they are on hiatus. Team is already awesome and I think the quotient would only increase with fresh talent.

Also, sending love to all the aniblogs who have us on their blogroll; please do update our URL and we always return the gesture. A big wave to Vivi and Morri at Sekijitsu, who are keeping it alive, yes! And also to that loli-kidnapping guy who is wisdomless now; hope it heals quick. Peeps at MS, I will return soon.

Thanks again to all the readers, who stuck by us. You, yes YOU, make it all worthwhile for us to spend hours online talking about the fandom we so, oh love. Continued support is all we need and I hope you will keep loving Metanorn like always, while we’ll try our best to make it even better. Feedback, comments, trolling, spam? Welcome! So, till next time, Ja ne~ ^^

About Kyokai

The Boss lady of Metanorn, who makes it all happen. An animanga enthusiast, who watches/reads almost anything that strikes her fancy. Just beware of her Death Perception and always keep her happy. Regularly found at @KyokaiTM & #[email protected].