Social Media Plus Streaming Video Equals Very Good Idea

Funimation, which now commands a rather sizeable share of the anime market, made a rather interesting announcement as America was preparing to launch its holiday weekend: It's starting a combined social networking and anime stream site called Shojodojo.

What this means to you is that your anime hobby may now be even better for your job prospects than it was before.

We've said in the past that your hobbies are a great way to network, to establish connections that can be taken a step further and turned into something that may be good for your career. A casual conversation with a fellow fan may reveal they work at a place that's on your "dream job" list  or that they're taking a course that you need for your own career goals.

Fans have always had a variety of ways of meeting up - Cons, Livejournal, Gaia, etc. Shojodojo, however, looks like it's aiming to be a very central meeting place for fans. Funimation certainly has big ambitions for it; their publicity material indicates they expect it to have thousands of videos and thousands of members.

The videos are a great incentive  for people to join, too. Funimation has a huge library of desirable titles, like Fullmetal Alchemist and Fruits Basket, plus they've picked up anime that were in the catalog of the now-defunct Geneon, such as Hellsing and Kyo Kara Maoh. They'll come for the anime and stay for the conversation.

Members are going to have a wide pool of like-membered individuals to interact - which increases the chances that they're going to bump into someone who just happens to be able to help them career-wise.

Funimation's move also underscores the increasing interaction of social media and streaming video. Crunchyroll has been doing it for awhile, Hulu did a linkup with Facebook, and other anime sites are sure to follow. Being familiar with both of these Internet arenas could be very good for your future job prospects if you're planning to go into a Web career - because they're only going to intersect more in the future.
- Bonnie