Current Status and the Future of Sakura Index

Hello everyone, and welcome back.

For almost more than a year, Sakura Index (SI) has had a very quiet activity. Most of the reasons that have caused it are from Real Life™ happening, and some of those are from licenses, server movements, and infrastructure movements on the side.

The following are the events that have happened to us here at Sakura Index (not in any order):

• License Expiry: Microsoft Azure.
• Server Migration: Azure > NFO Servers (Shared redundant hosting)
• Server Migration: Download files: Office 365 tenant to tenant migration
• Microsoft BizSpark graduation
• Althaea switching jobs
• Crosse trying to start a company (and failed)
• Crosse switching jobs
• Cyne Creative started, acquired translation contract
• Translation contract expired
• Acquired Microsoft Consulting contract (ongoing, for Sharepoint)
• Acquired technical writing consultant contract (ongoing, for a payment system)

With much of these happening, we lost time to allocate with our releases in SI.

With that, what will be in store for Sakura Index?

We’re thinking of refocusing our efforts in the coming months, maybe down to what we can provide with our current schedule:

1. A simplified release cycle for folder icons – we can possibly resume our releases; however we will prioritize icons for popular series and might not release for fringe titles that we might not watch. Missed seasons will be part of the backlog but not prioritized. We might start next season instead of working from where we left off. Icon requests will also be part of the backlog, but de-prioritised up until we get more free time.
2. A simplified release for Google Chrome themes – luckily the theming framework for Google Chrome hasn’t changed much in the past year, so this can be maintained and resumed from the get-go. Theme requests might be considered if there are many people asking for it.
3. We might skip anime reviews/recommendations, and instead be publishing Light Novel commentary/review/reaction, press releases (from existing partners) and the like. Unlike seasonal anime reviews, light novels are timeless and can be published later than the series’ publishing time. For additional content, our door is open for contributors. Interested parties can send us your submissions at submissions@sakuraindex.jp. Accepted and published entries will get a reward (details to follow– let us know your suggestions in the comments!).
4. Finally, for our Sakura Index store at minitaku, we might publish additional designs in the future. For existing special requests, we’ll proceed with working on those (we weren’t able to process some of the requests– sorry to keep you hanging!) designs and let you know that they’re available. Your purchases will greatly help us keep on maintaining the site.

That’s it for now. And oh, someone reported that our icons library was down and inaccessible– thanks for letting us know. I’ll be re-uploading them and re-publishing our library when done.

Thank you so much for staying with us. We hope to continue having you in the future.

All the best,

Crosse

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