Most of you will be familiar with Digg.com, a social bookmarking site filled with popular articles submitted by thousands of users. What you might not know is that Japan has its own social news site, in English, in the form of JapanSoc.com.

Since its launch late last year, JapanSoc has had over 2,000 blog posts and news articles submitted by a growing army of bloggers and Japan enthusiasts. The variety of stories, covering everything from McRibs in Japan to Tokyo bloggers on CNN, offer a unique overview of all that’s happening on the Japan-related web. Japan Probe, of course, is a regular feature on JapanSoc and I’m sure James won’t mind me encouraging you to submit and vote on more of Japan Probe’s articles.

Like Digg, JapanSoc is split into “Upcoming” and “Top Stories” sections so you can see what’s new and, more importantly, what’s good. As a community-driven website, it’s up to you to ensure only the best stories make the front page by soc’ing them to the top. All the social elements are in there, such as commenting, “friending”, and sending private messages. What’s more, each user is assigned a sumo rank based on his or her contribution to the site. It’s a fun way to encourage participation and watch people climb through the ranks. I’m nearly a Yokozuna already!

Those of you blogging about Japan are encouraged to join the JapanSoc community and submit your own blog posts for us to vote on. This is a great way to give your site more exposure, not only to other users, but your posts on JapanSoc rank in the search engines so you can find new readers via Google, too.

There’s a lot more to JapanSoc than just bookmarking. We have a members’ blog, a huge RSS feed of Japan-related blogs, and we run a monthly blog carnival, too. Come by, sign up and meet like-minded people on the Japan-related web!