Finding internet-volunteers from Japan (or a certain country)

Thank you for reading my question.

I want to address following issue: I want to start a commercial website

that needs some information from Japan. Since I'm in the very beginning

position of this project, I have limited resources but I would still need

information and pictures from Japan.

I want to kindly ask, where I could find some volunteer helpers that are

based in japan, who would for example, take some photos of their local

area and provide some valuable information about their city?

For someone living very far away from the targeted country, it's really

hard to access that information.

Please provide a way where I could find some volunteers, which I could

eventually pay, if the business begins to generate some money.

Thanks!

If photographs are all you need you should go to fiverr.com and post a gig request.

Its a lot more cheaper than odesk.

Is there any reason why you can't get this information online? I'm sure there are plenty of images and information online on various cities. You can contact the original owners, and ask them if you can use their information on your website - some will say yes, some will say no.

After you have all that you can get from online resources, then you can start looking for volunteers. I think it's going to be very hard to find someone willing to all this work for a stranger for no compensation. Maybe you can try Craigslist. But in the end, I think you're going to end up having to pay for this.

People at oDesk already get paid peanuts. I suggest you post an add there looking for someone who is based in the required locale and is willing to do some small tasks. For the little amount of money that you will need to pay them, I think this is reasonable.

If you are going to build a site that has huge amounts of information e.g. from sites all over the world you are aiming to make large amounts of money, don't expect to get such quantities of information for free.

Unless you make it social and get some digital sharecroppers. Make it social, but this may take a while to get all the info you need and may not fit in with your current business plan.

If you want pictures for free go to flickr and search for CC licened images. But there isn't anywhere you can get specific info about a location released under a CC license that I know of.