SEOUL, South Korea–I’m blogging from Seoul, where I’ll be covering the Ragnarok World Championships for INQUIRER.net, specifically for our hackenslash gaming site and iVDO online video channel.

It’s my first time to visit South Korea, arguably the broadband and online gaming capital of the world.

Our editor in chief JV Rufino joked that I was “going from Internet hell to Internet heaven,” because the past few days have been even more frustrating for me when it comes to broadband connections in Manila. Particularly since I handle iVDO as INQUIRER.net’s multimedia editor — and we all know that when it comes to online video, it’s broadband or bust.

[Read the rest of this entry »]

JUST wanted to share the good news: INQUIRER.net has made it to the finals of four categories in the regional MediaConnect Asia Technology Journalists Awards, which is organized by Singapore-based MediaConnect Asia and sponsored by Vignette.

INQUIRER.net is a finalist in the Best Technology Website category for its Technology channel, which is edited by INQUIRER.net executive editor and VP for Content Development Leo Magno.

Meanwhile, this blog, @play, is a finalist in the Best Technology Blog category.

[Read the rest of this entry »]

A FEW days ago, I blogged about the iPhone launch in the US and included an Agence France-Presse photo of Jonathan (not John, as he was identified in the AFP caption) Mariano, who was first in line at the Apple Store at The Grove shopping center in Los Angeles, California.

In that blog entry, I wondered aloud if Mariano was a Filipino, and guess what? He is! He posted a comment on that blog entry simply saying, “Pinoy ako (I am a Filipino)!” and included a link to his blog that documents the iPhone launch in LA and his unexpected brush with fame when he turned out to be the first in line.

How cool is that?

[Read the rest of this entry »]

CHECK out the very first iVDO clip to be embedded on the INQUIRER.net homepage, courtesy of the new media manager system developed by our Tech team.

Stella Kim, president and CEO of South Korean firm O2 Media, which developed the popular O2Jam online music game published in the Philippines by IP e-Games, is pretty lucky indeed, heh She’s made history as the subject of this first embedded video, which I took while hackenslash reporter Alex Villafania interviewed her. To find out more about Kim’s visit, check out the hackenslash story.

It’s another milestone in our goal to help establish multimedia journalism in the Philippines. It hasn’t been that easy to gather all the pieces and integrate them, but we’ve come a long way in just a few months, including building a blog network and forging a partnership with Yahoo! for our iVDO online video service.

[Read the rest of this entry »]