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.

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I’M happy to announce that blogger Toni Platon-Tiu of Wifely Steps has agreed to blog for INQUIRER.net, and that we’ve launched her blog Happy Nest, which is all about positivity and the good things that can make your every day better.

Lord knows we could all use a dose of positivity, what with all the horrors and injustices we read about all the time. I’m not saying journalists should sugarcoat things — the truth should be the truth, no matter how bitter a pill it may be to swallow — but we also have to find a way to balance things. To take a break from the outrages we’re exposed to everyday. To show readers that not everything has to be tragic in order to be newsworthy.

Because the truth is that the world isn’t completely evil or hopeless. The truth is that a lot of good is happening out there. And people have to know about it.

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IF you were given the opportunity to run a print newspaper, what changes would you make? Say you suddenly become the head honcho of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Philippine Star or Manila Bulletin, or, um, one of the other papers that I hear are still out there (just kidding, heh), how would you revamp the newspaper?

How would you make the print newspaper more relevant to the needs of readers?

Why am I proposing this thought experiment? Well, mainly because as I’ve said time and again, print is dying. And sure, I’ve been convinced of that for some time, but it’s also good to hear the experts supporting what you believe, heh. So let’s say it again, loud and clear: “Wake up and smell the coffee, Dead Tree People.”

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AFTER months of hearing campaign jingles and listening to the promises of candidates, today is the day Filipinos will make their voices heard as we troop to the election precincts.

Of course, INQUIRER.net and other media outlets will be working hard to make sure the voice of the voters will be heard loud and clear, and, in our case as the most visited Philippine news website, by Filipinos all over the world.

As you’ll notice, the INQUIRER.net homepage has already switched to our Eleksyon 2007 special coverage, which will include the potent virtual weapon we’ve used to provide a blow-by-blow coverage of major news events since the days of Estrada’s impeachment trial in 2000 — the running account.

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BY now, many of you have probably seen the video from beyond the grave of the perpetrator of the Virginia Tech massacre, Cho Seung-hui, who turned out to have mailed a suicide video and digital photo album to NBC. And if you haven’t seen it on TV, you might have viewed it on YouTube or other sites.

This appalling suicide video is already an Internet hit, and all you have to do is Google it.

Which brings us to the question: Should the media have given this killer this kind of airtime? What message is media sending to would-be killers, terrorists and other megalomaniacs who dream of this kind of mileage when they commit atrocities?

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