June 2007 Archives

THIS news item attests to the power of citi zen journalism in circumventing censorship laws that might shackle mainstream m edia.

BEIJING--In the strictly controlled media world of communist China, "citizen journalism" is beating a way through censorship, breaking taboos and offering a pressure valve for social tensions. In one striking example this month, the Internet was largely responsible for br eaking open a slave scandal in two Chinese provinces that some local authoritie s had been complicit in. A letter posted on the Internet by 400 parents of children working as slaves in brickyards was the trigger for the national press to finally report on the sca ndal that some rights groups say had been going on for years.

AILEEN APOLO, Google country representative to the Philippines, is organizing a blogger event on July 3. Over 100 bloggers are being encouraged to sign up for a sampling of Taste of Asia located at the SM H ypermart at the SM Mall of Asia. Specifically, the details are as follows: WHO: Bloggers of all ages and sizes WHAT: SM Hypermarket invites bloggers to get a "Taste of Asia" WHEN: July 3, 2007 7 p.m. WHERE: Taste of Asia, SM Mall of Asia To join, you just need to have a blog and register by leaving a comment here or here, here or here. There are limited slots available (100!) so try your best to grab slots within the coordinators' blogs.

FINALLY, it's here! No, it's not Silver Surfer (obviously I just finished watch ing F4). It's the young Playstation.blog. First off, I don't own a PlayStation 3. But I do hope to buy one soon because of certain games I can't play on a rival game console pushed by a software giant. Why only now? Well, I can speculate on some reasons. But that's another point f or discussion in another blog (calling Alex!). According to this blog, this is THE blog of Sony Computer Entertainment America, which means it i s a company blog. But the people behind it hope to reach out to like-minded in viduals who love to annihilate monsters, squash little bugs, and explore a virt ual world that seems bigger than our real world. According to Patrick Seybold, senior manager for PR, this blog is "a work in pr ogress." He continues: "We see it as a place where we can share with you our companyâs c ollective insights, opinions and perspectives on all things related to SCEA, Pl ayStation and the industry we play in." Good luck guys. I hope you'll have fun blogging! I know you are now ;-) So far, the feedback has been good.

SURE, we've seen players and coaches being ejected from the game in different s ports, but a blogger? It's true. Check out th is story that came out in the Los Angeles Times. Excerpt:

LOUISVILLE, Ky. -- A reporter was ejected from an NCAA baseball tou rnament game for submitting live Internet updates during play. Brian Bennett, a writer for The (Louisville, Ky.) Courier-Journal, was approach ed Sunday by an NCAA representative in the bottom of the fifth inning and told that blogging from an NCAA championship event is against NCAA policies. Bennett had done live blogging during Louisville's super regional games against Oklahoma State in the previous two games of the three-game series. The represe ntative revoked Bennett's credential Sunday and asked him to leave the game.

HERE'S an interesting blog called Chuva of the Chenes maintained by the "nawawalang anak n i Gretchen Barreto at Jestoni Alarcon." In her most recent blog entry, the author waxes nostalgic o ver Cubao billboards. Excerpt:

When I was a kid, we frequented Cubao a lot, usually on Sundays to shop or window-shop at Rustan's, SM, Ali Mall, and Marikina Shoe Expo (now Cuba o X). Whenever we needed to buy something or we needed to visit our pedia (Medi specialist Center 2nd floor Rustan's), we went to Cubao. When my erpat's with u s, we would go to Perfect Pitch and all those music shops in the area. A trip t o Cubao is usually punctuated with flavored popcorn from Goldilocks at Rustan's (love apple popcorn!). Cubao is very much intertwined with my childhood; it's a place of nostalgia and of good memories. One particular Cubao fixture that is close to my aorta and vena cava is the gig antic movie billboard area found along the intersection of Aurora Blvd and EDSA . Unlike today's printed billboards, these were made by hand, painted by artist s.

AT LEAST, that's what Six Ap art hopes to achieve as it upgraded TypePad and Movable Type. Make no mistake about it: More companies will see blogging as a vital business tool, and with its upgraded blogging solutions Six Apart aims to help these fir ms create full-blown business sites. Here's an excerpt from the Reuters story that came out on eWeek.com:

"Blogging is evolving," said Chris Alden, gen eral manager of the professional business unit at Six Apart. "Maybe the era of pundit blogging is maturing: The adoption of blogging for personal business and productivity purposes is exploding." The 150-employee San Francisco-based company is introducing an upgrade to its s oftware for business blogging, known as Movable Type 4, that allow businesses t o create and manage thousands of blogs inside or outside their organizations. In addition, the company is expanding TypePad, its hosted blogging software use d by professional bloggers and publishers, to allow users not just to update bl ogs, but also to add more traditional Web pages for storing static information. TypePad is working with Microsoft's Windows Live Writer, its tool for publishin g Web pages offline without an Internet connection. Once the user reconnects, t he site is updated.

Do you have a business that relies on blogging? Are you u sing blogs for your intranet? Have you helped companies set up their blogs? Tell us how you're using blogging to gain a competitive advantage -- we'd love to hear from you and share your success story :)

WE also had our share of using technology such as short message service (SMS) o r text messaging to organize a mass protest against then President Joseph Estra da. But imagine if blogging was widely available at the time. We would have see n Filipinos liveblogging about it. In China where political bloggers are censored, the recent mass protest in Xiam en against the p lanned construction of a toxic chemical pl ant dangerously close to the city core on June 1 was seen as a landmark move f or Chinaâs leading independent bloggerâs collective Bullog, Global Voices wrote . Excerpt:

With a media blackout on news of the demonstration, the time, locat ion and target turnout of one million people were spread almost exclusively by SMS, bbs posting s and on blogs. The government was able to stop the SMS from spreading for seve ral days and nearly all bbs webmasters and blog service providers were swift to delete any related discussion, leaving Bullog members free to go on to pos t several in-depth posts this past week looking at various angles of the situat ion, including one of of the key public figures lobbying against the PX plant, Southern Metropolis Daily columnist and Xiamen resident Lian Yue. Several other Bullogers took it a step further by attending the demonstration i n person, leaving one at home to post their SMS live updates straight onto Bull og, giving it a national exclusive as to what was happening minute-by-minute do wn on the ground which, by the afternoon of the 1st, had attracted enough reade rs that Bullogâs host server was left unable to keep up. With Bullog inaccessib le, the live SMScast was temporarily moved here, from where many of t he below discussions mixed in with the live reporting were taken.