September 2007 Archives

By Myrna Rodriguez-Co Inquirer MANILA, Philippines--In this digital age, people donât just exchange mobile pho ne numbers and e-mail addresses. Theyâve also begun swapping web and blog addre sses. Having a blog is a badge of honor among serious Internet users. Itâs like sayin g: "I have an online home, you have yours. You visit me and Iâll visit you.â As they read and comment on each otherâs posts, bloggers form friendships and b uild an online society like no other. This is known as the blogosphere, where m embers converse, share ideas, join forces for some common cause, arrange to mee t face-to-face, and, yes, differ and bicker. Bloggers are arguably the crème de la crème of Internet users. Their demograp hy reveals that they are young (15-35), highly literate, and upwardly mobile. T hey are perceived as an influential group that can persuade people, mold public opinion and even sell products. An indication of how influential bloggers have become is the fact that big busi ness has started paying attention to them. Globe Telecom began the trend of gat hering bloggers in product launches and other events. SM Hypermarket elevated i t a notch higher with blogger parties, a blogging contest, and blogsites of its own. Product development and the marketing staff of food companies are known t o monitor food blogs to feel the consumersâ pulse. Restaurants like Portico and Maxâs Fried Chicken invite bloggers to sample their menu and ambiance. Meanwhi le, the number of businesses placing advertising spots on high-traffic blogs is growing as well. Blogging power was palpably demonstrated recently when a newspaper columnist wh o earned the public ire with her elitist remarks against OFWs, buckled down, ap ologized and offered to resign after bloggers started an online campaign agains t her. Already questions are being asked of blogs as a new medium of âcitizen journali sm.â Will they threaten paper-and-ink newspapers and magazines? Will they edge out the more traditional websites? How much more impact can they make on doing business? Blogging wasnât too respectable in the late 1990s, when the first blogs appeare d. Back then, a blog was little more than an online diary or journal of events. It was at first dismissed as an easy, sleazy way of publicly revealing or prom oting oneself. Today, there are an estimated 200,000 Pinoy bloggers -- from about 40,000 a yea r ago -- and hundreds of different kinds of blogs. Many are still very personal and journal-like. Some are philosophical, political, family-oriented. There ar e blogs for every hobby or interest imaginable: sports, music, entertainment, f ood, home, arts and crafts, fashion and style, health and fitness. There are in dividual and group blogs or networks as well as business, professional, technol ogy and advocacy blogs. Many bloggers are frustrated writers who find instant gratification in blogging . âI am oh-so-familiar with rejection slips,â admits one newbie blogger. âNow I have become an author, editor and publisher.â There are, of course, blogs and blogsâand those that have made it. âMaking itâ means different things to different bloggers, of course. It could mean making b ig bucks out of blogging, winning a prestigious award, or simply being read by thousands of loyal followers. Any âA Listâ of local blogsites will include yugatech.com by Abe âYugaâ Olandres, widely regarded as a pione er and master among Pinoy bloggers. Blogging since 2000, he owns many other sit es and portals that earn income for him. Bloggers and readers log on to his pin oytopblogs.com for an objective ranking of the best blogsites by popularity and category. Another blogging pioneer is J. Angelo Racoma, who talks about making money from blogging at The J Spot. He knows whereof he speaks: he left a comfortable 8 to 5 job to blog fulltime. He now works from home as editor-in-chief of an international blogging network, wh ich enables him to hire his kababayans as bloggers, researchers, and web design ers. The Racomas are a blogging family â from the matriarch, Dine, 49, down to the baby, Alan, Jr., 11. Connie Veneracion, who quit lawyering for mothering, founded pinoymomsnetwork.com this February and parlayed it months later into a widely-read electronic magazine run by about a hundred members who exchange mommy stories. Connie, who began blogging in 2003, is also the author of two food blogs, pinoycook.com and pinoyfoodtalk.net. Noemi Lardizabal-Dado, may be a come-lately, but her months-old aboutmyrecovery.com won last year in the first-ever blogging category of the Philippine Web Awards, which used to re cognize only websites. She writes about bouncing back from the loss of her youn g son and translating grief into positive energy through various advocacies, in cluding support for the bereaved. Olandres, Racoma and Dado are all professional bloggers who have succeeded in m onetizing their blogs on the basis of readership volume. Olandres, however, war ns that âblogging is no get-rich-quick schemeâ and that âblogging is for everyo ne but earning from blogs is for a few.â The launching of the Philippine Blog Awards (PBA) this year was an unmistakable signal that blogging has finally come into its own. According to Jayvee Fernan dez, award co-organizer and another master blogger (abuggedlife.com), blogs are judged by a panel, repres enting both mainstream and the new blogging media, on the basis of the followin g criteria: quality of content, consistency in sticking to niche topics, freque ncy of blogging, popularity, and design. The PBAâs plum âbloggersâ choice awardâ was won by Market Man of marketmanila.com authored by a semi-ret ired management consultant who writes about âoverspending in markets and food s hops,â âchopping vegetables for therapy,â and cooking up a storm in his kitchen with a six-burner Viking stove, three refrigerators, and 200 cookbooks.

The Office of the Privacy Commissioner has started blogging< /a>. In its first post, the Canadian official writes:

With this tool, we hope to make the activities of the Office of the Privacy Commissioner more accessible to Canadians and to increase contact betw een the Office and Canadians interested about privacy issues and legislation. As an Officer of Parliament, the Privacy Commissioner has a mandate to protect the priv acy rights of individuals and promote the privacy protections available to Cana dians.

GOT this via TechCrunch. Here's a nifty tool you can add to your blog courtesy of Sketchcast.com. So what the heck is sketchcasting? I'll let them explain it themselves -- which they do by using the Sketchcast tool itself.

HERE'S another way to pass the time: Blogger has launched Blogger Play, a slideshow featuring recently uploaded photos from Blogger users. Let me tell you, it can get very addictive watching these random pics. It's als o another way to blog hop, because you can click on a photo to go to the blog w here it was uploaded. Here are screenshots of some random pics. Of course, some users might feel uncomfortable about having their pics shown to the whole world this way. Check out the Blogger Play FAQ to find out how to opt out, which unfortunately requires you to remove your blog from the Blogger li sting.

By Erwin Oliva INQUIRER.net FILIPINO tech blogger Abe Olandres wanted to jump out of his seat and explain t o senators the technical aspects of the controversial national broadband network (NB N) project, as he watched the live broadcast of Thursday's Senate hearing. In his recent entry, Olandres wrote:

[I've] been watching the live broadcast of the Senate hearing over the National Broadband Network Project for the last 7 hours and I must say that despite the politics behind the issue, I was more frustrated with the Senators asking repetitive questions and making non-sense tech-related conclusions (tha t goes to Manuel "Mar" Roxas and Richard "Dick" Gordon).

Olandres was among the local bloggers who are weighing in on the issues surrounding the NBN project. Olandres, better known online by his nick yuga, did not mince words, as he open ly expressed his frustration.

It's just frustrating to realize that such a technological leap for ward is marred with corruption and politics. I was jumping on my seat itching t o explain to our dear senators the difference between WiMAX, 3G, CDMA2000 and s atellite technologies or why the last mile is the most problematic and costly e ven to the existing private telcos. But, such is life in this country. Filipino activist and techie Anthony Ian Cruz also shared the same sentiments i n his blog entry.

I think Yugatech is justified in bewailing the ignorance of our law makers on the project. I agree with him that we need a broadband network. It is really important and countries such as Singapore plan to have one soon. Austra lia, according to one study, obtained immense benefits from their own broadband network.

Just like the question posed by Senator Francis Escudero during the hearing, Cr uz asked,

Do we need [NBN] so badly that we are ready to obtain more than $30 0-million in new debts to the Chinese government? Is the ZTE contract truly ben eficial to the people? Aren't there other, cheaper ways of setting it all up? I can't believe that the ZTE is the best deal we could get now. True, we live i n an archipelagic country and this may be a major factor in the huge bill for a national broadband network, but since technology is getting faster and cheaper at the same time, we might as well look for the truly best deal. There must be other options that are more favorable to the Philippines and that should be pr otected from the government officials and their relatives who salivate for more money at our expense.

The blog Tek for the Pipol (Tech for the Peop le) of Computer Professionals Union member Rick Bahague, said the NBN project i s "really about who will get the kickbacks." In her blog entry Broadband scam and the legacy of m artial law, Carol Araullo wrote that the public is witnessing a "single cor ruption scandal" that is opening up a can of worms:

Comelec Chair Abalos' undeniable involvement leads back to the enti re 'Hello Garci' episode and charges of systematic, massive fraud attending the 2004 presidential and even the recent mid-term elections held under Mr. Abalos ' watch. What's more, the First Gentleman's fingerprints on the NBN deal could lead directly to Mrs. Arroyo and could thus be very damaging

Biology student Nina Bumanglag, in her blog Underside was not conv inced that Transportation Secretary Leandro Mendoza was telling the truth:

If NBN is indeed a contract, then JDV3 [Jose De Venecia III] could be telling the truth. If NBN isn't, then JDV3 is lying. But since Mendoza could n't defend the NBN's nature, then I'll have my money on JDV3.

CHECK out Filipino Nursing Herald, a blog that seeks to empower the "Global Filipino Nurse." Former tech journalist Geoffrey Ramos set up this blog. As he shares in his p rofile:

Hundreds of Filipino nurses have gone on to build successful career s in many parts of the world. Many more are hoping to follow in their footsteps . I'm one of those people who've changed careers and is now trying to work out a successful career in nursing where demand is high in most parts of the world. Becoming a nurse is not the end goal of my aspirations. I've learned to love t he work and I try to give it my best everytime. But becoming a nurse is just a stepping stone, a path I have chosen that I hope would allow me to do the thing s I really truly love: travel, writing and building a family.

I STUMBLED upon this from another blog. It's called Pinoyblogopedia. It 's an attempt to create a wiki for the Philippines blogopshere. It does not con tain much right now. It currently contains a list of some blogs, and a brief in troduction about this effort. Wikis about the Philippines now exist. Recently, Wikipilipinas was c reated by people behind Filip iniana.net.

HERE are some of the entries on the Estrada verdict that were posted by Filipin o bloggers minutes after the Sandiganbayan found the former Philippine presiden t guilty of plunder. DJB Rizalist included an MP3 audio file of the promulgation in his blog entry. Tonyo posted an entry on the "Opportunist view of Estrada guilty verdict." Here's the entry of Chef Tonios Popcorn. And here's Grace's entry for Filipino Soul.

CHECK out this speech by video blogger Coy of CokskiBlue.

By Erwin Oliva INQUIRER.net BANGKOK, Thailand--Filipino blogger Abe Olandres, popularly known as yuga, announced the sale of h is homegrown blog ranking service Pinoy Top Blogs to Enthropia Philippines for an undisclosed amount. "After several months of negotiations, I have finally agreed to sell the Pinoy Top Blogs project. It's a decision that was very hard to make but I figured tha t the future of the project will be more secured with the new owners," he said in a recent entry on his personal b log. Admitting that the service has been bleeding money, Olandres said he could no l onger manage the site because he did not have enough time to review submissions , monitor blogs that violated its policies, and filter spam. "I'm way too far b ehind the backlogs," he added. He also said that numerous problems with the Pinoy Top Blogs server have become more evident because more bloggers were joining the website. Olandres said he has suspended the service in the past because of recurring ser ver problems. "I've been spending a considerable amount of my personal money to continue runn ing the project. The site has been bleeding close to $200 per month for a year now and has not generated any revenue at all (well, if you can call a few dolla rs from AdSense enough revenue)," he said. Enthropia Philippines is a sister company of another group behind evoTopSites, BlogFlux and iBegin. "They know the system very well and can fast-track its re-development. I am con fident that they'd be able to continue running the system in top shape. They we re also the ones who donated the current domain/s to me after I transferred it from this site to its own domain," Olandres said. He assured existing users that the transfer of ownership to Enthrophia Philippi nes will ensure privacy of information stored in his current system. All subscribers will also be informed about the ownership change, and will give them an option to opt out of the free service. "On a personal note, this is my very first sale of an online real estate and I really didn't know how to go about it. The sale price is still undisclosed unle ss Enthropia is willing to disclose it," Olandres said.

FILIPINO blog Tingog.com, which previously called for the resignation of Filipi no lifestyle columnist Malu Fernandez, has renewed calls to boycott the newspap er she writes for. "Here it is, our stand, because Manila Standard Today has chosen to hide behind their term 'protocol' and issue a pardon to their most beloved columnist for a ll The Filipinos to see. This is a call to boycott, for the irresponsible behav ior of Manila Standard Today, they have chosen to pass up the option of doing t he right thing, and essentially show their true colors and the standards they a re upholding," the blog said. INQUIRER.net called the Manila Standard Today for a reaction to the boycott cal l but was told the paper was not issuing any statement. Tingog was one of the more vocal blogs against Fernandez for a travel article s he wrote for People Asia magazine and the newspaper that sparked outrage among overseas Filipino workers (OFWs). Her earlier travel piece, which appeared in the June edition of the magazine an d later in newspaper, recounted her encounter with some Filipino overseas worke rs while flying economy class. "I wanted to slash my wrist at the thought of being trapped in a plane with all of them," Fernandez wrote in the article. In quick time, the blogosphere was filled with posts denouncing the article as bigoted, hateful, and discriminatory. Although she published a letter of apology that also announced her resignation because of what she called threats, hate blogs, and personal insults. However, Fernandez resumed her Manila Standard Today column last Monday. "This is also to Malu Fernandez, which from the very beginning was obviously in sincere, has indeed showed her insincerity by having Manila Standard Today make the decision for her to stay. As you know, Manila Standard did not accept her resignation. But why doesn't she just step down? As is the case with individual s who are truly never repentant, they see no need for any accountability," Ting og.com wrote. "We are not to blame for this escalation. All we wanted in the first place was a fair shake for this story to get some coverage, for the involved parties to i ssue apologies, and for Malu Fernandez to be made accountable by being fired fr om both publications. But Manila Standard, was given a chance, and they blew it . They not only blew it, but they did harm to the many individuals who were hur t by the article of Malu Fernandez and her response in her Manila Standard Toda y column," Tingog.com added. Meanwhile, Anton De Leon, a former journalist and blogger who lives in Dubai, s aid the recent move to still allow Fernandez to resume writing her column has w eakened some people's "faith in our institutions." Calling himself a blogspot humorist, De Leon lamented, "as if nothing happened, here she is in her acerbic wit writing style talking about ugly things on your dresser." "I guess all this concerted effort to clamor has gotten us nowhere close to a w himper. Yep, we have achieved nothing except the fact that we have made her a b yword. Well, it all goes downhill from here," he said in his recent Slap Happy blog entry. De Leon is a senior communications executive for a media conglomerate.

IS a 107-year-old great grandmother of seven in Australia the world's oldest bl ogger? For that matter, she might be the world's oldest YouTube user. You can check out he r blog and read the Metro.co.uk article. Here's an excerpt:

Her blog, The Life of Riley, also reveals how she left Broken Hill in the 1920s as a single mother with three children in tow. However, Mrs Riley admits she has 'got no idea about computers' and relies on f riend and film maker Mike Rubbo, who suggested she start a blog, along with ano ther friend from her nursing home, to help post them.

She told an Australian newspaper: "Mike asked me for little things that I remember, and I know that the people will like them because they're not rude or stupid or anything. "I'm sure they do enjoy them because of the replies I get. I get some real good replies. I've made a lot of friends by doing the blogs - thousands." Here are two of the YouTube clips that recount Olive's story. What do you think? And, hmm, just wondering now -- how old is the oldest blogge r in the Philippines? Anybody know? :)