August 2008 Archives

Journalist Dana Batnag put out this question in a blog entry dated August 11. She writes:

Where are the bloggers of Mindanao, the citizen journalists who we have hoped would keep us updated on the ARMM elections? The ARMM elections are the first automated elections in the country. If all goes well, the government hopes to also automate the 2010 national elections. I was expecting blogs on th e elections â how the machines worked and how the people reacted to them, even pictures on the voting precincts and the voters. I was told there had been no p osts as of lunchtime, but maybe that was because the voting wasnât over yet at that time.

This question is indeed very relevant if we compare this to what is happening in the United States. In a recent CNET article, blogger s were among those actively participating in the delivery of news and informati on to constituents. The article says:

It is true that the Democratic National Convention Committee handed credentials to a record number of bloggers for the Denver convention this week , but more nevertheless appear to have gathered at the Big Tent. Adding to the lure of the unofficial venue is that the workspace's location on Wynkoop Street is around the corner from a multitude of restaurants and private parties, incl uding a massive Tuesday reception organized by Emily's List, a late-night jazz festival, and an AT&T-sponsored brewery bash.

With blogs allowing anyone who can write to publish their thoughts on the Inter net, Batnag was expecting bloggers to be blogging about the first automated ele ctions in the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao. She says:

I was expecting blogs on the elections â how the machines worked an d how the people reacted to them, even pictures on the voting precincts and the voters. I was told there had been no posts as of lunchtime, but maybe that was because the voting wasnât over yet at that time.

She adds:

The ARMM elections would have been a good time for citizen journali sts to show what they can do and how much better a job of it they can do. A quick search on Google produced this blog called, "Philippine Elections Journ al," which announced as early as April 4 that it was looking for ARMM Election bloggers. It didn't get any reaction des pite the promise of "$100 payment for every 20 approved articles." This blog wa s set up by Filipino blogger Janette Toral. There were also some ARMM election postings but none about the ac tual election day. Batnag says: "Citizen journalists not only know the terrain, they usually know everyone because itâs their neighborhood theyâre blogging about. In the ARMM el ections, a citizen journalist would have the luxury of hanging around and waiti ng until all the votes had been canvassed." "Until the citizen journalists of Mindanao blog about the elections so that the ir voices â and thoughts â can be heard and discussed, these are just the ranti ngs of someone who believes in the power of the citizen," she adds.

BLOGCRITICS.ORG, an onlin e blog community of bloggers providing news and reviews, announced that it has been acquired by blog search service Technorati. Blogcritics joined the Technorati Media Network in June but there are no plans to merge the two properties, Blogcritics said. In an e-mail newsletter to its subscribers and contributors, Blogcrritics said Technorati intends to grow the Blogcritics community, where more than 2,000 blo ggers and authors contribute. Blogcritics said it has been providing "bloggers with an entry point to publish their content to a much broader audience than their own blogs afford." "As part of Technorati Media, we'll be able to grow the community and further i mprove our platform to attract new audiences," said Eric Olsen, founder of Blog critics, in a statement. "Technorati's mission to help bloggers and people who read blogs is the ideal c omplement for us," Olsen added. Blogcritics said the acquisition will help devote resources to "scaling the pro perty and its operations" and allow Blogcritics authors to monetize their own b logs. âAdvertisers will benefit by the ability to run more fully integrated programs across the site and its related blogs,â it said. Richard Jalichandra, president and CEO of Technorati, added: "Together with the bloggers themselves, Blogcritics has successfully built a thriving community w ith an extensive following, and given bloggers what has become a very large for um in which to express themselves. We're thrilled to help them realize their fu ll potential." Blogcritics.org was founded in 2002 by veteran broadcaster and music journalist Eric Olsen. It was originally conceived for music fanatics to write and post reviews online . But it evolved and took on a life all its own. Technorati, on the other hand, collects, organizes, highlights and distributes the online global conversation, surfacing this content to millions of consumers . It was founded as the first blog search engine.

As a parent to growing kids, I found this helpful tips from Trend Micro on how to ensure the online safety of kids. Let's admit it, kids are quite fond of social networks (more than the ir parents). My generation grew up watching television. Today, kids have the In ternet and online social networks -- not to mention online games. So itâs best that we parents should also understand how social networks work, for instance, so we could guide them. Hereâs one good example from Trend Micro's website, which I think is very impor tant:

Set reasonable expectations. Pulling the plug on your childâs favor ite social site is like pulling the plug on their social life. This can shut do wn communication and send kids âundergroundâ where theyâre more at risk. Here's another one:

Try to get your kids to share their profiles and blogs with you. Al so, use search engines and the search tools on social networking sites to searc h for your kids' full names, phone numbers, and other identifying information. You're not invading their privacy if they're putting personal info in public pl aces online.

Do you have any other practical tips you wish to share?

By Alexander Villafania INQUIRER.net Marcelle Fabie would better off be called a mentalist than just a mere magician . His style can be compared to a lot of street magicians but he adds a bit of t heatrics. He can trick your eyes with the speed of his hands, mesmerize you wit h his predictions and even show you how to bend a metallic object as if it was paper. Incidentally, Fabie is also online. The 24-year old Fabie is one of the few magicians who uses the Internet to draw crowds of people to his magic. His blogs at mistervader.blogspot.com and www.magikel.multiply.com contain a lot of his ramblings, not just about magic, after having been introduced to blogging and its uses several years back. He claims to be an "archivist" and fears event ually losing his memory so having a blog would remind him of the things that he used to do. One of the things he loves is wrestling and some of his entries ar e dedicated to his passion. He has also been nicknamed the "Blogger Boggler" as he has attended several eve nts where he performed tricks for various communities of bloggers. He has been a regular fixture in blog meetings and is very popular among the large group of bloggers in Metro Manila. He also does a bit of hosting on the side since he d oes have experience as a DJ for Wave 89.1 and is now training in Campus Radio 9 9.5. Fabie also garnered the Best Philippine Blog prize at the Asian Blog Awards in 2003. Fabie is passionate about magic, illusions and mentalism and went professional a few years ago despite having done some magic tricks since he was eight years old. However, the onset of street magicians, as well as the lucrative business it could generate, also made Fabie interested in pursuing it in a professional level. One of the most interesting trends in magic is mentalism, which Fabie is quite enthusiastic in describing. According to him, mentalism is a mix of mind readin g, psychokinesis and hypnosis, which allows some extremely impossible tricks se em possible. In a demonstration, Fabie would write down on a piece of paper wha t colored chip a volunteer would choose. The paper would be given to the volunt eer, who then proceeds to make the selection. The volunteer would later read th e piece of paper to find out that Fabie had already written down what the volun teer would choose. In another demonstration, Fabie twisted a metal fork by a mere wave of his hand . Fabie likes the idea of street magic because audiences are captivated by tricks done in the open. At times, some of his friends would take videos of him durin g performances and have them posted online, usually in YouTube. However, Fabie also detests magicians who reveal their secrets to a mass market . In particular was the one conducted by Val Valentino, who hid in the guise of a masked magician and revealed on TV many of the techniques used by magicians and illusionists. Fabie said that people like Valentino have broken long-guarde d secrets that are essentially the livelihood of magicians. Nevertheless, Fabie believes magic will always be there. Magicians, especially younger ones, will continue to create new tricks that captivate people. Of cour se, Fabie would still blog about his rants, raves and his magic.

By Alexander Villafania INQUIRER.net How do you create blog? What copyright rules should be followed? How can you ea rn from blogging? Blogger and editor of Digital Filipino Janette Toral hopes to answer these questions in her late st book "Blogging from Home," which she launched at the recent Internet and Mob ile Marketing Association of the Philippines Summit in Makati City. Toral, who has been blogging for the last five years, said that she has been th inking of coming out with a book on blogging since 2006 but realized she needed to understand the blogging community more in particular its dynamics. "I hope to share how [people] could make a presence in the blogosphere and perh aps earn a little, without having to be so gung ho," Toral said in an interview . Watch this video interview with Toral. The book is, however, only taking into consideration blogging trends in the Phi lippines because, as Toral stressed, she would not want to sound like a true ex pert in the subject of blogging. On the other hand, she said she will have to market the book in Australia and t he US, specifically targeted at Filipinos abroad. Toral said the blogging community in the Philippines has grown and among the mo st popular blogs were cause-oriented. These blogs contained information that we re not easily accessible in other forms or web portals. She also referred to th e recently conducted Top Ten Emerging Influential Blogs 2008, which she organized that recognized bloggers that mattered. As it is, a growing number of Filipino Internet users are reading bloggers to g et information they want. As such, bloggers are becoming publishers themselves. "Blogging is serious business in a sense that you have to have a lot of content , and depth. It also uses multimedia. Blogs have to have authentic and unique i nformation for people to stick," she said.

MIKEE Cojuangco-Jaworski has revealed in this video interview with INQUIRER.net online videographer Janie Octia that all the Friendster accounts about her are fake. Cojuangco-Jaworski, however, has a Multiply site, which features photos of her, her children , family, among others. Watch her video interview.

By Alex Villafania INQUIRER.net SOCIAL networking is getting ever more confusing as new services are activated at breakneck speed. In the past, there was Friendster.com, then LinkedIn.com, M ySpace.com, Flickr.com, and now Facebook.com. The growth phenomenon of social n etworking services is so fast people are just having a hard time monitoring the ir accounts one by one. So they have turned to social networking aggregators th at make it easier to access all these networks. Welcome 3GLifestore, a social networking aggregator created by Ericsson, a prov ider of telecommunications infrastructure. The company has been testing this on line service for a year but has not opened it to the public. Only a select few Ericsson employees and business partners are able to access the site, which req uires a username and password. The company showcased 3GLifestore to some telecommunications providers in Manil a. Ericsson regional sales and business development manager Rahul Hukku gave a few reporters a glimpse of 3GLifestore. But why would an infrastructure equipment provider develop an online applicatio n? Hukku explained that Ericsson's goal is to show online companies, telecommunica tions providers, and the public in general that integration is possible not jus t in one communications platform but in all aspects. The idea is that by creating innovative services, companies will be able to thi nk of new business models to maximize infrastructure usage, as well as increase revenue while providing the market with easier to use and enriching usage opti ons. Hukku said Ericsson is also helping strengthen the growing market for social ne twork communities, which can be tapped by telecommunications providers. "It is the realization of Web 2.0 and we want people to jump into it because th ey would benefit from it," Hukku added. In a demo, Ericsson showed that 3GLifestore is an online service that is largel y a content aggregator for various blog services. A user can send or receive ph otos, videos, audio files and text files on a chosen platform, be it through th e web or mobile phone. But its main feature is a WAP version (a stripped-down version of the web for m obile platforms) allowing it to be accessed on a mobile phone. The mobile phone interface was created to become clutter-free and as easy to use as that of the Internet version. But unlike other social networking aggregators, 3GLifestore will have editable page s to make it look more unique to the users. Another main feature is streaming Flash video. Ericsson partnered with online v ideo giant Youtube to "push" video into a mobile phone. The phone interface als o allows it to run the Youtube video simultaneously with a webcam function thro ugh the phone's front camera. Despite it being an Ericsson product, the service is not limited to partner pho nes. It can be installed on just about any mobile phone that has sufficient Int ernet access. He said 3GLifestore will be rolled out worldwide "very soon." He did not, howev er, say if the company is already in talks with telecommunications providers in the Philippines.

By Agence France-Presse SINGAPORE - A US national said Tuesday he will be tried in Singapore next month for allegedly insulting two judges who had presided over cases involving an op position leader. Gopalan Nair, a former Singaporean lawyer who is now a US citizen, told Agence France-Presse he has not yet hired a lawyer to represent him in the trial from September 8 to 19. "At this moment, I am representing myself," he said. Nair faces two charges of insulting judges on his blog. Each charge carries a j ail term of up to one year, S$5,000 fine (US$3,676) or both. In the first charge, he is accused of insulting Justice Belinda Ang, who presid ed over a defamation case where Singapore's founding father Lee Kuan Yew and hi s son Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong testified against the leader of the opposi tion Singapore Democratic Party (SDP). Nair, 58, alleged that Ang was "prostituting herself during the entire proceedi ngs by being nothing more than an employee of Mr Lee Kuan Yew and his son and c arrying out their orders," a court document said. In the second charge, Nair is alleged to have sent an e-mail to Supreme Court J ustice Lai Siu Chiu in 2006 saying he has "no shame" and that judges "are selli ng their souls and their conscience for money," according to a court document. Nair allegedly sent the e-mail on the day Lai sentenced SDP secretary general C hee Soon Juan to a one-day jail term and fined him for contempt of court. Nair said he is currently free on bail of $5,000.

By Alex Villafania INQUIRER.net MAKATI City, Philippines -- Senator Manuel Roxas III is taking his online prese nce further. Aside from his official website, an e-forum and accounts in social networking s ites, Roxas has finally opened his own blog and is setting up his own virtual ral ly to further promote his advocacies. Roxas' other websites include one that is about his official function as senato r. He also has entries in Facebook.com, Friendster.com and MySpace.com. Roxas who uses the handle "misterpalengke" launched his official blog last Augu st 1, after meeting up with bloggers in Quezon City. It appears, however, that he made his first posting on July 27. So far, there are three blog entries, though the last two entries were written by "Kael", a staff member of Roxas, and "Susan", a former staff member. Meanwhile, Roxas's Virtual Rally site is still undergoing final revisions but t he main page is already readable. One of his staff members said in an interview that they will soon finish working on the site. The virtual rally, created in Adobe Flash, is aimed at gathering a virtual crow d to peacefully protest different issues. People can use avatars to represent t hemselves in the rallies. So far, there are 111 members of the virtual rally and the main topic for now i s the fuel price hike.