By Alex Villafania
INQUIRER.net

A DAY after an apparent news embargo on the abduction of ABS-CBN reporter Ces Drilon, two of her crew and a professor from the Mindanao State University, the online Filipino community of bloggers and forums is already alive with exchanges about their fates. Some offered prayers and praises for her while others speculated as to the purpose of the media blackout.

Since Monday, there has been speculation regarding the alleged abduction. Forums such as PinoyExchange.com and Peyups.com have dedicated threads on the issue and have been exchanging ideas since June 9. One member of Peyups.com posted a story from the online version of The Mindanao Examiner, though some members questioned the veracity of the story, stating that they have not picked up the story from other news websites and that it could be a hoax.

It was on June 9 when ABS-CBN executives “requested” other media outfits to embargo the story until 6 a.m. of June 10, stating concerns about the safety of Drilon and her companions. This was also later criticized by some Peyups.com and Pinoyexchange.com members.

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By Agence France-Presse

SAN FRANCISCO, California–The world had real-time news about China’s massive earthquake as victims dashed out “twitter” text messages while it took place, in what was being touted Tuesday as micro-blogging outshining mainstream news.

As the earth shook with tragic consequences, people in the parts of China that felt the quake used their mobile telephones to send terse messages using the service provided by the San Francisco-based Twitter Inc.

News of the deadly catastrophe reached Twitter devotees such as blogger Robert Scoble in San Francisco even before the massive temblor, which killed more than 12,000 people in Sichuan province, was reported by news organizations and the earthquake-tracking US Geological Survey.

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By Erwin Oliva
INQUIRER.net

A FILIPINO tech blogger has launched a blog that is dedicated to helping overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) to remotely manage their finances and communicate with their families back home.

“It hopes to bring together information to help OFWs manage their finances. It will contain news and information, such as how they can pay their Meralco (Manila Electric Co.) electric bill remotely,” said founder Edwin “Ka Edong” Soriano, who has been blogging for years.

The idea to start the eOFW blog was born two years ago but only materialized this year after Soriano found a Singaporean partner.

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HERE’S an interesting New York Times article that takes a look at blogging as a “low-cost, high return marketing tool.”

Excerpt:

But while blogs may be useful to many more small businesses, even blogging experts do not recommend it for the majority.

Guy Kawasaki, a serial entrepreneur, managing partner of Garage Technology Ventures and a prolific blogger, put it this way: “If you’re a clothing manufacturer or a restaurant, blogging is probably not as high on your list as making good food or good clothes.”

Blogging requires a large time commitment and some writing skills, which not every small business has on hand.

But some companies are suited to blogging. The most obvious candidates, said Aliza Sherman Risdahl, author of “The Everything Blogging Book” (Adams Media 2006), are consultants. “They are experts in their fields and are in the business of telling people what to do.”

HERE’S an interesting entry from my erstwhile fellow CNET Asia tech blogger (before I gave up the gig to concentrate on managing INQUIRER.net’s blog network and my other responsibilities as gaming and multimedia editor) Ignatius Javellana, who wrote about the news coverage of the Glorietta 2 blast by both mainstream media and citizen journalists.

Excerpt:

It’s this type of speed and efficiency that frightens me. For one thing, back in the day, when events such as these would occur, it would take a while for actual coverage of the event to even reach those who would probably be only a few blocks away. Take the first EDSA Revolution back in 1986—I was still a kid then but it took hours for people to mobilize, and for the news to reach us. But when it happened again in 2001, within minutes I received an SMS and Inquirer.net (then Inq7.net) already had it on their headline. Because technology affords us this speed and efficiency—wireless connectivity, portable digital cameras, 3G cellphones and more—any newsworthy event can be broadcast in seconds.

And because of the growing popularity of blogging among Filipinos, news of this latest terrible event spread like wildfire. Already within an hour there were hundreds of blogs writing about the explosion, all with their own speculations and theories as to what happened. Hundreds of photos of the carnage were being sent over email, posted on photo blogs. And even better, actual, first-hand accounts of the incident began to spring up—from people who were right there when it happened to people who knew other people that were there even to people at the emergency room of the Makati Medical Center where most of the victims of the explosion were brought. And to think this happened during the afternoon, during a time when loads of people are still online, getting updates from friends’ and friends of friends’ blogs.

My friend Azrael was one such person. Within an hour of the explosion, he was watching the news and already posting images he’d taken from ANC on his blog. An hour after that, another guy on Multiply started talking about his first hand experience of the explosion, even posting images he’d taken himself while he was there.

Indeed, news travels with blinding speed in the age of online media and citizen journalism — and so does fear.

The Chinese have a curse: May you live in interesting times. We’re living in that kind of world right now.

APART from blog entries and photos of the Glorietta 2 blast, citizen journalists have also uploaded video clips to sites such as YouTube.

Here are two such clips from a concerned citizen that Tonyo Cruz uploaded to YouTube — thanks to Tonyo for the heads up.

Here’s the first clip.

And here’s the second clip.

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MSNBC.COM has made its first acquisition in its 11 years of existence, shelling out an undisclosed amount to purchase citizen journalism/participatory news site Newsvine.

Here’s an excerpt from the Computerworld article:

Mike Davidson, CEO and co-founder of Newsvine, noted that the deal will allow more people to contribute to the site and helps “further the cause” of citizen journalism.

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The Office of the Privacy Commissioner has started blogging.

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 between the Office and Canadians interested about privacy issues and legislation.

As an Officer of Parliament, the Privacy Commissioner has a mandate to protect the privacy rights of individuals and promote the privacy protections available to Canadians.

HERE are some of the entries on the Estrada verdict that were posted by Filipino bloggers minutes after the Sandiganbayan found the former Philippine president 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.

By Erwin Oliva
INQUIRER.net

BANGKOK, Thailand–Filipino blogger Abe Olandres, popularly known as yuga, announced the sale of his 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 that the future of the project will be more secured with the new owners,” he said in a recent entry on his personal blog.

Admitting that the service has been bleeding money, Olandres said he could no longer 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 behind the backlogs,” he added.

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