I never really believed in using or providing RSS/Atom feeds to my regular readers because I feel that it’s not healthy for my blog traffic. I used to think that:
- Using RSS feeds could reduce pageviews of your blog.
- RSS readers are sometimes delayed and not updated. This could give an impression that your blog has not been updated when in fact you have just done so.
- RSS feeds do not provide you with any form of revenue, unless you’re into AdSense for feeds or something similar.
- Not too many people know RSS, much more use it.
- Providing feeds allow other unscrupulous bloggers to scrape your site easily. Seen a couple of them scraping AdSense-related posts from my blog before.
- Feeds do not show other cosmetic changes you make on your blog. It defeats the whole blogging experiencing without the eye-candy part.
I have a lot of other reasons before about not using RSS or Atom feeds. One of them was actually adapting to a new blog reading habit.
This perception has been reversed only recently. I realized that I myself have been having a hard time tracking all the blogs I read and using feed readers such as FeedDemon and Newsgator/Google Reader has significantly help me read more or cover more blogs.
Ever since, I’ve encouraged other people to use feed readers as well. Mine’s FeedDemon for my desktop and Newsgator/Google reader for web. What’s yours?
The week-end will be real slow. No banks or offices, at least until Tuesday. Most will be packing a longer break until next week if they filed a vacation leave for Wednesday and Thursday.
For me, it means, I get to blog more across all my blogs and even read more blogs myself. Here are some of the more interesting reads I’d like to share with you:
Every once in a while, I get an email from some webmasters or site owners asking for a reciprocal link exchange with my blog. I usually brush them off as some nuissance emails and automatically delete them.
Lately though, I have been thinking a little more or trying to reconsider the offers. However, as Marc would have put it, you need to look at some factors when doing or accepting some link exchanges. One of them would obviously be the PageRank (PR) of the site that wants to exchange links with you. Another would be the type of site and similarity of content to your blog.
It’s a different thing altogether when someone asks that his site be linked from my blog for a regular flat fee. I have been offered that before but I shrugged it off.
Has any of you had the same experience. Do you have your own blog link exchange policies as well? What are your thoughts about exchanging links?
Published by: yuga under: Telecoms.
posted:
October 29th, 2005
Got a special mail today from PLDT. It’s one of those pamphlets they’re sending out too all DSL subscribers – International Dialing for DSL Subsribers (or ID-DSL). This new service by PLDT allows you to call any landline or cellular phone abroad at low rates of 8 cents per minute.
If you are a PLDT myDSL subscriber, all you need is the VoicePad dialer software installed in your PC. Likewise, you may call abroad using your regular landline as long as you register by calling 10-10-10. The rates for that is $0.10 per minute if you are under Plan 2500 or higher and $0.15 if below that. Likewise, by using the VoicePad you are only charged $0.08 and $0.12 per minute respectively.
To use the VoicePad, you need to go and register at www.mypad.net and your monthly phone bill is charged a flat rate of Php50 as service charge. When using a landline handset, all you need is to dial 101-99 + country code + area code + the number you are calling. You need to add the 101-99 prefix or else you are still charged the regular rate of $0.40 per minute.
These rates only apply to top 20 selected destinations which can be found at www.mypad.net.
We will be having a buffet lunch at Dad’s Megamall this Monday (around 12 noon) with The Sassy Lawyer and Mr. Rebelpixel. If you are just around the bend that day, join us. We’ll be talking about the future of Pinoy blogging, some more projects, offline events, more collaborations, and possibly a blog network.
This is your chance to meet the top Adsense earners in the Filipino blogosphere, learn some more blog secrets and techniques, and maybe join several projects we will have on the way. We’ll be glad to hear some of your ideas as well.
Email me or text me if you’re interested to join us for lunch.
P.S.
KKB po ito. 
What is this all about?
Between October 24th and December 9, 2005, the TechWeb Network will be accepting nominations and votes for the 2005 TechWeb Blog-X Awards. Nominations will be accepted from October 24, 2005 through November 11, 2005. The ten most nominated, qualified Independent technology blogs will be linked to for six months from TechWeb Network sites and will be finalists for the 2005 TechWeb Blog-X Awards.
Finalist voting will be held from November 12, 2005 through December 9th, 2005. The independent tech blog that receives the most votes will be named the 2005 TechWeb Blog-X Award Winner and will be linked to for six months from TechWeb Network sites and the owner of the winning site will receive one $500 Specialty Starbucks Coffee Gift Card.
To qualify for the 2005 TechWeb Blog-X Awards, nominated blogs must meet the following criteria: (a) The blog must primarily cover technology, and (b) The blog must be published independently of the major tech publishing companies CMP Media LLC, Ziff Davis, CNET, Tech Target and IDG, their affiliates, subsidiaries and parent companies. Any blog that meets these criteria is eligible to be nominated.
I’m just after the $500 Strabucks GC . so if you like my blog, please nominate me (and Pinoy.Tech.Blog).
This is why “mobile blogging” isn’t safe for kids — Smart’s Addict Mobile Blog (or AMBlog) is being swamped with nude pictures being posted via MMS by its subscribers.
A recent visit to Smart’s AMBlog revelead a lot of explicit nudity and sexual acts which is way beyond the borders of soft porn.
Readers, beware. Pictures below are “Not Safe for Kids”.
Smart ought to do some serious filtering here. Reposting from Pinoy.Tech.Blog.
The “Ang Panday” project is an SEO experiment of Marc for the upcoming teleserye “Ang Panday”, starred by Jericho Rosales and Heart Evangelista. Full disclosure can be read in his recent entry over at Pinoy.Tech.Blog.
The project involves a real-life experiment on SERPs using link popularity. The goal here is to increase link popularity for the Ang Panday blog.
So, if you want to help out, show some link loving by pasting these codes into your blog/s:
- <a href="http://ang-panday.blogspot.com">Panday</a>
- <a href="http://ang-panday.blogspot.com">Ang Panday</a>
- <a href="http://ang-panday.blogspot.com">Ang Panday – Jericho Rosales</a>
- <a href="http://ang-panday.blogspot.com">Jericho Rosales and Heart Evangelista Forever</a>
We’ll be watching out for this little “Panday” SEO exercise in the following weeks.
Continuing with my “What happened to?” series, I don’t know if anybody here still remembers Edsa.com.ph.
It was one of the leading web portal/search engines back in the late 90s, going against start-up portal Yehey.com. Edsa.com.ph (formally launched during the anniversary of EDSA Revolution in February 25, 1997.) was dubbed as the First Search-Enabled Web Directory by Janet Torral’s Philippine Internet Review. It was developed and maintained by Evoserve, a local ISP company who also happens to own EdsaMail.
Jason Banico, former CTO of Yehey was one of those who developed/upgraded the search engine EDSA.com.ph into the horizontal content portal, EDSAWorld.com. Today, both Edsa.com.ph and EDSAWorld.com are nowhere to be found (up for sale by domain squatters).
On the other hand, EDSAMail is also having problems of its own.
From one of Dean Jorge Bacobo’s (Philippine Commentary) entry about “Visual Maps of the Filipino Blogosphere” is the TouchGraph Google Browser.
TouchGraph is an interactive tool for visualizing the local topology or structure of a network by showing how various websites are interconnected together starting at a URL address that the user selects. DJB adds “The graph above is actually a highly detailed map whose static and dynamic features are best appreciated live. You can switch center of the universe focus and watch as TouchGraph rearranges everything in a dance of planets kind of ballet as the linked websites fall into graphical orbit. Bloghopping was never like this!”. And I agree with him a 100% on this!
I think the best place to start the Visual Maps would be PinoyBlog.com (DJB uses PCIJ but I think it’s politically biased hehehe). With close to 2,300 member blogs, you can clearly see where’s who in the Pinoy blogosphere.
Go and check out Dean Jorge Bacobo’s earlier post here and another related article “19 Clicks Is The Diameter of the Blogosphere“.
Globe’s broadband subsidiary Innove Communications has partnered with Intel to test out WiMAX for residents in Trece Martirez, Cavite. Trials for WiMax will be done by selected employees of Intel in Cavite. testing will be done in about 3 months and once this has been deemed viable, Globe might offer the service in Metro Manila in as early as 2007.
In a news article published in Manila Bulletin here:
The availability and pervasiveness of WiMAX-compliant equipment and communication tools will play a major role in determining the timetable for its commercial deployment. According to Intel, the main advocate of WiMAX technology, outdoor and indoor CPEs will be available between now and next year, costing between $350 and $400.
The second-generation CPEs, which will be indoor self-installable modems similar to a cable or DSL modem and will be priced around $250, are expected to be available in early 2007. Eventually, CPEs will be integrated in laptops which should become available in 2007-08, while cellphones with CPEs inside should come out in 2008-09.
Sounds pretty exciting to me. We should be able to get some competition for Smart WiFi with this, but WiMax is in a much better position to provide high-speed and reliable broadband internet in the country.
Darren was pointing out the diversity of blog income streams and listed them down according to popularity of usage (well, at least from my point of view). I checked the listing in the hopes that I might (have missed some great opportunities) find some new or additional revenue sources along the way.
What surprised me was the last entry on that list — Consulting and Speaking. I didn’t really thought of that as an income stream from blogging but in the past couple of months that I’ve been doing some speaking engagements and blog consulting, I realized that the revenues coming from that side was significant enough.
I believe that sharing your ideas and expertise to fellow bloggers and blog enthusiasts should be given free but if (and when) you get paid for it, there’s nothing wrong about it. *grins*
Again, with the sudden growth of blogging and interests, I reckon this is going to be a really good year for most Pinoy bloggers. Cheers to all!
Traffic trends over the past couple of days have been very favorable to blogs that have dedicated a sizable amount of their content to the latest television reality TV show of ABS CBN, the Pinoy Big Brother. Those that came into the scene earlier on and have been providing original content are the ones that get the most number of exposures.
Continue reading ‘Traffic Trends over Pinoy Big Brother’
From the Business Opportunities Weblog, a neat blog valuation calculator. Found about it a couple of weeks ago and it was buggy then. I only remembered it again when Rain posted about it on PTB.
So here’s what I got for this blog:
Your blog, http://www.yugatech.com/blog/, is worth $124,763.34
Any takers? I’ll give you 50% off! haha!
This is part of an email from TopCoder announcing a new Logo Design Contest for 2006:
For the TCO06, TopCoder is again featuring this exciting competition for members to create a logo. $5,000 will be awarded to the top five designs with the grand prize winner earning $3,000!
TopCoder would like to give any member the opportunity to put their creativity to the test and come up with the logo design that we will use as a base to brand the TCO06. That includes our website, t-shirts, the stage at the onsite finals, and anywhere else that the TCO might show up. So here is your chance to express what TopCoder tournaments mean to you, by designing the logo for the up and coming TopCoder Open 2006.
Check out all the details.
Best of luck to you!
- The TopCoder Competitions Team
P.S. Please pass this along to anyone you think might be interested in this contest. The only requirement to submit is to register at TopCoder.
Thanks to darksparrow for the tip.
Published by: yuga under: Yahoo.
posted:
October 24th, 2005
Was just checking my Yahoo emails when after responding to one client, I was prompted with a “send mail” verification that uses a captcha system.
It was unusual actually since most of the emails I replied to today did not prompt me with captcha verification. I tried again and the email was sent thru without it.
Then I realized that it must be how I wrote my reply which was mostly in Taglish (Tagalog-English). That could have triggered it. It’s a nice feature but for the un-initiated, it could mean not being able to realize that your email replies didn’t reach your recepient because you forgot to fillup the captcha before closing your Yahoo!Mail.
Just breaking the news here.
Pinoy problogger and fellow Pinoy.Tech.Blogger J. Angelo has a podcast.
Listen to the first episode of the J Spotter Podcast, where I discuss the basics of business blogging. This episode was recorded for the formal launch of the Sun.Star Blog Chronicles tomorrow, October 25, 2005.
I downloaded it immediately and even subscribed to it via iTunes. (Got some error though. )
Anyway, congrats to J Angelo for an interesting first episode. 
Go check his podcast too.
[tags]free podcasts, ipod, itunes[/tags]
Ok, I was asked how many blogs I have the last time and I said about 10.
Seriously, I think it’s more than that. The only ones that most people know of is this one, PinoyBlog, PinoyTechBlog but there are more actually. Some are still in it’s infancy and have not been launched formally.
Others are blogs which I am a guest blogger, another one is a personal blog for my own consumption, and the rest are research/experimental blogs I am testing. Maybe when the timing is right, I will reveal the “secret” ones. It’s all about timing actually.
These are blogs where I do blog or write, not the ones that I just maintain. So all, in all the 10 that I mentioned is close enough.
How about you? How many blogs do you have?.
On another topic:
What do you think about having a blog editor (proofreader)? That is, someone to edit your sentences, grammar and the such. Does it defeat the purpose of your blogging style? Just wondering since LiewCF got one recently due to heavy criticisms on his blog.
That’s a wrap!
Really nice to meet the faces behind the great MSM blogs — chatted with Jayvee Rufino of In7.net, Jove Francisco of IBC5, Ricky Carandang of ANC News, John Neri of Philippine Daily Inquirer, Ellen Tordesillas of Malaya and of course fellow tech blogger and journalist Max Limpag of Sun Star Cebu. And yes, a whole lot of other journalists from Palawan to Baguio I failed to remember (lemme check those calling cards).
Anyway, to those failed to get my number (0918.4970174) or email (abeolandres@gmail.com), I’m posting them here. I’m sure you have others questions I never got to answer during the conference. Don’t worry, blog consulations are free.
And thanks to Alex and Yvonne for inviting me over (and pimping my web hosting business).
P.S.
PCIJ published a new book on Hello Garci Jokes. I believe Retz will be really happy to learn that a lot of his “Poop-tographs” are included in it (with credits too). So Retz, expect some more traffic coming your way.
Published by: yuga under: Telecoms.
posted:
October 21st, 2005
Got home this evening to find pamphlets at my doorstep from Globe. Apparently they are now offering broadband connections to residential areas with speeds of up to 2Mbps. Sweet.
Here are the DSL rates and prices:
*GenTxt Express Unlimited
Monthly Fee: Php995
DSL Speed: 384kbps
Express Unlimited
Monthly Fee: Php1,495 (promo price of Php995 just now)
DSL Speed: 384kbps
Explore Silver
Monthly Fee: Php1,995
DSL Speed: 768kbps
Explore Gold
Monthly Fee: Php2,995
DSL Speed: 2Mbps
* I think the GenTxt plan is for students. Not sure about it but looks very similar to the PLDT DSL student rate before (Plan 998 or something). And read this — a Globelines landline subscription is NOT a prerequisite to Globelines broadband.
The 2Mbps under Explore Gold plan did took most of my attention. Really, really nice to have something like that at home all by myself. And to think that only last year, I was paying GreenDot Php2,750 for a mere 256kbps connection.
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