Philippines, Technology News & Reviews
Most of you here might have already aware of the 2nd installment on the Philippine SEO contest.
This time the new keyword is ituloy angsulong which means something like continue the movement or something to that effect. It’s supposed to be composed of 3 words (ituloy, ang, sulong) but if you have them that way, you’d get results in the search engines.
So, I was emailed about this one just now and it says:
I am writing to you with hopes that you spread our outrage. We’re appalled that one of the country’s top bloggers is an anti-christ. How dare he make a joke out of Jesus by posting disturbing photos on his blog.
http://www.bryanboy.com/bryanboy_le_superstar_fab/2006/10/jesus_is_our_fu.htmlPlease spread the word about this sinner and help us with our petition.
http://www.petitiononline.com/bboyevil/petition.html
Kenneth Ocampo
The post above shows a picture of a Brit guy beside a cross with Jesus Christ holding a bag in a Bryanboy fashion.
I have nothing against Bryanboy and I don’t know him personally (though we had some email exchanges before and he occasionally leaves comments on my blog ) but I guess the pictures he posted is kinda offensive to the Catholic Church.
Caution: The rest of the pictures in his blog are NSFW.
This is not the first time I get emails from people complaining about Bryanboy and the contents of his blog. But it’s not my blog nor I have any control over it. We’re on thin ice here.
Now that Youtube is in acquisition process by Google for $1.65 billion, it has made itself a huge milking target by other companies.
About a week ago, nearly 30,000 clips of TV shows, movies and music videos were purged from Youtube after the Japanese Society for Rights of Authors, Composers and Publishers cited copyright infringement. Now, Viacom is asking for all copyrighted materials by Comedy Central to be removed as well so don’t expect any of the shows from “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart,” “The Colbert Report” and “South Park” being available on Youtube anytime soon.
As far as I can recall, this is the first Google acquisition that is riddled with tons of liabilities and risks. Expect more purging to come.
Looks like the cleaned up Youtube might suffer the same fate as Google Video. I reckon one day Youtube will also have to do manual reviews of uploaded clips before publishing it.
Will John C. Dvorak’s predictions hold true? That in the long run, this buy-out will only hurt Google and attract more lawsuits — all for a couple billion more page view inventory.
While some of you may already have noticed this, I’d like to repeat it again here and say that the built-in spell checker with Firefox 2.0 is just awesome. This is prolly one of the best tools for a blogger right now — real-time spell-checking.
I’m the kind of blogger who clicks the Publish button before editing the entry for grammar errors and typos. It’s been a habit of mine since like forever. I may even find typos as far back as a month ago and I’d still correct them. Yeah, embarrassing at times but hey that’s why I started blogging in the first place — to learn from my mistakes (and I’d be the first to admit I flunked the English entrance exam test in AdMU).
Ok, going back to Firefox’s spell-checker.
If you’ll notice in the screen shot of this post above, the words which are suspect to wrong spelling are in red dotted underlines. If you right click on that word, you’d get the correct spelling or sometimes a list of suggested words for replacement. Clicking on one of the listed terms will replace the existing one you wrote down.
If you know that the word is spelled correctly but is not in the Dictionary (could be acronym, slang, non-English), there’s an option there to also add it to the dictionary.
That’s it! No extensions needed to install and no pop-ups or browser windows to deal with. Runs smoothly.
Will local Web 2.0 ad-driven services work in the Philippines?
Lots of topics abound during the Philippine SEO Meet-up last Saturday at Fort Bonifacio. Among the ones we talked about was the growing number of Web 2.0 sites targeting Filipino internet users, most of which are merely localized clones of successful (or recently-acquired) ones like Digg, MySpace, Youtube, and Facebook (not to mention the iTunes business model).
By copying them already proven successful Web 2.0 sites, one is said to have won half the battle. The only problem though is actually getting traffic to these proven formula. The old saying that “build it and they will come” doesn’t always apply depending on which part of the globe you serve it to.
Still, even if you get the traffic you wanted, will the advertising model pull it off? Still a fifty-fifty chance — remember that Asian traffic isn’t worth a lot even if you look at it on a CPM (cost-per-thousand) level much more if advertisers prefer CPA (cost-per-action).
I believe the problem lies in what I would call the “Greenhills phenomenon”. We prefer to copy a successful formula rather than suggest a completely new formula. There’s nothing new, no innovation — we lack originality so we end up with repackaging some successful brand from the west. Well, yeah, sometimes it’s okay to copy an idea and make a completely better one (see Slashdot + del.ico.us = Digg) but all I see is that we’d rather start our own small, colored club rather than beating the club.
So, is there a future for a truly Pinoy Web 2.0? I’d say yes, we’re just waiting for the right formula.
There’s this little known underground economy for domaineers that’s very, very lucrative. In one of our discussions the other night at the SEO Philippines party, there’s this one guy from down south who snatched up the .COM of a tri-media popular .COM.PH website — within months, he was allegedly earning USD$6,000 per month from Adsense for domains. Lucky guy (if my guess was right, he used to link/comment to this blog).
Ok, going back to the topic of porn sites snatching up expired domains. A classic example of which is my friends popular blog awards site — the Philippine Blog Awards. I won’t link to it since you’ll end up to a landing page for a porn site. See, he got tired of running the site and decided to let go of it. I told him he should have passed it on to me because the awards was a good way of promoting Filipino blogs. He just forgot about it and moved on.
Now, since the awards was on for about 3 years and every year around 500 or so blogs enter the contest, you’d expect it to have a lot of linkbacks. There are also linked badges still being posted by previous winners. That’s foot traffic right there and then. And for a nifty $9 a month, the porn site owners got a huge bargain for it.
So, if you still have links back to that website somewhere in your archives, please pull them off. And the next time you want to let go of a domain, try and ask a friend or someone you trust if they want it (you can ask me too!). At least, it won’t go and serve some viagra, poker, texas holdem or porn sites.
Some people get it, some people don’t. So big props to those companies, big or small, who do get it. So, what does 3G and popcorn have in common? They believe in the power of blog marketing.
Right after our whole day adventure in Antipolo yesterday (with Anton and his family) , we were invited to a popcorn feast somewhere in Quezon City. Turns out some bloggers were marketing Chef Tony’s Popcorn Company to fellow bloggers thru a taste-test.
Ahhh, treat them bloggers with popcorn and you get link loves.
Truth be told, the flavored popcorns were really great. I especially liked the Almond Mochachino and the Parmesan flavored ones.
And they didn’t have to send me home with a box of Almond Mochachino Popcorns to write about Blog Marketing — it’s simple, cheap and effective.
After several days of loitering about at the Mall of Asia, I finally got the new laptop I was dying itching to get. I was a little confused on which one to buy actually — can’t get them all on a tight budget but I was hoping for a 12.1″, a battery life of 4 to 6 hours, and some CPU power of a Core Duo or a Core 2. Turns out, looks and black beauty counts too! Nahhh, it wasn’t a MacBook Pro but I got something close to that.
Here’s the new rig:
Compaq Presario V3000
Intel Core 2 Duo (T5500) 1.66GHz
1 GB DDR2 RAM
60GB HDD
14.1″ WXGA BrightView Widescreen (1280×800)
Intel(R) Graphics Media Accelerator 950
8X DVD+/-R/RW w/ Double Layer Support
Built-in Card Reader (SD, MMC, MS/Pro, XD)
Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG
Bluetooth
ExpressCard/54 slot
Altec Lansing Speakers
I’ve been carrying it around whole day yesterday and at 5.39 lb, it’s a bit heavier than my old 12″ notebook so it’ll take a while getting used to it.
We went to Connie’s house in Antipolo for a vidcast interview so I got to place my rig beside her 2-month old MacBook Pro for a blow by blow comparison — guess who topped the swimsuit competition?
The whole afternoon was spent at Vieux Chalet eating our guts out. Really nice Swiss restaurant this Vieux Chalet, just too far to get to. Thanks to the lovely owner who treated us for lunch. This place is really worth the visit. Pictures will be uploaded later. Also watch out for Connie’s video interview anytime soon.
The office of Friendster Philippines, formerly known as Pusit.com, has been closed down. William Yu took some pictures of their office and asked Where Did Pusit.com Go?
Migs adds that Friendster has ceased running Friendster Classifieds and Friendster Ads (FAds) - They’re outsourcing their technical stuff to another company here, though, AFAIK (something called EGG which listed Friendster as one of their partners). Is this the same one I got from another source a couple months ago about that BPO?
It’s possible Friendster Ads and Friendster Classifieds weren’t successful in monetizing the service among the 5 Million Filipino Friendster users.
Even the domain pusit.com now resolves to Friendster.com.
There’s no official word from Terence Pua though. William Yu has more juicy information from several unverified sources here. Looks like Friendster will be doing a local BPO after all.
For several weeks now, I’ve been having problems with my personal dedicated server especially that PinoyTopBlogs have been tracking a growing number of Philippine blogs close to 2,000.
The existing server (AMD Athlon 64 3800 + 2GB RAM + 2×80GB HDD) I’m running my blogs on was running since January this year. Despite a lot of optimization, I guess it’s time to move on to a faster server.
So, I got myself an AMD Opteron 246 last night — that’s 2 x 2.0GHz. Hopefully, this should last me another 12 or so months, unless I’m planning to give away another round of hosting accounts for free.
Will start moving my blogs tonight, esp. PinoyTopBlogs, so that everything will resolve fine by tomorrow morning.
After several blog posts and discussion over the recent Xoom Password Recovery Facility (see Easily Cracked Xoom Accounts?), Xoom has wisened up and fixed that feature.
Marhgil posted about it here after checking back on their system.
That was quite fast. At least they’re monitoring blogs or reading emails huh?
I’ve been noticing that a lot of people on my YM list are sending me random messages with links to some sites. I’ve had this before and that time it was coming from my end so now I know people are just infected by a new worm somehow.
I also got this form one of my contacts:
PLS BE INFORMED IMMEDIATELY! A virus is on a rampage in Messengers. The virus name is WORM_SOHAND.I. It shows itself as an innocent IM with a link to a site and tells you it is about cool pictures. Whne the link is clicked, it takes control of your registry, changes your browsers homepage and disables you to change the homepage! after clicked it also sends itself to everyone in your messenger list. So if you recieve it, please remeber DO NOT CLICK THE LINK! just close the window or read the other offline messages. Warning: it may come from your closest friends to! PLEASE, PASS IT ON TO ALL
Anybody else experiencing this lately? I did a search and it’s not yet showing up anywhere but definitely it’s a virus/worm.
I used to buy a lot of tech magazines before (last year) but lately I noticed I’m not too excited to grab one from the magazine store anymore.
So, here’s a question that once popped out of nowhere during one of our regular meet-up sessions: What’s the most widely read Tech Mag in the Philippines?
Frankly, I have no idea then. I can name the ones I used to read and often see on the newsstands.
Guess what the answer was:
Would you agreed? Well, PC Magazine has the brand and recognition almost worldwide so it does make sense. What Tech Mags you usually read?
P.S.
I have two articles printed on this October-November issue of PC Mag Philippines — one about blog monetization and the other on Paypal vs. Google Checkout.
The final release of FireFox 2.0 came out yesterday though I didn’t notice it because the RC3 that I installed automatically updated itself along with several plugins/extensions that are not fully compatible with it.
The best feature thus far that I noticed was the spelling tracker built in it — so, while I’m writing this post inside WP-Admin, I can see red dotted lines on words that had typo errors in them. A spelling check has long been wanted for Wordpress but there’s no need for that now since it’s built-in with Firefox.
The only bug that’s been bugging me is that scrolling mouse click. I’m not sure if this is an isolated case but every time I go to a fresh new page and click on any link, the page just scrolls up to the top — it’s as if the link I just hit was a name anchor (e.g. back to top). I thought the final release would have fixed this bug but it’s still there.
Anybody else experiencing this same thing?
This one is really nice — Google Co-op allows you to create a custom search engine and launch it from your own site.
Build and customize your own search engine:
* Specify the sites you want to include in searches.
* Place a search box and search results on your website.
* Customize the look and feel to match your website.
* Invite your community to contribute to the search engine.
* Make money from relevant ads in your search results.
* Learn more: FAQ and featured examples.
I have one right here: YugaTech Search.
So if you’re running a really huge forum like Motorcycle Philippines, you can use this instead and free your server of a ton of CPU load from index searching.
Just like Adsense for search, you can also monetize this search engine by adding your own Adsense Publisher ID.
This is an ongoing discussion over at SEO Philippines Yahoogroups so I’m re-posting my answer there here.
Disclosure: I am an .PH reseller.
I have been meeting with the PH team for some time now and I have been somewhat discussing with them the idea of lowering the prices. I’ve also had talks with JJ Disini and he himself tells me that he’s talking to the older brother about slashing off the prices.
There are so many factors why the pricing has been stagnant for years. I’ve also asked them the total number of active PH domains and though I didn’t get an exact answer, my guesstimate was in the range of 125k to 150k.
First, PH is not the most expensive — .TV is $38, .JP is $99, .BE is $39, .AT is $79, .NZ is $69, .CC is $39. The CNO namespace is universal and the ccTLD is country specific, so we can’t really compare prices for the two considering the fact that volume of domains are way way apart. The best scale would be to compare PH pricing with other ccTLD pricing.
Second, supply and demand — will lowering the price assure increase in sales? That is, will cutting the price into 3 folds create enough demand to triple the sales volume (thereby maintaining gross revenue)? Remember, it is still a business. Take for example the local hosting industry. It’s really expensive compared to the rest in the US. Can we point to a local hosting company that can match the pricing of DreamHost, 1&1, Powweb, etc?
Third, target market — this is in conjunction with #2 actually. I was told a huge percentage of .PH domains are bought for branding and IP by big companies and corporations worldwide. These are in the tens of thousands of companies who want to claim ownership of their domain name before other squatters do. The logic goes like — if PH domain sells domains at $100, eBay, Microsoft will still buy the domain; same way that they’ll pay if the price was just $10. The question becomes, will all SMEs and individuals buy PH domains instead of a .COM despite these changes? There’s no assurance there.
Fourth, protecting the existing resellers. This I only realized when I became a reseller. Say Resellers get their PH domains at $25/year and sell them at $30 per year. It’s still lower than $70/2 years to entice customers to buy from the resellers and not directly from dotPH.
Lastly, and this one’s my theory, self-preservation. Look at Microsoft — it was able to maintain its dominance and success because it had something people needed and only Microsoft can provide. Has FOSS able to shift the market demand and pressured M$ to lower licensing fees? So, let’s ask ourselves that if we owned dotPH, would we still subscribe to the same reasoning against the monopoly that is dotPH? What company would want lower revenues, eh?
These are reasons given to me during our discussions.
Don’t get me wrong — I want the prices to go down too and I am constantly having discussions with them about this (although it may seem a futile effort).
Here’s a really good checklist of things you need to do or have in mind when launching a new blog.
The 21 points included in this checklist will cover the basics of what you need to do during those all-important first two weeks of your blog’s life. While there are no guarantees in the blogosphere, if you follow these launching tips closely, your chances of success are greatly improved.
I especially recommend point #20 — Go ‘Real-World’ with other bloggers.. I’ve always noticed the link loves are always given freely and easily (sometimes by the dozen) during meetups, blogcons and eyeballs.
So, there’s the tip — always attend meetups (not only when there’s free food and drinks!). I’m pretty sure the link value you’d get is way more precious than any bottomless iced tea you can ever drink. 
Hopefully, we can organize one Bloggers’ Christmas Party this December. 
Wordpress.com has just announced over the week-end that it’s giving away free domains on randomly selected Wordpress.com blogs.
Our most requested feature has nearly always been the ability to change a blog’s URL. We’ve been working on a system that lets you do just that and I am pleased to tell you that it is almost ready!
Just to clarify what I’m talking about, we are making it possible to give your WordPress.com blog a different URL. For example, your blog can live at yourdomain.com or blog.yourdomain.com instead of yourblog.wordpress.com.
Domain registration and mapping are sensitive, technical operations and we want these processes to be easy. To that end, the development and testing have to be thorough. While I was setting up test domains it occurred to me that I ought to set them up on live blogs rather than test blogs. The more traffic the systems gets during testing, the more confidently we can release the feature.
So here’s my idea: I’ll sneak into a few of your dashboards when you aren’t looking and give you a brand new domain based on your current one. If you like it, keep it as your blog URL until it expires or you renew it. If you don’t like it, you’ll be able to switch back to your wordpress.com domain. If you decide to keep it, all of your old URLs (permalinks) will still work. They’ll simply redirect visitors to the new URL.
That’s a nice feature to add which I think will convince a lot of WP.com bloggers to retain their blogs in the long haul.
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