Google changing lives in the Philippines

A recent article of USA Today’s Tech section entitled “Google’s hidden payroll” states that Google’s Adsense program has greater effects in 3rd world countries such as the Philippines.

Anyone with a site is eligible, and Web forums are awash in success stories of small online entrepreneurs placing ads on their sites, sitting back, and watching checks from Google roll in.

But it is Web entrepreneurs in the developing world who are reaping the greatest benefit from the program.

A lot of successful cases have been shared in the official Adsense Success Stories and hundreds of thousands more worldwide with a growing number of them from the Philippines. The article mentioned a couple of them:

Andrew de la Serna runs a small search engine in Davao City, Philippines, and derives about 40% of his monthly income from Adsense. “It’s great to do what you love to do and earn money from it at the same time,” he says.

His earnings have allowed him to purchase a cellphone, develop new websites, and build up his savings account.

Dr. Rodolfo Rafael, who owns a small medical clinic in San Fabian, Philippines, says the Adsense earnings from his medical website allow him to “dream big” and reinvest in his medical practice.

The Social Software Weblog adds:

Perhaps those of us trapped in English only, US-centric webspace only come across developing world sites with Adsense when one comes by email or blog comments to pick our fat pockets. (Of course there’s no shortage of people doing the same or worse in the US as well.) Meanwhile there’s a whole world full of people out there talking amongst themselves and doing their thing online – and apparently Adsense is kissing their babbies and rescuing their kittens from trees and stuff.

Anybody care to post links to their favorite localized sites supported by Adsense and containing compelling, original content?

Ok, so I searched for the names of the people mentioned in the story and these are their sites as far as I can tell:

* http://www.nibbleguru.com/
* http://www.alleba.com (Ouch, the company blog has 2 readers via Feedburner. Seems like a totally legit search engine for info related to the Phillipines though.)
* http://www.freeware-alternative.uni.cc/

For US Publishers, a thousand bucks ($$$$) may be too small for them but for us here in Asia, it could already be equivalent to a middle management level salary.

[tags]adsense philippines, making money online, internet advertising[/tags]