I Am Blogie

Have you noticed the growing number of Filipino companies advertising on Facebook lately? This trend points to two things: 1) the population of Filipino users in Facebook has reached critical mass already; and, 2) businesses in the Philippines are finally grasping the reality behind ‘new media’ and the benefits of online advertising and marketing.

Facebook reports that the site now has upwards of 140 million active users, and that 70% of that is outside the U.S. (I would certainly love to find out the numbers from the Philippines!) And an even more significant demographic that will surely attract advertisers: the fastest growing segment of this population are 25 years old and older.

More statistics to whet an advertiser’s appetite:

• the average user has about 100 friends on Facebook
• worldwide, 2.6 billion minutes are spent on the site everyday
• more than 13 million users login at least once a day (and this probably doesn’t count access from mobile devices)
• 700 million+ photos are uploaded each month
• 15 million+ pieces of content are shared each month

What’s more, Facebook has made it tremendously accessible to publish ads on their site. There’s an easy-to-follow Web form that advertisers can use to create an ad, define its behavior (when to publish, duration and so forth), input the landing site address, and most significantly, set the desired target demographics.

This is something that’s not entirely possible — and is in fact quite hit-and-miss — with advertising on newspapers, TV or radio. On Facebook (and Google for that matter), advertisers can specify which age group, for instance, will be the target viewers of their ads with a certain degree of accuracy. Would you like only married women who are between 21 to 35 years old and are living in Metro Manila to see your ad? Consider it done.

As the number of ad placements from the Philippines rises on Facebook, Google properties, the vast number of Filipino blogs and other websites, conversely, advertising in traditional media seems to be experiencing a gradual decline. The pinch isn’t yet as painful as it is in the U.S. (as reported by TechCrunch as early as last year), but the downhill trend will start to become apparent here in the next couple of years.

As the venerable typewriter has largely been supplanted by the PC, so will the old forms of media become a thing of the past — maybe even during our lifetime. The age of electronic media is firmly upon us, and more people will soon be shifting to the Internet as their primary source of information.

No matter how splendid Apple® headsets are, sometimes your ears get sore when you have earphones plugged into them for too long. Sometimes you want to be surrounded by perfect-sounding tunes without being aurally isolated from the world.

You’re the type who likes things portable and compact (which also refers to what you spend for them). That’s why you have an iPod touch and a BurgerBass mini speaker. The entertainment system that’s spot on for you.

As I write this, I have the iPod/BurgerBass combo on cool Norah Jones tracks. The “hamburger” speaker delivers a surprisingly crisp, rich sound that’s comparable to some bigger systems. I’m not a sound engineer, but I guess the remarkable bass resonance is care of BurgerBass’ accordion-like design. It’s just one tiny apparatus, and yet the output is that of a high-fidelity loudspeaker’s.

What’s more, it weighs almost nothing, and packs neatly like a really tiny… uh… burger patty. The speaker comes embedded with lithium-ion batteries, which you can recharge by plugging it into your computer’s USB port (retractable cable included). At Php950, this minute burger is a bargain!

The iPod touch 16gb retails for about Php16,750 now. It’s the dream Christmas gift — for a loved one, or a valued employee as reward for a good year behind.

Happy Holidays, everyone!

[Media Release]

Davao City makes it to the Philippines’ 2008 Top 10 IT-BPO Outsourcing Destinations

Davao City has added another distinction to its cap by ranking 4th in the Philippine 2008 Top 10 Next Wave Cities for ITO-BPO Destinations. Conferred by the Commission on Information & Communications Technology (CICT) and the Business Processing Association of the Philippines (BPAP) last 3 December 2008 at the BPO Summit of the Philippines at Crowne Plaza Galleria in Ortigas Center, Pasig, this Award should put to rest the speculation that the city is not ready to host multiple IT-BPO locators/investors.

The CICT and BPAP scored no less than thirty-one (31) ICT-ready locations in the Philippine Cyber-Corridor and their performance in four (4) major areas to include talent, infrastructure, cost and business environment.

Davao City bested 4 other Mindanao ICT locations by scoring well in the areas of talent and infrastructure. The depth of Davao City’s manpower pool is on account of the presence of 42 colleges and universities, which yield about 15,000+ tertiary graduates annually. Complementing the city’s performance in the talent area is the presence of major telecommunication providers, increasing number of upcoming BPO real estate, accessibility by air & land, among others.

The local IT-BPO stakeholders led by ICT Davao Inc and its private and public sector partners welcome the challenge of increasing the city’s competitiveness for attracting ICT locators and investments by working on improving performance in the area of business environment and risk management. “We need to act together in improving the overall imagery of Davao City as a safe IT-BPO destination by providing substantive evidence to counter the negative perception on the Mindanao region. By so doing, we can continue to attract more ICT investments, create more jobs and improve Davao City’s economy,” says Wit Holganza, current president of ICT Davao Inc.

The ten locations that made it to the top next-wave cities for IT-BPO are:

1. Metro Laguna
2. Metro Cavite
3. Iloilo City
4. Davao City
5. Bacolod City
6. Angeles – Clark – Mabalacat
7. Baliuag – Marilao – Meycauayan
8. Cagayan de Oro City
9. Malolos / Calumpit
10. Lipa City

My trip to Cagayan de Oro City last 7 to 9 December was very fruitful, as I was able to meet up with a good number of bloggers there. This is the second incarnation of an active bloggers group in Cagayan de Oro — the first group, the members of whom I met last June 2007, has unfortunately fallen by the wayside as those bloggers have either gone to other places or dropped out of the blogosphere altogether.

This group is now being led by Chiq Montes, who was one of the tireless volunteers at WordCamp Philippines 2008. Last 8 December, I also got to know Goma, Bang, Ding, Cloyd, Robstroy (who was also at MBS2), Amelia (whom I had already met last June 2007), and Mike Abonitalla.

They’re a fun bunch, and they seem to have just the right amount of enthusiasm to be able to sustain their presence in Northern Mindanao. They were very eager to learn about the experiences of the Davao and General Santos groups. The CDO bloggers are rarin’ to be a much more active part of the Mindanao Bloggers community.

It is indeed remarkable that groups of people who are geographically, socially and even religiously disparate can come together as one cohesive community. Beyond the cities of Davao, General Santos, Zamboanga and Cagayan de Oro, other areas are now coming online: Dipolog, Malaybalay / Valencia, Kidapawan…. I just wish I could touch base with the bloggers of all these places very soon!!

The CDO group is obviously very excited about the prospect of hosting the 3rd Mindanao Bloggers Summit. Well, the core group of MB originators (Andrew, Ria, Migs, Winston and yours truly) are going to arrive at a decision very soon.

Cagayan de Oro is one very progressive city. At a casual glance, it’s very hard to tell whether Davao City is still in the lead in terms of development. Population- and geography-wise, Davao is still much bigger, but CDO is clearly making large strides towards economic and social progress. As a destination, the city of golden friendship is more than ready to host the Summit in October 2009.

Kudos and more power to the bloggers of CDO!!!

The Symbian S60 on the Nokia N-Series mobile phones offers a wide range of applications that are Internet-enabled. Here are the apps that I currently have on my Nokia N82.

One of my favorites: Nimbuzz. Basically, it’s a chat program that consolidates your accounts on Yahoo! Messenger, Google Talk, AIM/ICQ, and a few others into one interface. When you login to Nimbuzz on your mobile, you actually go online on all of the IMs that you specify in this app’s community settings. (Thanks to my buddy, Winston, for letting me know about Nimbuzz last year.)

Nimbuzz also lets you do voice via Skype; but I haven’t tried that yet, only the chatting part. It would really be cool if I could use Nimbuzz’s internet calling facility, and not get charged toll fees for international calls!

Another one that I find very useful and one that gives my mobile phone value-added goodness is Gmail for Mobile. Point your phone’s browser to m.google.com and click on the link for Gmail. On the next screen, you will find a link to “Faster Gmail” — this is the download link for the phone app.

What’s great about Gmail for Mobile is that it’s fast and navigates easily with keypad shortcuts. Reading and writing emails is as effortless as it can get on a mobile phone. Attachments are also handled pretty well by this mobile app. But you will have to have the right 3rd-party apps for accessing downloaded files (MS Word, .pdf files, etc).

Also, Gmail for Mobile now lets you add Google Apps email accounts. For example, I have a couple of email accounts powered by Gmail (thanks to Google Apps), and I’ve included those in my phone as well. So, when I access Gmail for Mobile, it’s easy to switch from my Gmail account to the other email accounts.

Nokia has Nokia Maps. But I’ve also installed Google Maps (which is also available for download from m.google.com). Just like with the regular PC-based application, you can add landmarks and other geo-info on the mobile version. Cool feature: it updates your position while you’re moving. Of course, that’ll only work for GPS-enabled cell phones.

The landmarks you embed via Google Maps are also utilized by Nokia Maps, by the way.

The web browser I use on the N82 is Opera Mini (currently at version 4.2). It’s much more intuitive than the S60 browser, supports tabbing, and has keypad shortcuts enabled. Now, if only I could remap the “0″ key to access Opera Mini instead of the default browser…

Compared to the old versions of the Mini, 4.2 now is much more powerful. Zooming is more seamless than before, and it’s much easier to navigate web pages than before. Also, the user interface looks much better now.

Facebook also has a mobile edition, but it’s really just a fancy bookmark — it simply makes use of the S60 browser engine. But it’s still a cool way of keeping your Facebook account up-to-date. Another online community that I access via mobile is Plurk. On your mobile browser, just go to http://www.plurk.com/m.

What about you? What Internet-capable mobile applications do you have on your phone?