I Am Blogie

There’s a new “new media” publication in town — BlogWatch.ph, and I feel very privileged to be a part of it. BlogWatch, which was launched last 24 November in Makati, is a worthy undertaking that aims to provide news and commentary in the proven style of traditional journalism but with the flair of “Web 2.0″. [...]

“Technology drives the modern world, and the Philippines is fast becoming a technology-driven society. Tech-savvy Filipinos desire the latest and coolest devices, from mobile phones to digital cameras to flat-screen TVs. For these enthusiasts and buyers, Consumer Electronics Live! Manila is the premiere technology event of the year. CEL Manila is the first and the [...]

My long-time friend, Avel Manansala of General Santos City, invited me to be one of the judges for his blog contest, What Air Supply Song Are You? (creative, don’t you think?). So I dutifully read through around 20+ entries, thinking inwardly that it was going to be at least amusing. Air Supply was (probably) all the [...]

I was having my favorite cup o’ joe over at Kangaroo Coffee about a couple of months ago when I was struck by an idea for a domain name. Checking if it was still available, I couldn’t believe but was very delighted that wp-evangelist.com was still up for grabs! So I acquired it right then [...]

It’s a truly exhilarating experience after having put together two successful WordCamp Philippines events! The preparations for the second WordCamp in the country, held in Makati City last 19 September, was actually stressing me out to the point that I wasn’t getting my bread-and-butter work done properly the last couple of months. But, with the [...]

I have just nominated two of my own blogs in the 2009 Philippine Blog Awards: Davao Delicious, under the Food & Beverages category; and Ang Dabawenyo, under the Mindanao Destination Blog special awards category. In this year’s PBA, a set of four special awards will be given to Mindanao blogs (and another set for Visayas blogs). [...]

Today I’m in General Santos City, but on my way back to Davao in a few hours. I spent the weekend here with blogger-friends, Lyle & Brendel, to celebrate a friend’s birthday, and to help out Bariles Republic’s Avel M. in his local blogging efforts. Marz, happy birthday again!! I’m happy to say that Lyle and I [...]

In continuing my advocacy for the adoption of the world’s #1 blogging sofware & CMS across Mindanao, I’ll be conducting an advanced training seminar on the deployment, utilization & management of WordPress this 25th of July (Saturday) at Cagayan de Oro City.

Specifically, the following are the topics to be covered:

• WP installation & maintenance
• Web hosting fundamentals for proper WP deployment
• Understanding WP theme templates
• Choosing & managing useful WP plugins
• Managing content on WP
  • Recommended usage of categories & tags
  • Publishing best practices
  • Fundamental SEO techniques
• Monetizing your blog with Google AdSense (for confirmation)

Cagayan de Oro is a wired city, with lots of free-wifi hotspots all over the place, and a growing number of bloggers and online content writers — the perfect setting for promoting the use of the most flexible content management engine there is. Moreover, the city is the appointed host of the 3rd Mindanao Bloggers Summit, which will be happening on 24 October 2009.

The WP training seminar will be held at Coffee Works, from 1:30 PM to 5:00 PM. (Please bookmark this post for updates.)

Registration fee is ₱500 per person (to be collected at the door on the seminar date). Please click here to sign up!

I look forward to meeting with the CDO Bloggers very soon!

Sponsored By: 1st Mindanao Bloggers Summit - 27 Oct 2007, Davao City

A group of aggressively talented individuals, among them my blogger-friend, Kring E. of FunnySexy.ph, is gearing up for the launch of a bold and exciting project: Flippish.com. Dubbed as “the First Online Pinoy Video Channel”, Flippish promises to be the death of TV.

In fact, that’s what they’re calling their launch: TV is dead.

If you think that’s hilarious, you should check out Kring’s blog! Anyway, here’s the press release for the launching party of this brave venture. (I wish I could say “See you there!” but — alas! — I’m all the way down south and probably won’t have the opportunity to visit the capital in July.)

FLIPPISH is a play on the word Filipino. It means anything that has Filipino flavor or could also mean something that is odd, crazy or weird. Flippish.com is the first Pinoy online video channel that produces original online shows that are of broadcast quality. The people behind flippish believe that it is about time that we Filipinos take on the challenge of coming up with online entertainment that is of international standards.

THE SHOWS

Flippish.com pushes the creative boundaries by creating a variety of bite-sized (5-8 minutes) videos that appeal to Filipinos of all shapes and sizes!

Shows that cover diverse genres such as Direk, a comedy about a hot-headed, emotional and over-the-top director who allows you to see what goes on in the world of production when the cameras stop rolling and LSS, which showcases some of the most talented, unsigned Filipino artists, whose songs might be the next big hit playing in your head. Another show is Flippish Specials, which is a collection of featured videos, event coverages, and documentaries made by the team.
Flippish.com will tickle your funny bone, get you up to speed on the latest hotspots and goings-on around and outside the Metro, stimulate you brain cells with thought-provoking reality shows and most importantly, entertain you until it becomes an essential part of your daily internet habit!

BEHIND THE SCENES

Flippish.com is spearheaded by Chris Tan, the Co-Founder and the Managing Director of Ideal Minds and Kring Elenzano, the Creative Director of Ideal Minds and Flippish.com. Chris is also currently the director for the Asian Poker Tour Series and was recognized as one of the Top 10 Entrepreneurs of the Year by Entrepreneur Magazine in 2005. Kring, on the other hand, is one of the hottest young TV directors in the industry with several projects under her belt such as the reality TV show RIVERMAYA: BAGONG LIWANAG! In the blogosphere, she is known by her handle, FunnySexy.

R.I.P., TV

Flippish.com will finally be officially launched on July 2, 2009 at Fiamma at Jupiter St., Makati. With the availability of the internet and increasing broadband speed, more people spend more time online nowadays and for these reasons, the people behind Flippish.com believe that “Television is Dead.” and that online entertainment is the wave of the future. Appropriately, this, too, is the theme of the launch party. New shows and talents will be introduced that night and viewers and fans may register on the site to receive special invites for the party.

For more information about the website, its shows and the launch party, do check out www.flippish.com.

I bought this domain almost exactly a year ago (4 June 2008, to be exact), because my friend Markku jokingly threatened to hijack it after I’d told him about a word I thought I had coined: “foodnography”. I was already blogging about food for some time, and the way we bloggers take photos of food before eating amused me as something akin to that less decent activity by shady filmmakers.

For about a year — because I really had no plans of taking up photography on any serious level — Foodnography.com was relegated to the backburner. I just put up a definition page with a Google search engine on it. But that all changed last May 2009 when I decided to transform it into a WordPress photo blog dedicated to food. And hopefully populate it with orgasmic shots of gustatory photography.

Today, I have decided to open the blog up to contributors. For the growth of Foodnography.com, I welcome submissions of high-quality photographs of food and beverages from all over the world. Naturally, there’ll be lots of link-love to go around for those generous enough to help make the site a success!

Foodnography.com is currently running on WordPress 2.8, and sports the über-cool premium theme, Aperture, from WooThemes.com. Important plugins used: WP-PostRatings and cforms. As with my other blogs, you can also view Foodnography.com on your iPhone or iPod touch, thanks to another plugin, WPtouch iPhone Theme.