Pinoy Social Media

Filipinos on Twitter

Andre — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 07:08:59 +0000

Daryl from Unique-Frequency was nice to share a site called PinoyTwitters which collates Filipinos who are on Twitter. I haven’t gone through the list but some of them should be useful contacts who are in the media or internet industry or at least active bloggers. You can follow PinoyTwitter on Twitter here. So far they are following 2,202 people and are followed by 593.

I’ll be checking out this site more often to see if there are any updates while I go through the list of Pinoy Twitter users. After my group’s presentation on microblogging, it’s going to be interesting to see how Filipinos have been using Twitter either for personal or corporate use.

Thanks Daryl!

One Blogger, Many Blogs

Andre — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 06:51:15 +0000

I was fortunate enough to come across Aileen Apolo, who’s a frequent and active Filipino blogger and is the Google Country Consultant for the Philippines. I am not sure how she does it but she actually maintains 6 blogs:

An Apple a Day – her personal, everyday blog
Lakwatsera Ako – her travel blog
Stitching – her work blog
Homegrown – her church blog
The Twisted Wedding Planner – she writes about weddings too!
Tales from the Moonless Sky – and ghost stories!

Talk about living in the blogosphere!

There are two issues that I’ve thought about after discovering Aileen’s blogs

1. Do Filipinos have more than 1 blog? Is this a trend that’s happening within the Philippines? Aileen is probably a special case due to her profession. She’s in tune with everything that’s happening online, and it is to no surprise that she’s very active in the blogosphere. I just want to find out if there are other Filipinos like her. Are there?

2. This is a perfect example of corporations who allow their employees to blog. I’ve seen other Google employee blogs before, but Aileen’s the first one I saw who’s from the Asian region. My classmates in Social Media class have discussed the benefits and concerns of corporate blogging and one thing that caught my attention in Aileen’s Stitching blog is the header of her blog where she says “Oh, BTW everything here is my personal opinion.”. Having said that, Stitching sounds more of a personal work blog rather than a corporate blog so different rules apply.

Aileen’s another goldmine we came across in the Filipino blogosphere. I hope there’s more to come!

Still on Multiply?

val — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 20:07:44 +0000

A couple of years back (pre-Facebook-boom), I signed up for a Multiply account, having been recommended this site by a fellow Filipino acquaintance. “A site to share memories & anecdotes” was his pitch, as I recall. At that point in time, I hadn’t realized just how huge a thing it actually was in the Philippines. (Maybe the fact that every random person who added me was Filipino would’ve been clue enough, but hey. What can I say. I must’ve been pretty excited about the whole thing to notice.)

According to figures by Alexa, Multiply.com is currently the 6th most visited site in the Philippines, making up about 29% of its total traffic. Friendster (#1), Yahoo (#2), YouTube (#3) and Google (#4) still dominate the scene. Across social networks, Multiply’s 29% local usage isn’t too far off from Friendster’s 35.1%, while Facebook isn’t even the charts.

So what is Multiply? Well for starters, the site claims to be “the best way to share everything” – from all kinds of digital media, including photos, blogs, videos, music & more. Everything would essentially be on your own personal web space & you could share & discuss your stuff with everyone in your “social network,” while being constantly alerted with updates. So my page looked pretty much like this:

But when Facebook emerged, I up & hopped on the hype & got on there, & have been there since. Photos, blogs, videos, music & more. They just went & did it now, didn’t they? I’ve been constantly baffled at the amount things we can do with it. With all the things we could do on Facebook, I say we could practically live there.

Might I add, I haven’t touched Multiply since.

So my issue here is: Has the Multiply hype died down since? ‘Cos it sure has for me.

A Goldmine is Discovered

Andre — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 06:46:51 +0000

I stumbled across PinoyBlogoSphere.com which can be helpful in uncovering more about bloggers in the Philippines. According to them,

PinoyBlogoSphere.com – Pinoy Bloggers Society (PBS) | “Anyone* Can Blog”

Ang Group Blog ng mga Pinoy Grassroots Bloggers. [*Anyone = All Pinoys]

Basically, it’s a group blog where any or all Filipino bloggers can contribute. Bases from the statistics that they have provided, there are 817 contributing bloggers, 3,300 posts and 1,374 comments. That’s a lot of activity.

We’ll be keeping an eye on PinoyBlogoSphere.com as we continue the search. Meanwhile, do check out their blog as their site is under maintenance.

Influential Filipino Bloggers Part 1

Andre — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 12:01:43 +0000

I was fortunate enough to stumble across Yugatech’s compilation of Technorati’s Top 100 Blogs from the Philippines. Pinoy Social Media will be going through all of them (in parts) giving a summary of what they are about. I’m not sure how old or new the Yugatech compilation is, so I’ll be using the ranking and authority figures from the Technorati site. So here it goes:

1. P o n d P e r s p e c t i v e by ribbiticus – Authority: 9, Rank: 871,446

This blog has been up since April 2004 and has grown in popularity since then. From the looks of it, there’s even a loyal group of readers, aka Pond-hoppers. Ribbiticus mainly writes about media in general, which I think includes most of her interests. Other than that, P o n d P e r s p e c t i v e is about the “ponderings, triumphs and foibles of a single woman in Manila”. It’s an interesting read if you’re into pop culture.

2. Bryanboy.com by Bryan Boy – Authority: 448, Rank: 9,733

I actually came across this blog before but I did not know that he’s Filipino. If you’re a fashionista, then be sure to subscribe to Bryan Boy’s blog. He’s gay so he definitely knows is stuff. His blog also includes a current affairs (his personal life) and celebrities (gossip) section. I suspect that Bryanboy.com has followers form all over the world. To get the latest fashion trends from runaways, magazine and celebrities, this blog is a must read.

3. Midlife Mysteries by Cathy Babao Guballa – Authority: 29, Rank: 283,266

A 3-year old blog written from a point of view of a “Christian. Mother. Wife. Writer. Children’s Health Advocate. Grief Counselor/Educator “. Cathy mainly writes a lot about family, parenting, women and showbiz. What’s great about her blog is that you can tell that she’s real and she writes from her personal experiences. If she writes about general topics, e.g. The U.S. primaries, expect to read her own opinions. A lot of local Philippines news in her blog too. If you’re a woman and in your 40’s, tune in to Cathy’s musings to stay fab.

4. Finestkind Clinic and fish market by Nancy Reyes – Authority: 24, Rank: 345,597

If a blogger is a retired doctor who has worked in Africa, the US and in India, who do you expect would be her readers? Don’t be surprised, but this blog by Nancy actually gets an average of 75 visitors per day and close to a 100 page views. Her entries about medicine are expected to be credible and useful. What I find more interesting is her blog entries under “stuff” and “arts and craft”. These are short entries, but Nancy never fails to fill them with interestingness.

5. Touched by an Angel by Noemi Dado – Authority: 322 , Rank: 15,276

The last blog for today, and probably my favorite of the lot. If you read Noemi’s story, you’d discover that she’s writing from the heart. Her blog has a lot of blogging and self-improvement tips that’s useful to a wide range of audience. You know that she’s been through a lot, thus her self-improvement tips are drawn from her life experiences during her recovery process. She’s very active in the blogosphere and her blog has won numerous awards. Her blog is a big success, no doubt. Start reading Noemi’s blog to be touched by one of the angels of the blogosphere.

Kaberks

Andre — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 03:33:32 +0000

kaberks (kah-behrks) n. kabarkada; member of the group

Nothing new here. It’s just another social network but they claim to be “one of the first Philippine based social networking communities on the internet.” Kaberks first launched in 2004 and “became a hit”. However, it went under maintenance for “a couple of months”, which looks like it turned into 2-3 years because Kaberks re-launched again on June 2007. That’s a pretty big gap which can lead to a downfall of a social network unless they come up with some really innovative features in the new one.

Currently, Kaberks is on beta. A feature that caught my attention though was the chatroom that they have which offers “real chat experience”. Other than the, the rest are social network staples. We’ll check back in a few weeks time to see if there are any changes.

The Friendster Capital of the World

Andre — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 03:14:35 +0000

The bulk of the users of major social networks is mainly determined by the geographical location of their users. MySpace is popular in the States, Orkut in Brazil, Xiao Nei in China and the list goes on. In the Philippines, it’s Friendster. I remember that a few years ago, there were ads in the local papers of Friendster profiles to invite others to add them as a friend. Despite the recent rise of Facebook, I don’t think Filipinos have fully migrated to Facebook because most of their contacts are still in Friendster.

Here’s a clip from YouTube talking about the Friendster’s popularity in the Philippines.

Oyaye Okay?

Andre — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 20:59:17 +0000

I came across Oyaye (pronounced as Oh-Ya-Yeah) from the eOK .network blog by Benjamin while surfing the internet for social networks in the Philippines.

I haven’t signed up for it yet, but from the outside it looks like another Facebook-copy with a Filipino twist. Based from their home page, it looks like they’re creating individual pages or networks for major universities in the Philippines. It’s not going to be like the early Facebook days wherein they restricted registered users to the universities only. From the looks of it, Oyaye is an open social network but is trying to target the university demographic.

From their About page, it says that Oyaye’s services include:

A search engine that searches more into Philippine based websites.
Ask questions to other users the Filipino way.
Freely talk in Tagalog.
Build a group and form a discussion.

From the above, the only differentiating factor is the first point as the other three can be done through other channels.

What’s interesting about Oyaye is that it’s actually a one man show. Based from an article by the Inquirer, it was initiated and developed by Jerome Uy from the Mapua Institute of Technology. He’s pretty experienced in this field as he’s been working as a web designer, developer and consultant in the past. I’m not sure if he’s still running the site by himself because Oyaye should have increased in activity since the article was published a year ago.

“I hope that in the future, this site would cater to the needs of every Filipino locally and abroad featuring job search, real estate ads, classifieds, and
authentic job listings for Filipinos going abroad. ” – Jerome (source: Inquirer)

Jerome has put a lot of thought and effort into Oyaye. He has the vision too as seen from the quote. We just have to wait and see if Filipinos are ready to sign up for another social network.

Oyaye looks promising. I just hope they put up their blog soon so we get to know more about Jerome and his project.

Up Next: Kaberks

We’re on Facebook!

Andre — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 02:16:03 +0000

Search for us in Facebook or click here to join the community!

Calling All Filipinos in the Blogosphere

Andre — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 01:16:57 +0000

I recently read Microsoft’s Blogging Asia: A Windows Live Report which was provided by MSN and Windows Live Online. They conducted surveys throughout Asia to get an overview of people’s blogging habits. There was a report for each country but for some reason the Philippines was not included.

There might be some sort of bias because the research was probably conducted using Microsoft’s own blogging service -. Windows Live Spaces. Nonetheless, it shows that Filipinos are not active enough in the blogosphere to be even considered in the study.

The report was published in December 2006 so it’s a bit dated. I know for sure that the things have changed since then with respect to both the blogosphere and social media landscape in the Philippines. All we have to do now is find them and join the conversation.