• Open Social API
• Globe Voice API
• Globe SMS/MMS API
• Globe LBS (Location based service) API
• Google Friend Connect API
• Google App Engine
• Youtube API
• Everything on Google Code or Globe Labs

Mashup the APIs you’ve learned to make some interesting applications! Ask questions and get started while the experts are on hand.

When: June 20, 2009 (Saturday), 12-5pm
Where: Ayala Technohub, Commonwealth Ave., Diliman, Quezon City (View map)
What to bring: Your own laptop. Ideas. Enthusiasm!
Click here to register.

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From: Pinoy Web Startup Team

When: May 26, 2009 (Tuesday), 4-6pm

Where: Duets Bistro, 5th Floor, AIM Conference Center Manila

Entrance fee is P500, 50% off for students and academe.

To register, email innovation (at) ayalafoundation.org or call 9289344.

I’ll definitely be going. Here’s your invitation!

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From: Pinoy Web Startup Team

So I’m looking for freelance designers or developers, software startup teams, and entrepreneurs from the Pinoy Web Startup community who want to be around like-minded people and share a workspace with them. CoWorking has been popular in Seattle, Philadelphia, NYC, among others. You pretty much do it already when you bring your laptop to a coffee shop with WiFi. In our Workspace, you can just bring your laptop and work on your own desk and interact with your neighbors when you like. We can have networking events and learning sessions to hone our technical skills.

Please answer the PinoyWebStartup Community CoWorking Survey so that we can find out how you can best benefit from a collaborative workspace.

Special thanks to Oklahoma City CoWorking Collaborative and CoWorking.

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From: Pinoy Web Startup Team

• When: April 17/24/30, 2009, 4-6pm (Fridays)
• Where: UP Ayalaland Technohub
• Facebook Event Page for Kape+Teknolohiya

To register, email innovation(at)ayalafoundation.org. Registration: P500. Students and academe get half off.

Meet the Tech Founders

Covering 3 Fridays this month, you should really take time to attend even at least one. It’ll be great to meet the founders, feel their vibe and be among people who are as passionate as you about tech. It’s time for my sporadic dose of human interaction too.

April 17. Trade Channel, Actius, Global Trade Infosys Services, Inc., ABBYY Consulting Group

April 24. Iconnection, Lotus Edge, Tech Factors, Haystack

April 30. JJDD Business Solutions Inc, SPT BPO, Pobletech, Headstart Business Solutions

So, who wants to ride with me? Just come by Pigmata Media’s office on Chino Roces Ave., Makati around 1pm so we can go together.

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From: Pinoy Web Startup Team

What’s awesome is UP will grant seed funding to select startups. You can ask Dr. Luis Sison (Vice-Chancellor for R&D of UP) or Ayala Technology Business Incubator (02-9289344) how to participate.

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From: Pinoy Web Startup Team

JP and I spent the better half of our day last October 28 at the IT Executive Briefing of Computerworld. With all the mass-panicking happening with budget cuts and layoffs, the briefing was a timely eye-opener for businesses who use technology.

Winston Damarillo made the event worthwhile

Winston Damarillo, CEO of Exist Global - honcho behind Morph Code. His keynote touched on:

• Do more with MORE (not “do more with less”)
• Businesses should look more into collaborative tools (like Pigmata’s upcoming worktwit!)
• … and cloud computing.
• Here to stay: Software as a service (SaaS) and on-demand open source software

The other speakers touched on virtualization, using Red Hat Linux, and alternatives for call centers and IT security — all for lower capital outlay alternatives. But really, come on, this is in our Google Reader everyday, right? But I guess for the other attendees (in the usual office setting), they probably didn’t quite grasp what a compute cloud is.

I was so happy to see a lady entrepreneur in the tech-world take the stage. Ms. Helen Macasaet of Pentathlon Systems, specializing in open-source ERP (Compiere). Personally, I had a try at using OpenBravo.

All in all, thanks for the yummy food. 3.5 stars. Meaningful topics, very generalist and a good eye-opener.

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From: Pinoy Web Startup Team

Pinoy Web Startup sponsored the 1st ever Mini Web Design Conference on October 30, 2008 organized by the Philippine Web Designers Organization. JP and I are both active in the group.

Amateur and professional web designers are invited to the 2nd Mini Conference to be held tomorrow night (November 27, Thursday) at G2VC Ortigas. Registration info here

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From: Pinoy Web Startup Team

• When: September 29, 2008 (Monday) 3-5pm
• Where: Finster Auditorium, 7th Flr Finster Building, Ateneo de Davao University, Roxas Avenue, Davao City
• Facebook Event Page for Innovation Forum Davao City

To register, email innovation(at)ayalafoundation.org. Venue and registration details to follow. Leave a comment so I can update you. For now, block it off okay?

Here’s the official blurb:

Dr. Greg Tangonan is the Director of the newly formed Ateneo Innovation Center and the Panel Head for Electronics Industry of the Congressional Committee on Science and Technology (COMSTE), that is focusing on our Global Competitiveness. He will describe Research being carried in the Ateneo Innovation Center in a variety of fields like Algae for Oil, Quality of Service Assessment of SMS, Disaster Alarm System using Wireless Infrastructure, and using Low Cost Accelerometers for Medical Rehab.

Dr. Tangonan will also present some of the COMSTE Panel recommendations being put forward by the Electronics Sector like major upgrading of Electronics Engineering education, developing of “green electronics” and development of biomedical electronics and subsystems.

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From: Pinoy Web Startup Team

Congratulations on your re-launch at the recent World Food Expo! That must have been a big investment for a product launch for a new site. Is Manila Guide the core product of your company or do you have also other services that sustain your company?

Thank you very much. We are truly happy to finally have introduced our services to the market, and the World Food Expo was one great site to do just that since all food enthusiasts, restaurateurs, food and beverage managers – pretty much everyone in the food business was there so it was easier for us to reach our target market.

Our company, CALCMENU Philippines, has a lot of other services aside from this online dining guide. We also develop desktop and web-based software applications for the food and hospitality service industry as well as handle other Food Recipe websites.

Tell us more about Manila Guide.

Our website Manilguide.com is an online guide which answers the perpetual question: “Where shall I/we eat?” It provides a way for people to search for restaurants according to their preferences in cuisine, ambiance, budget – to name a few—and to express their views and experiences in these restaurants through ratings, comments and reviews. We have over thousands of restaurants in our comprehensive listings complete with their branches, information like the price range, menu, promos and even a map.

Our mission is to provide the low-down on all the food haunts in the cities around the metro and nearby provinces. We tied up with restaurants to try to provide site visitors with all the information they will need to have the best dining experience.

The website was started out by CALCMENU Philippines Inc/EGS Switzerland owners Mr. Sandro Grandjean and Marc Enggist sometime in 1997. It was launched in 1998 as initially a guide around the cities, providing information on restaurants, events, hotels, business, nightlife, etc., but things didn’t turn out quite well and so it was set aside for a few years. It was until 2008 of this month that we decided to re-launch it and to just focus on restaurants, with plans of expanding to other things as we go by – that is why we also decided to keep the name ManilaGuide. So far it is going very well since Manilaguide.com has gained thousands of users and members in its community while still continuously growing.

What’s a typical day like for you/your team?

Right now while on beta stage, our typical day usually involves improving the website. The day usually starts and ends with us doing some checking on the website for errors and other concerns, answering inquiries, coming up with promotional strategies for the site and brainstorming for new features and services. We know days will get better but crazier as we go along and we’re looking forward to more days like these.

Who are your core users? How did you spread the word about Manila Guide?

Our core users are mostly food enthusiasts who love to find new or different places to try out and who love to talk about their experiences on it. Foreigners and travelers also frequent the site, as well as restaurateurs who want to gauge how their business is faring in the market.

Spreading the word about Manilaguide required us to enter online social networks like Facebook and Twitter to name a few as well as public promotions like the one we did at the recent food expo. We also rely on Online Search Engines, link exchange, exhibition, and on word of mouth. We will also be advertising through different media later on if necessary.

I’m sure a lot of aspiring techpreneurs are pulling their hair out on how to make money from their web applications. Have you hit upon the right revenue channel?

We have some ideas about how to go about it since we have been developing websites for more than 10 years now. However, things keep on changing in that field and we need to adapt and reevaluate our options constantly. We have several possible schemes for revenue in mind and we will be testing and trying them. Manilaguide is definitely a great promotion tool for restaurants and since it has and will have more and more value in the future, we hope to convert this into revenue.

How did you come to decide the features that are live right now? Are you happy with it or are you planning for more intense future versions?

Our features are decided upon by what we think our site’s visitors and clients would need and what they find convenient. We tried to put ourselves in their shoes and thought of what certain features we would be looking for in a dining guide. We wanted it to be concise-so the visitors can take in all the information about a restaurant in one glance–and convenient—we’d like to spoon-feed our members. Like for restaurateurs, we’re sure that they would love to be able to advertise their restaurants and thus we have provided them with their own profile page wherein they can upload all their information, pictures, menu and latest promos.

We are certainly planning to have more intense features for our members and partners. We are continuously working on providing an easier guide to dining. Just watch out for these new features.

Anything exciting brewing in the next 12 months?

There is a whole lot of new and exciting stuff lined up for the delight of Manilaguide.com visitors and members these next months. We are working to on introducing a reservation system – but since it is quite an advance technology and a unique concept, we do not want to provide more details about it for now.

We are also aiming to do something that will recognize the best restaurants and food enthusiasts featured in Manilaguide. Visitors can also watch out for new features, which can be considered firsts in the Philippine dining scene.

How did you raise funds to begin Manila Guide? What areas/cities do you cover now — and how far do you want to expand in the next 5 years?

Manilaguide is developed by CALCMENU Philippines Inc. and EGS Switzerland. We are in the food service business since 1989, so the website is a normal extension of our business. We want this to become the #1 source of information for anyone looking for a place to eat and more. Right now we cover cities in Metro Manila and neighboring provinces like Batangas, Laguna, Pampanga, Bulacan, Rizal and Cavite. Although we definitely have plans to expand to other cities and countries.

What do you think holds back the growth of a Silicon Valley-like hub in the Philippines for internet companies because there are still so few?

Little is being done to promote and encourage this growth. Internet access in the Philippines is still very poor compared to Europe, Japan, Singapore, etc. Internet is slow and expensive. In Switzerland (an expensive country), an Internet connection for home use is 3 times cheaper and 20 times faster than here in the Philippines. On top of that, it is not reliable as we saw the major disturbance that was created by the rupture of a cable near Taiwan a year or so ago. Of course, the main issue is also funding. It is very difficult to find investors for local companies which are willing to create a start-up in the field.

Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions. Any final words for young web companies starting out?

It is important to think “global”. Create a website that touches on the interest of as many people as possible, or a localized website concept that can be easily reproduced in other communities. Translate your website in other languages, not everyone can understand English.

• Find out more about CALCMENU Philippines by visiting their Company Profile
• Check out some of the Manila Guide restaurant reviews and maybe add your own.

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From: Pinoy Web Startup Team

A BarCamp is an ad-hoc gathering born from the desire for people to share and learn in an open environment. It is an intense event with discussions, demos, and interaction from attendees.

BarCamp Manila1 - All Hail Jerome!

With the prodding of Jerome Gotangco (Morph Labs), BarCamp Manila finally became reality on Thursday, August 21, 2008. I didn’t sign up at first, thinking I’d do something else for my birthday, but JP and I had a late start that day and were munching at Glorietta; Mau had to stay in the office and rush some client projects and I was too lazy to find a shuttle to get to my parents’ house in the south so it became BarCamp Birthday for me. Going to Barcamp took a lot of heart. If you’ve ever seen the Ayala MRT station at 6pm, you know what I mean.

Saw some awesome 3D action in Relief (Nap Ramirez), Google Gears implementation by i.ph blogs (Randy NivalesBrian Feliciano), another rendition of the SMS/MMS API of Globe Labs (Greg Igaya), using GIT for version control (JM Ibanez), and Syndeo Labs (Luis Buenaventura), and Call Log on Morph Apps (Jen/Diana).

With Globe Labs Challenge coming up, it was helpful to get some serious insight into mobile app development from Melvin Dave Vivas.

View the complete list of presentations of BarCampManila1.

Lessons for Startups

Calen Legaspi pointed out 7 random lessons from starting a software company. He advised startuppers to not be afraid of debt — I definitely agree with leveraging on OPM (other people’s money), whether it be money lent or money invested if you can take the risk but sadly, for the Philippine case, banks aren’t too keen on lending to tech startups just yet. Family and friends are still the feasible way to go — if you don’t have the business know-how to prepare a complete business pitch and business plan. Dr. Paco suggested starting with rent-to-own equipment — does anyone know vendors who’ll allow this? It’d be awesome to have option to buy iMacs and software licenses on installment.

Are we ready for DemoCamp?

Most of the presenters and attendees of BarCamp Manila know their frameworks, APIs, UX, latest web technologies. Still a lot are bootstrapping their webapps by taking on client work (I wonder who?) or keeping day jobs. We can’t wait forever for the government to realize they should be supporting tech startups. Ready to demo your app at DemoCampManila1? How does 1st week of October sound?

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From: Pinoy Web Startup Team