I had some free time tonight so I decided to sign-up for an account over at Formspring. It’s basically a website which allows people to ask and answer questions anonymously. I already configured it so that the questions that I answer will appear on my Facebook and Twitter account (technology is fun). If you have anything you want to ask me, please go ahead and ask away in my Formspring profile. Since we’re on the topic though let me share with you a personal branding blunder that I made with Formspring. Each time a good online social platform goes up, I’ll make it a point to reserve...

Viral Videos are slowly getting buzz in the local ad industry. However only a few people actually get it right because they keep on forgetting that a video has to be “interesting” before it gets viral. Anyway, I have a very good example of a viral video which is promoting T-shirts. I got this from GM Tristan and it is just filled with epic win. The video now has over 2,000,000 views on Youtube. I wonder how many shirts they’ve managed to sell so far?

I found this very interesting article on Mashable showing that FarmVille, a popular casual game on Facebook, has more users than micro-blogging tool Twitter. Apparently FarmVille now has 69M active users. This means that 69M people all over the world log-in FarmVille at least once in 30 days. That’s almost 3/4 the population of the Philippines, LOL! Twitter, on the other hand, has an estimated user base of 20M. Shocking right? You’d think Twitter would have more users since it’s getting so much media mileage on traditional channels (compared to FarmVille anyway). Quality of users...

I gave a talk on how to leverage the internet for success to Ateneo students during AISEC’s seminar last Saturday morning. One of the points that I stressed on was that the internet has radically changed the communication and networking. Young people often tend to take the internet for granted because they grew up with it. Because of this they fail to see how powerful Facebook can become if used properly. I believe that every generation has a different set of opportunities and advantages. The internet is the advantage of our generation – people who are in their 20’s and early...

When Google released Google Maps they almost killed companies that focused specifically on GPS tracker services. Now with Google Voice they’re directly challenging almost all telecommunication companies all over the world. The features of Google Voice is just phenomenal, awesome, and just mind-blowing. The possibilities this opens up for business and personal communication is limitless and I can’t wait to have it available here in the Philippines! So what does Google Voice do? Let’s go over them in this article. Using your existing number you get access to a whole deck of services...

If you care about your online reputation and your readers you better make sure that you constantly monitor what ads are being displayed on your site through Google Adsense. There’s been a surge of “dating” sites in the past few months and they’ve been advertising regularly via Google. What’s alarming is that even big publishing companies like GMA7 doesn’t filter their Google ads. This begs the question if the measly dollar earnings that they get from Adsense is worth the potential PR disaster waiting to happen. Here’s a screenshot of GMA7’s online...

There was a time when Yahoo and Google were fierce competitors. They were both at the same level and there were loyalists on both ends. Eventually though Google’s constant innovation propelled them to the top and Yahoo began to falter. Right now they’re trying to make a comeback by focusing on key markets that they’re strong at. Reminds me of what another social network is trying to do, hahaha Anyway, I caught this screenshot a few days ago while reading my favorite online comics. Yahoo now uses the Google Adwords platform to advertise. It looks like the trend for social networks...

Watch this video or miss half of your life.

As if a response to the prevalent hacking of government and popular websites in the past few days, House Bill 6794, also known as the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2009 was passed in congress yesterday. I read through the entire bill and it looks like this will have an impact on internet marketing practices in the Philippines, especially with e-mails. While a bit vague, the bill also might affect online gaming publishers and their respective communities. Let me go through some of the major highlights of the bill and how it can affect our lives. CHAPTER II – PUNISHABLE ACTS SEC. 4. Cybercrime Offenses:...

2009 was a huge year for new media. There were so many breakthroughs and controversies that involved the use of the internet which made waves in traditional media channels. I won’t bother going through all of them. This sets us up for an even bigger 2010 for the industry. More and more people will be investing time, effort, and resources in new media and it has no where to go but up. Based on the Cartoon Network New Generations study, 6 out of 10 Filipino kids are already using the internet. This will grow even higher in the next couple of years! Imagine the impact this has on marketing....

Hi everyone! As most of you have noticed by now, I haven’t been posting regularly here at New Media. The reason is I’ve been very busy working on a series of e-books that I want to publish for free sometime January. The first e-book will be very personal and will share with you guys my story with blogging and how it has drastically changed my life for the better. The second e-book will be focused more on the state of digital marketing here in the Philippines. Hopefully you guys will like what I come up with because I’m really pouring everything into this project. Happy new year...

I was curious this afternoon on which official news portal was doing better – GMA7 or ABS CBN. I checked out Alexa since this is pretty much one of the free tools (but not really reliable) available for statistics like this. I went through the entire list and I compiled a “Who is better” list in different industries according to the rankings. This was a very interesting exercise for me so I hope you guys like it, haha. THE NETWORK WARS: GMA7 vs ABS CBN www.gmanews.tv (58) wins versus www.abs-cbnnews.com (84) THE ONLINE GAMING INDUSTRY: LEVEL UP vs E-GAMES vs MYGAME www.levelupgames.ph...

This study was released to the public sometime in March 2009 by Yahoo Philippines and Nielsen. For posterity’s sake as well as giving everyone here more food for thought, I’m embedding the study highlights in this entry. I’ll try to get other interesting materials as well that’s applicable to the Philippine market. Thanks to Tonyo Cruz for uploading this. Yahoo-Nielsen Net Index 2009 Highlights Interesting right? If you combine this with the Cartoon Network New Generation Study, it looks like the internet is like an avalanche gathering momentum. While it already has strong...

Google recently released their 2009 Year-End Zeitgeist report which pretty much sums up all the top Google search terms for Filipinos in 2009. This report was released shortly after Yahoo! also shared their top search terms in their Year in Review report. Other than keywords that you can focus your SEO magic on, the reports also show various insights into the behaviors of Filipino internet users. In the Yahoo! report, we discussed how Filipinos tend to go to the net to really research on things that intrigue them. For the Google report, we see that Filipinos use search engines as a means to actually...

Yahoo recently released a report which shares the various top searches done on their engine for 2009. Some of the results are very predictable but some results completely took me by surprise. The searches also gives you insights on what the Filipino online user behavior is about. For example, some of the top searches are about politicians, issues on politicians, or current events. Imagine this, Shalani Soledad is in the top 10. To those who don’t know her, she’s the girlfriend of Senator Noynoy Aquino. Another popular search term was “Mar and Korina”, which was probably...

I often get puzzled looks on the faces of clients each time I include social media in their digital marketing plans. The same questions keep popping up again and again – how can we measure success? Will this really work? Do we really need to spend on that? It’s looks easy, can we have someone in my staff do it? I’d usually whip out my “social media 101″ deck and explain but it looks like those days are gone because I found a really powerful video that explains beautifully what social media is all about. If you’re a businessman, marketer, or just someone interested...

In Coca-Cola’s 2020 Vision Meeting held last week with several analysts, journalists, and bloggers, Coca-Cola shared a rough marketing blueprint and their strategy for the coming year. I was expecting them to do the usual but I was really blown away with they said. Their chief markeitng and commercial officer, Joe Tripodi, said “People are demanding more and more for their time and attention. People need to be constantly entertained now, [it's an] ADD economy. We’re changing fundamentally from being TV commercial producers to content developers. … We’re leading a new...

In a study done by Synovate commissioned by the Cartoon Network, Filipino kids 7 – 14 years old are spending more time online compared to playing console games, listening to music, and reading non-school books. Internet usage is second only to watching TV. If you think about it, this was kinda expected due to the increasing number of internet cafes all over the country combined with the aggressive marketing and roll-out of broadband service providers. What I find interesting in this particular chart is that console and handheld games are not as popular as people would like to think. This...

Mike Abundo plurked a very interesting article from the New York Times website. The gist of the article is that global web companies are thinking of restricting access or lowering service standards for people who access their websites in developing countries. The problem is that the cost of operating and delivering the services is not at par with the advertising that they get for these particular regions (low income bracket doesn’t interest major advertisers). In short – they’re not profitable and they need to cut down costs to increase their profit margins. Is there really a...