New Media Philippines

Everything is changing at warp speed. The days of beepers and big cellular phones are gone. Emails are things of the past. Everybody is now googling, tweeting and facebooking. I never thought I would see the day that my 4-year-old daughter while watching youtube quipped, “ Dad the video stopped because it is downloading!” Seth [...]

Student organizations stand to gain a lot if they strategically use social media. If I was still in school, part of an organization, and had the knowledge I had now, I’d definitely come up with a campaign that will not just earn me additional points but build equity for the organization so that it can [...]

As of this writing, there’s a Facebook Page entitled “Hongkong, Our apology for what happened” which has 15,499 likes. The wall is already filled up with mixed apologies from Filipinos in Tagalog and English. There are several HK nationals who are also commenting and replying to some of the posts. The page description under the [...]

Friendster had a press briefing recently with the CEO of their parent company, MOL, discussing the future of the pioneer social networking site in the Philippines. Ganesh Kumar Bangah said that Friendster will evolve into a social gaming website which will have hundreds of online games. Users can purchase credits to buy items or play [...]

I wasn’t able to attend the first day of the 4th IMMAP Digital Summit because I was on vacation with my wife. I’ll try to see if I can still make it to the second day. Anyway, I was following the tweets and the online conversations about the keynote presentation of Jeremiah Owyang. He raised [...]

President Noynoy Aquino launched his new website today. It’s definitely a huge improvement over President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s website. To those who saw the former President’s website, it was a Web 1.5 standard dinosaur which was rarely mentioned or promoted. More than the design, one major thing that the Aquino administration is doing is building hype [...]

This article by ABS-CBN was going around the Philippine Twitterverse non-stop yesterday. Apparently based on a study by comScore, the Philippines has the 6th highest penetration of Twitter in the world. This really makes us one of the social networking hubs in Asia. It’s only natural for a lot of Filipinos to be hooked on [...]

A few days ago a Congressman filed a resolution calling for the regulation of social media activity in government offices. Congressman Romero Quimbo (2nd District, Marikina) filed House Bill 184 last Wednesday which proposes that government agencies should regulate social media so as not to affect the productivity of their employees. Some tech pundits and [...]

The latest issue of Money Sense magazine is already out on stands (July-August issue) and I’m happy to let everyone know that I have an article in it! Their Editor-In-Chief asked me to write a piece on how social media marketing works here in the Philippines and how SME’s can take advantage of it to [...]

As most of you know, I’m getting married in 2 weeks time. Preparing for the wedding was definitely hard but I’m sure it will be worth it come the big day. Anyway, while going over my budget, I realized that we’re investing a lot on photography and video. This is probably the same for a [...]

I was invited to guest on Media In Focus with Noemi to talk about President Noynoy Aquino’s social media strategy. I usually say yes without hesitation for interview requests on this particular show because it’s really such a delight to talk with the anchor – Cheche Lazaro. Anyway, ANC was gracious enough to upload the [...]

When electricity conked out all over Metro Manila, the only source of news that we could rely on was Twitter which we accessed through our mobile phones. I got most of my information from two Twitter accounts – PAGASA and Meralco. Twitter has become a crucial tool for them because not only does it serve [...]

Inquirer.Net, the most visited news website in the Philippines isn’t necessarily the fastest when it comes to breaking news. When Typhoon Basyang hit the Philippines last night (specifically Metro Manila), all major news sites were still frequently updating their streams. However Inquirer.Net eventually stopped at 12:01AM, roughly 13-14 hours already as of this writing. On [...]

After months of preparation, the first Internet & Social Media Marketing Program by Catalyst Interactive Marketing Inc. is done. The fully booked class was held last July 9, 2010, at the Oakwood Hotel in Ortigas (btw they have really good food). To the participants, thank you for the awesome feedback! Rest assured we will continue [...]

Catalyst Interactive Marketing, my consultancy company, staged our first Internet & Social Media Marketing Program for Filipino Entrepreneurs and Marketers last Friday, July 9, 2010 at the Oakwood Hotel in Ortigas. I’ll write a more detailed summary article tomorrow afternoon. For now let me share with everyone some photos of the event! Photos by my [...]

People keep saying that having smartphones like the iPhone 4 or the BlackBerry will make you more productive because you have access to e-mail anywhere, anytime. Some also believe that social media channels can amplify your influence and reach when it comes to your vocation. I believe all them, but there’s a dangerous line that [...]

I’m currently mentoring a few new bloggers so I’ll be posting more about blogging in the coming weeks. For today, let me share 3 awesome plug-ins which incorporate your social media accounts to your WordPress blog. Putting social media buttons and badges are very important because it can exponentially multiply the traffic you’re getting especially [...]

My good friend and fellow blogger Sonnie Santos approached me a few weeks ago and asked me if I can give a talk about web safety for kids (specifically for online gaming) for an event he was organizing. The goal of the event was to orient parents about the potential dangers of the web for [...]

An article on Mashable today said that Facebook is fast becoming a source of evidence for legal matters such as divorce. Allow me to quote an excerpt from the article: Consider, for example, the mom who lost custody of her kids because she was playing FarmVille or World of Warcraft when she claimed to be [...]

I was part of the Virtual Community Marketing panel last night for the Ateneo CCE – IMMAP Digital Marketing Diploma Program and we listened to several graduate students present their social media marketing plans. There were brilliant ideas shared and I’d like to commend Coni Cruz and the rest of Blue Blade Technologies for putting [...]