vaes9

Category: Blog Events

Cruising Manila Bay at the Acer Aspire Timeline Launch Event

3:20 pm PHT

I was invited to a pretty unique media/blog tech event in May. This was the Manila launch of Acer’s Aspire Timeline series which was held last May 25 while cruising on board the M/V Spirit of Manila in Manila Bay. Well, it’s not often that you get a chance to ride a boat and see Metro Manila from the sea so I grabbed this opportunity (taking a half-day leave from the office in the process). The pips from Acer joked that they did the cruise idea so that they’re guaranteed a “captive” audience. Heh.  :-)

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The Google Map Maker (Not Mapping) Party

6:15 pm PHT

It’s amusing that about a week after I derided Google’s Mapping Party concept, I was invited to attend one by Aileen Apolo, the Philippine country representative of Google, in behalf of Dante Varias and Leonel Foronda, who are apparently the two most productive Filipino Google Map Maker contributors. The event happened last June 3 at the Bubba Gump restaurant in Greenbelt 3 and it was attended by local bloggers and developers. (I guess I was invited because I am a blogger, a developer, and a Map Maker contributor all at the same time!)

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iBlog5 Notes

1:31 am PHT

Wow! The Philippine Blogging Summit, popularly known as iBlog, is now on its fifth year. This is a wonderful milestone and I would like to congratulate Ms. Janette Toral and the UP College of Law through its Internet and Society Program. I have been attending since iBlog3 and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. I consider the Philippine Blogging Summit is the mother of all blog events in the country and iBlog has become a national event with the attendance of Davao (Mindanao) bloggers in iBlog4 and the Cebu bloggers this year. So if you’re a Pinoy blogger and you’ve never been to one, then you should go next year to iBlog6!

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Plurking on Qtube

9:29 pm PHT

Back in June of last year, I wondered if was the first plurker based in the Philippines. Well, the answer to that question was answered for me by the researchers of Qtube, this new magazine TV show on QTV 11 focusing on Pinoys on the Internet. They had their pilot episode last March 12 and their sophomore episode last March 19 had Plurk as one of their segment topics. As it turns out, the first Pinoy plurker is a guy named Kerwin Rosete with Plurk username kimforlai. He registered way back in April 4, 2008, which means that he got the account during the private beta phase since Plurk was launched in mid-May 2008.

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Blogging Ethics: A Round Table

12:11 am PHT

I attended a blogger round table organized by the Blog and Soul Movement last February 7 at the Asian Institute of Management in Makati. (Thanks, Juned, for the invitation!) The topic discussed was about blogging ethics, which has been a perennial hot topic since 2007 (and will likely still be in the years to come). The latest really big incident was the blogging storm surrounding the Valley Golf Club brawl that had some people accusing bloggers of being irresponsible.

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I Won the Best Single Technology Blog Post Award!

7:50 pm PHT

Whee! I won the Best Single Blog Post Award for the Technology Category in the 2008 Philippine Blog Awards. The post that won is the nosebleed-inducing “The Making of Lakbayan (Part 2)”.  :-) Well, it’s not a complete achievement since that particular post was a self-nomination (I figured correctly that it’s harder to win in the Best Blog Division and that people will overlook the Best Single Blog Post Division so I banked my chances there  :-P). But, I’m still chuffed to have won and I also have to acknowledge Benj for actually nominating the related post, “Lakbayan”, for the same category. His nomination actually gave me the idea to nominate the more technical “Making of” post. So thanks, Benj!

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Filipino Voices is My Choice

2:20 am PHT

For the Bloggers’ Choice Award of the 2008 Philippine Blog Awards that is. As you may or may not know, Filipino Voices recently emerged as one of the Top 12 Emerging Influential Blogs of 2008. While I have already voted for this group blog in that writing project, I wouldn’t hesitate to throw my support again to Filipino Voices for the 2008 Philippine Blog Awards.

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Bloggers’ Talk with Nokia Philippines

1:50 pm PHT

A little less than two weeks ago, I and several other bloggers were invited by Nokia Philippines to a discussion over dinner at Sugi in Greenbelt 2. There, Nokia presented the global company’s future direction and solicited fedback and insights from us. Representing Nokia were William Hamilton-Whyte, General Manager, Rhomel Marcojos, head of various marketing stuff, and Nikka Singson-Abes, Corporate Communications Manager. William is actually a quite a fascinating expatriate. He’s Scottish-French, born in Kenya, and has lived in about a dozen countries before taking the country General Manager position for the Philippines’ most successful mobile phone brand.

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Ferdz Decena: Living by Water

1:48 pm PHT

One of the photo-bloggers that I admire most is Ferdz Decena. He has a travel blog over at Ironwulf.net Ver 6: En Route where he shares photos and his observations as he travels in the Philippines and abroad. While I have a pseudo-travel blog in Vista Pinas, Ferdz has done the actual traveling to many of the places I’ve featured in my blog. The photos he takes are excellent and I am a first-hand witness to his dedication to his craft when he and I were together in the January Boracay weekend.

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88DB.com Bloggers’ Night

2:52 pm PHT

Belated entry as always, but as they say, it’s “better to not be on time than to not be there at all” right? (Yeah, yeah, I just made that up.)  :) After the iBlog4 Summit, bloggers of all shapes and sizes donned their costumes and headed over to Katips Bar along Katipunan Avenue to join the Bloggers’ Night sponsored by 88DB.com. Basically, 88DB.com is the freelancer/entrepreneur equivalent to the slave workers’ JobsDB.com, which is a sister site.

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iBlog4 Notes

12:00 am PHT

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to catch all of the sessions since I attended a baptism in the morning with a reception during lunch. So it was in the middle of Manolo’s talk that I barged into iBlog4. I’m glad I caught Manolo speak (and it’s the first time I heard him give a speech) since he was very engaging and funny. He’s probably one of the few bloggers that’s able to translate his online eloquence into the real world.

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You Got Tech Faces and Lose Your Beer Belly Video

11:39 pm PHT

As a sort-of teaser to my “much anticipated” coverage of iBlog4 and the 88DB.com Bloggers’ Night, I have revealed the faces behind ten of the You Got Tech bloggers and I have also posted on YouTube a video I took of Lose Your Beer Belly.

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Bloggers’ Business Cards

11:45 pm PHT

You should know by now that tomorrow, April 26, there will be two back-to-back bloggers events. The first is the iBlog4: The 4th Philippine Blogging Summit at Malcolm Hall in U.P. Diliman, and the second is the 88DB.com Bloggers’ Night. These blogger events are very good ways of meeting other bloggers that you have only conversed with online as well as an excellent venue for networking and gaining more friends and acquaintances.

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Zuzuni Hotel and Restaurant, Boracay

12:06 am PHT

During the second night of our trip to Boracay, we were treated to a full-course dinner by Zuzuni Boutique Hotel and Restaurant. Zuzuni is a Greek cuisine restaurant and the name is a term of endearment in the Greek language (it actually means “little insect”). The resto and hotel is owned by Filipino-Greek Geni Psinakis, and Greek-American Nick Gitsis, who is also a director of Seair, our flight sponsor.

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Shai Coggins, ASUS Eee PC, and an Interview

1:37 am PHT

I arrived terribly late at the Blogger Meet and Greet because I had an important errand to do in Manila, yet I didn’t really miss much and I had a really great time. I finally got to meet Shai Coggins, the b5media Vice President for Community and the special guest of honor of this event. (This brings to three the total number of siblings of the Manuel clan that I have met.)  :-)

The event was held at Kape Isla at Serendra, Fort Bonifacio, Taguig and besides meeting Shai, bloggers also got to play around with Juned’s drool-worthy ASUS Eee PC. I also had an impromptu interview by Azrael Coladilla for my Blogenyo webcomic.

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WikiPilipinas is Not an Academic Philippine Encyclopedia

3:16 am PHT

Nope, that title you read above is not a critical opinion. It’s a statement of fact enshrined in WikiPilipinas’ Policies and Guidelines. As Mr. Gus Vibal, the founder of Filipiniana.net and WikiPilipinas, has said, WikiPilipinas is envisioned to be the one-stop-shop for all things popular and Pinoy. There you can find articles like the “Cutest PBA Players” or “Top 10 Philippine Female Movie Villains”, which while definitely are interesting to read, is of dubious value in an academic context. Hence the “not an academic encyclopedia” description.

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Taste Asia Foodfest II Mural

11:33 pm PHT

The second part of the Taste Asia Foodfest (read about the first part), sponsored by SM Hypermarket last Thursday was fun! And like before, people went gaga over the Cliquebooth and dined on the sumptuous food. (I liked the food more this time.) I even got to play around with Gail’s pet dog, Sheero.  :)

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PTB’s 2nd Anniversary and the Microtel Dinner

5:05 pm PHT

I didn’t get to attend the The Top Ten Emerging Influential Blogs for 2007 eyeball dinner since I didn’t participate in the writing project for various reasons. But I did get to make up for that by attending the next two blogger events. The first is the Pinoy.Tech.Blog 2nd Year Anniversary Beer Party (that turned into an iced tea party, might I add), and the Microtel Bloggers Dinner (mentioned by Abe here).

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Taste Asia Bloggers Dinner

12:40 am PHT

Let the pictures speak for themselves.

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Three Years of vaes9

11:31 pm PHT

I expected that my recently launched Lakbayan application would become viral and really popular but I was still overwhelmed by the response. I almost did nothing with my free time except to tweak the application and manage the popularity.

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iBlog3 Notes (Part 1)

7:05 am PHT

The iBlog3 last April 13 and 14 was a blast. I was able to attend parts of the program at both days and also the socials at the end of each day. I originally wanted to attend the whole event but because I really had to finish some things up at work on Friday and because I had to go to my doctor on the morning of Saturday, I was only able to see the last quarter of Day 1 and the first three quarters of Day 2, making a grand total of 1 day attended.  :)

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Live Blogging at iBlog3

2:41 pm PHT

Yay for free Wi-Fi. I’m finally blogging live about something for the first time. I’m at the iBlog3, or the 3rd Philippine Blogging Summit, held here at the School of Economics in U.P. Diliman. Today is Day 2 of the summit and right now, J. Angelo Racoma is talking about blogging as a form of mainstream media (i.e., Social News, like Digg).

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Belated Philippine Blog Awards Night Post-post

7:05 pm PHT

Gaaah! This is another belated blog event post. I really planned to post about the recently concluded (and apparently controversial) 2007 Philippine Blog Awards Night (official website) but due to unforeseen circumstances and nonexistent Internet connection, I am only able to blog about it now. Don’t worry, this post won’t be part of an echo chamber because I got my own picture gallery with some never-before-seen pictures! (Everybody loves pictures, right? Continue reading on.  :))

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2007 Philippine Blog Awards Night

9:27 am PHT

So the Awarding Night of the 2007 Philippine Blog Awards will happen this Saturday, March 31 at 6 in the evening at the Podium 4 of the RCBC Plaza in Makati. If you want to get a free invite, just follow the instructions on this blog post. The ceremony is a semi-formal/formal affair—I guess I should already buy my own tie instead of always borrowing from my father.  :p

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Belated Blog Parteeh ’07 Post

8:20 pm PHT

In my previous entry, I blogged about the Blog Parteeh ’07, which I then attended last Saturday. I won’t give a blow-by-blow account anymore since lots of people have talked about it, but I’ll give my thoughts about it. And no, don’t expect a creative post like my previous one this time.  :)

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Pinoy Blog Party Alienates Bloggers

2:20 am PHT

On Saturday, January 27, the largest ever gathering of Pinoy bloggers will be held in Makati. However, the registration process, deemed simple by the organizers, seems to be alienating a few bloggers.

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The Flash Drive that Blogging Won

12:23 pm PHT

I went to the first ever Philippine BlogCon 2006 last night at the National Sports Grill in Greenbelt 3 sponsored by Globe Innove. I finally got to meet some of the people behind the local blogs I read such as Abe Olandres and Markku Seguerra.

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