Last month, Winston Damarillo launched yet another company called Morph (their website is a neat www.mor.ph domain hack), which is described to be a “SaaS accelerator” for entrepreneurs.
Morph is a Software as a Service (SaaS) marketplace company. We are engaged in every aspect of the SaaS industry. Our business portfolio includes subscriber-supported web services, hosted web applications, web infrastructure, delivery platform, and market engine for web-enabled applications. Founded by a team of entrepreneurs, Morph is a “technoprise” entity that builds Web 2.0 companies. We provide the operational infrastructure, technical platform, and business stimulus necessary to bring web start-ups to market. [Mor.ph]
From what I understood during the presentation, Morph helps tech entrepreneurs by providing the legal, marketing, investment and back end support for software as service ideas which they pitch and discuss together with Morph. This is why Winston describes the company as some sort of “accelerator” or “incubator” for new projects because it provides an ideal environment to jump start a SaaS-oriented project from zilch. I must stress the fact that Morph does help even with the legal and marketing concerns for the product. Very 360 degrees.
If you are interested in finding out more about Morph and maybe even pitch an idea, you can contact Macel Legaspi and she will help you get in touch with the right people.
Contact Information
Macel M. Legaspi [email protected]
+63917.627.7681
This is just a heads up – the old iPod models are selling like hotcakes in the Philippines. To give you an idea of the price drops, iStudio prices point to P12,900.00 for the 30GB iPod and P18,xxx.xx for the 80GB model. This is a huge steal for consumers who have been wanting to buy cheap, but brand new.
Last word was that the 30GB model is already sold out at iStudio in Bonifacio High Street, The Fort. Check out the other Apple official dealers for prices and availability. The new 2007 line of iPods will be out this coming 28th of September.
Hardware Widow Advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi has put down in black and white what plenty of women around here have been thinking for ages: we want technology but we don’t want it coloured pink or encrusted with fake gemstones.
[…] Only nine per cent of the women S&S talked to think it’s important that their gadgets look feminine. Rather a lot of ladies are completely turned off by the abundance of pink products. [The Register]
I’m not a lady, so I honestly cannot give an insight on this claim. I do think that the mindset is taboo, and that consumers are a lot smarter than this. What do the lady geeks think?
Swinging from his role as Peter Parker, Tobey Maguire is set to play one of the main characters in the upcoming live action version of Robotech. Now hold it right there. Tobey Maguire as Rick Hunter (Ichijyo Hikaru in the Japanese Macross version)? I make this assumption as Maguire can’t possibly portray Roy Fokker or Admiral Gloval.
I don’t know. The movie reeks too much of Hollywood to me. The fact that they’re using Robotech as the title and not The Super Dimensional Fortress: Macross (the original Japanese title from 1983) is already … err … never mind.
The following events take place within the last six months.
A public relations agency called me up after I posted a review of their client’s product x. The account executive was a little careful with the words coming out of her mouth and she was asking if I could “improve on what I wrote.” I stopped dead on my tracks (actually I didn’t really stop because I remember clearly that I was on an escalator at Rockwell) and asked her,
“What do you mean by … improve?”
It may be true that bloggers are now being tapped by PR agencies to test consumer products and services. Because of the nature of our content management system, we can edit our entries anytime. But I highly doubt that bloggers are becoming tools of PR. I think it is quite the opposite. Yesterday, I gave a short presentation to marketing and communications students at the PR Rocks Conference sponsored by the Public Relations Society of the Philippines. I told them that bloggers, though they may not be journalists are passionate individuals who hang on to their credibility. They, I would like to believe, do not sell out.
Out of politeness and still bearing the shock of not knowing what to say, I told this person, “Let me see what I can do…”
I texted her immediately after putting the phone down and told her that I was greatly disturbed by that request. She understood deeply as I have been in touch with this person since my editor / writer days at Hinge-Inquirer – as the request was truly odd. I read my review once more and it was no different in style to the dozens of reviews I have written since 2003. I am always fair and want to give products a fighting chance in the market. I didn’t see why I had to “improve” on it. What I have written, I have written.
Take everything away from me, but please don’t take away my credibility. I understand that the PR fellow was just doing her job but it is also our duty to educate remind PR practitioners that we need to set criteria. Sometimes they get too engrossed in their work. 🙂
On bad products
I have a personal opinion about REALLY bad products – I never review products that don’t make sense to consumers (VERY iffy market / VERY sub par features / VERY horrendous pricing scheme) because I know that such types of products will die a natural death. Giving a bad product a bad review is like kicking someone when he’s already down. In the case of this scenario I just outlined, the product was not bad. I gave a fair perspective on the strengths and weaknesses.
So what is the purpose of this post? Because of this incident, I would like to reveal the 8th characteristic of Blog and Soul (only 7 are posted), something which I never really wanted to talk about because I felt that it was unnecessary. The 8th pointer of the Blog and Soul Movement is to protect bloggers from sacrificing their credibility to PR. This does not happen intentionally, but I tell you that it does happen. I have dealt with several PR and ad agencies in the past – Ogilvy, GMCI, Strategic Edge, Bridges, Dominguez, Stratworks, etc and know that they are all composed of very good and upright people whom I respect and love. But we, as bloggers, must always be on guard just in case. Just in case.
The last thing you want to happen is to realize that you’ve sold out without knowing it.
