Welcome to eCommerce Night!
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at December 4th, 2007NOTICE: This blog post is being shown to a live audience at mag:net cafe, Bonifacio High Street. As Andrian Lee did not allow any of the panel tonight to bring any form of presentation, I’d like to cheat a little bit and use this blog to post up a few thoughts about eCommerce and social media in the Philippines. Note that I’m no guru in this sort of thing so I approach eCommerce from the perspective of someone who’s been mostly in the publishing industry most of his professional life.
eCommerce, or the activity of buying and selling on the Internets has been around for a long time, but why are companies in the Philippines so afraid to take this up, when in fact it is the cheaper, easier and more convenient way of moving certain types of products? eCommerce makes so much sense, it makes multi level marketing done right look complicated.
(more…)
Code Monkey Unplugged Lyrics Chords and Tabs
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at December 3rd, 2007Songwriter Jonathan Coulton dedicates this song to anyone who has served as a code monkey in a software corporation. The song is great stuff but what really struck a chord was when he performed an unplugged version that turned the entire thing into a ballad.
So yeah it struck a chord, so I decided to transcribe bits and pieces of the song into tabs for all your guitar folks to try out. For reference, this is the plugged in version of the song and this is the unplugged version. He also has a YouTube video up for the acoustic version of Code Monkey.
Save the Environment. Recycle.
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at December 1st, 2007
I don’t know if they were literal about recycling Bong Revilla over and over again in these “breakthrough” Filipino films. Discuss.
Disk Inventory X for Mac OS X
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at December 1st, 2007
Here’s an application pick recommended by Amber MacArthur – Disk Inventory X presents a visual way of looking at the contents of your hard drive. The benefit of installing this free application is it divides your hard disk into colored cubes, showing you which types of applications take up the most space.
As I rarely look through my applications folder (I use keyboard shortcuts with Quicksilver), I forgot that World of Warcraft (grenish-blue rectangle on the upper right) was taking up almost 7GB of space – a game which I no longer have time to play on the road, and best reserved for my PC desktop. It also shows me that photos (huge blue block) are the real killer in disk space, and that I should get an external HD to store all of my DSLR photos. I also forgot about how Parallels and Windows XP (the purble block at the bottom) is taking up so much space as well. In theory I thought I’d find a use for it but the practice didn’t.
You can download Disk Inventory X. The best thing about it — it’s completely free!
EDIT: P16,000 for the ASUS eee
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at November 30th, 2007
* There has been a price drop in the ASUS eee. It now costs P16,000.00.
Hello ASUS eee. You’re finally here in the Philippines. Your proud owner allowed me to fiddle around with your real estate for the better part of the evening and here are some of the notes I took down:
- P17,000.00 flat for the mini laptop. The eee runs on a 533MHz processor with 4GB of hard disk space and 512MB of RAM. If you add P1,200.00, you get the RAM bumped up to 1GB
- Available colors are in white, black, pink and light blue
- Mouse buttons are a bit hard to press and the mouse pad is a little small
- Ultra light and ultra small
The best thing about the eee is that it doesn’t feel cheap for P17,000.00. The elegant exterior reminds me of my black MacBook and it comes packed with everything that makes a laptop a great blogging machine. For less than P20,000.00 you get a portable computer with a mic, webcam (with recording capability), WiFi, three USB ports and a SD/MMC card reader. It comes built in with Google Docs, Open Office, Mozilla Firefox 2 and a bunch of other open source applications like the game Mr. Potato Head.
(more…)
Boracay is the new Batanes: An Interview with Iza Calzado and Ignite Media
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at November 30th, 2007
Wednesday morning
Went to airport for the press preview of Batanes the Movie starring Iza Calzado and F4′s Ken Zhu. Movie preview of Batanes will be at Batanes. Cool, ain’t it. Exciting for me as the last time I was in Batanes was more than 10 years ago for a student seminar. It was a memorable experience making friends with the Koro Ivatan and playing on the grassy cliffs that resembles much of the scenery you see in Mel Gibson’s Braveheart. I’m hyped.
Markku sports a new hair style.
(more…)
Samsung’s PHP 2.5 Million Pesos 1080p 70 inch High Def Television
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at November 29th, 2007
I just witnessed the launch of the largest consumer available LCD television with 1080p high definition resolution. Very affordable for only PHP 2,500,000.00. What makes this LCD unique is that it is available to consumers as an actual product. There are bigger LCD centerpieces out there, but are all prototypes.
During the Q&A portion, I just had to ask … “So, err … when are you sending us the demo units?”
The product manager answered that as long as I could lift it, I could take it home.
“Introspection of Viral Marketing Using Lechon Kawali Pizza as Test Subject”
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at November 28th, 2007This morning, I shot the new lechon pizza of Greenwich, a new offering for the holidays among many other things that I was tasked to shoot. Client has already launched the product to the public so I am allowed to talk about it. But that’s not what I came to express in this blog post.
The pizza is deliciously and sinfully good. The base of the dough is drowned in lechon sauce and topped with cheese. On top of the cheese are several pieces of lechon kawali – pig meat and skin combined to give you that chewy and crunchy texture. The crust itself is baked with garlic. Red bell pepper strips to garnish.
I gobbled up three slices of this wonderful dish during the event. Twenty minutes later I wind up at a friend’s office across the street from Greenwich Ayala Avenue for a meeting. I tell him about the ever so sinful “lechon kawali” pizza and they order two boxes for the staff. The verdict? Winner. (yeah yeah I finished three more slices. I’m such a lechon.)
That night I drop by an event for Samsung at the Manila Peninsula. Over dinner with other members of media, I start a nonchalant conversation of “guess what I had for lunch a while ago?” The already famous lechon pizza conversation made its way through the 5 Star Buffet meal at the presidential suite. It was absurdly funny and incited curiosity.
Viral marketing works for products when the item in scrutiny has a tinge of peculiarity to it. Sometimes, peculiarity is bred by what is known as the invisible obvious, if I were to borrow the term from Andrian Lee. The lechon pizza is really nothing more than the FIlipino version of an all meat pizza. Pecuiar. But obvious.
Curious to try the lechon pizza? Dial 55555 for deliveries anywhere around the country.
For foreign readers, here is the definition of lechon:
Lechón (Tagalog: Litson and Cebuano: Inasal) is the Spanish word for suckling pig. In the Philippines, it connotes a whole roasted pig, lechón baboy. Chicken and beef, are also popular. The process of lechón involves the whole pig/piglet, chicken, or cattle/calf being slowly roasted over charcoal. [Wikipedia]
Neil Gaiman Weekend
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at November 27th, 2007
I have always argued that Neil Gaiman is more than just a writer. He’s a story teller. There are some writers, who, when you listen to them speak, sound as if they are speaking in prose. The sentences they construct are uttered with a cadence that makes you stop to listen to every word as he effortlessly highlights his point with stops, intonation and the perfect choice of words.
Mr. Gaiman tells how Philippine literature is rich in realism, yet not so in unrealism as, according to him, we have the richest culture in the world. He didn’t say one of the richest. He said we are the richest. Don’t you wonder?
P.S. Perhaps you’ve already heard about it, but during the 2007 Ad Congress, Neil Gaiman served as pastor to two bronze award winners. The tale is recounted here for the guy and here for the girl. Neil writes about it here. Sadly, I was not able to make it to the ad congress, but I did catch him at Fully Booked, where he recounted the tale.
My Facebook Behavior Findings
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at November 27th, 2007Here are some personal observations of my FaceBook habits. Are yours similar or completely different?
- Deleting and ignoring apps can be a tedious process. Do you add every application that’s sent to you? The process is so tiring, it can be similar to writing off an entire cheque book or signing papers.
- Some apps get old quickly. Some don’t. I’ve deleted WarBook, but kept my Big Photos. Yeah, it’s a matter of preference. As to what I’m more fascinated about is what makes an application stay in someone’s page. What are the benefits involved?
- More of amusing really – that I’ve been using Facebook’s Inbox messaging system to conduct meetings with two or more people in threads. I’ve been finding it easier to use for managing conversations between three or more people as compared to using a group email system. What you can’t do however (at least from what I’ve tried) is add another person midway into the thread.
Philippine Blogosphere Pitch: Why not aim for the Anvil Awards?
Posted by Jayvee Fernandez at November 26th, 2007Every year, the Public Relations Society of the Philippines (PRSP) gives out a set of Anvil Awards for remarkable public relations campaigns done in the Philippines.
The ANVIL is a symbol of excellence in public relations in the Philippines awarded by a distinguished multi-sectoral jury for outstanding public relations programs and tools designed and implemented in the past year. The Anvil Awards competition is conducted annually by the Public Relations Society of the Philippines.
The Anvil symbolizes excellence and quality. The standards for winning are high. No award is given unless the standards are met.
There are four award categories:
The Anvil Award of Merit
The Anvil Award of Excellence
The Bronze Anvil Award
THE GRAND ANVIL AWARD
What exactly am I pitching? Why can’t we pitch the ongoing Filipinas Campaign as an entry in the 44th Anvil Awards happening in February 2009. This February 2008 is the awarding for the Anvil for campaigns done between October 31 2006 to October 31 2007. Though it would be too late to include the Filipinas Campaign as an entry to the 43rd Anvil Awards, it can still very well make it into the 44th.
(more…)
