I remember making this comic three years ago and posting it on July 28 2005. Back then I was blogging severely on Multiply and my 20six.co.uk account (sad, I have forgotten the password to access these old entries).

With the weekend in, I can, at the very least breathe a little from all the work that’s been thrown here and there. I’ve always been an out and about kind of guy. Dare you to confine me to a desk - I learned this the hard way by thinking this is what I wanted working in the real estate industry 3 years ago. Some updates to my readers about what’s been going on:

## When we established Blog and Soul last year, the goal was to help make blogging a meaningful arm of mainstream media. We (Blog and Soul never really had official membership) established ourselves as a volunteer group that is now leaning towards organizing enrichment seminars for bloggers. No money involved. Very little sponsorship. It’s really a community thing. This second half of 2008, at least from my knowledge (I just helped put this up - it’s a community endeavor and the wisdom of the crowd dictates what direction we take) is to help with a healthy blogger experience (Yoga Jane held a blogger yoga event). We’re looking for more venues to do “outdoor” activities (i.e. Lazertag!!!)

## The BlogBank. Ah, we’re almost at 5 months since our official launch. We’re currently doing more than 100k pages in daily views with over 300+ blogs in the network. We’ve presented (and evangelized) across more than a dozen agencies, SME’s, BPO’s, publishers and big corporations. Our learning is that it takes time for people to internalize new media - and now we’re reaping the benefits with corporations wanting to get a piece of Internet advertising. The BlogBank is being talked about in the advertising industry with our success stories with Delifrance, Collezione C2, the eLBC group to name a few (note that the first two are not Internet savvy advertisers but have produced successes which I’ll post up the BlogBank blog soon along with a detailed FAQ on the organization). Couldn’t have done it without our publishers - we’re preparing a big treat for ya in the next few :)

## Interestingly enough, my post-graduate degree (Education) has caught up with me and I’ll be most likely teaching this September 2008. I’ve been helping a renowned educational institution come up with a 10 session elective which I loosely call “Marketing 2.0.” What makes this even more interesting is that the professors I am working with were the former classmates of my dad in his graduate school.

A funny realization — As Donald Lim of Yehey! once put it, the Internet medium is usually the place where companies have the least budget for - but have the highest expectations! So true. So very true! And this is because we have the metrics to calculate everything.

I think the best learning in an emerging industry that I try to internalize is the notion that we can’t be dollar bills - we can’t please everybody. So there. Between events, my contributions to MANUAL and Playground, some traveling here and there and the above-mentioned items, I’m a chicken that’s glad to be on the road.

I’ll be speaking this week for the Institute of Transformative Marketing and Communications workshop on Viral Marketing together with Brad Geiser and Amor Maclang. More details over here. Oh, and there’s Wordcamp 2008 too! Eggciting! Hope to see you there!

#end

Have you ever wondered how the “hive mind” works? Science fiction writers have brought forth the concept of a certain intelligence that exist within crowds into such forms as The Borg from Star Trek, The Zerg from Starcraft, and The Reavers from Mass Effect.

You’ve probably come across the concept of public opinion, viral marketing, or really, the jist of an “overall consensus.” There is a certain wisdom that’s inherent in large groups. Given that certain conditions of diversity are met (read here for those conditions) the crowd can be more intelligent than the few geniuses. In other words, Wikipedia can actually be more authoritative and efficient compared to the Encyclopedia Brittanica.

So when we take that concept of popular opinion (in Latin the phrase is Vox Populi, vox Dei - the Voice of the People is the Voice of God) and apply it on a micro level one example could be Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf’s African Sunrise and how the tribe has spoken, wanting this product to be retained as a permanent offering in CBTL’s menu. Members of the Internet community, mainstream media and friends of CBTL were offered African Sunrise tea several weeks ago and the feedback on its taste (”it’s sweet and creamy without cream and sugar”) is pushing their management to make this a permanent offering.

So a small informal event was launched for tea lovers to announce the coming of the African Sunrise, being pushed as a regular product offering due to the wisdom of a sampling of consumers.

And thus ends my pathetic attempt at linking media events with a social phenomenon. LOL.

Unconfirmed Update: Entrance is supposedly free as long as you present 20 packs of cigs. The sponsor is Philip Morris.

What else is there to be said, but it has definitely been confirmed! The buzz has blossomed throughout the blogosphere, radio stations and the news - everyone is excited to see the Eraserheads back for a one night only concert at the CCP grounds.

Over the weekend, the buzz was finally confirmed, thanks to one of The Philippine STAR entertainment editor and writer Ricky Lo’s moles: the Eraserheads are going to reunite for a one night only show on August 30, 2008! The venue is supposed to be the Cultural Center of the Philippines open grounds. The other details are still sketchy, but from what I gathered during my own online sleuthing—made easy because the blog posts were careful to cite references—a corporate sponsor convinced the foursome to perform for a big event that’s supposedly free to some 35,000 expected fans.[PhilStar author's blog]

I heard over one radio station that the concert would be free admission but I sincerely hope they charge -imagine a free Eheads concert - folks are going to be camped outside CCP. I’m probably the last to be updated on concert news anyway so don’t take my word for it.

But yeah, I’d really want to be there. Learned a lot of guitar from their hits back in high school.

Perhaps the main competition is real life commitments which is why after almost a month of playing, I’m still barely midway into the game at level 34 35 (ding!).

I rolled a Conqueror, a soldier archetype and one of the 12 classes in Age of Conan. At 34, I’m still guildless (this is the fault of Kiven and Rico hrmp!) and although finding pick up groups for mid level quests are not as hard as I thought, knowing how MMO’s work, guilds are needed for end-game content especially for AoC’s PVP system which looks a lot like Age of Empires! I’m running on the Oceanic Bloodspire PVP server, so if there are any other Filipinos who are recruiting, I’m here! :D

Here’s what I’ve been missing out:
Read more »

Maila recently published a story on a house bill being passed for video game violence - and how it finally crept into Philippine congress.

House Bill 4095, initiated by ARC party-list Representative Narciso Santiago, proposes imprisonment of not more than one year or a fine not exceeding P100,000, or both, for violators.

In filing the bill, Santiago cited recent studies that revealed minors who play violent video games “are more likely to exhibit violent, asocial or aggressive behavior toward others, including other minors.”

A violent video game, he said, also depicts “human-on-human violence” in which the player “kills, seriously injures, or otherwise causes serious physical harm to a human or character with substantially human characteristics.”

My personal stand on the proposed bill? This is an outdated stigma. Do you want to know the surprising truth? The most recent study that has been conducted for video game violence is documented in Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games and What Parents Can Do. Let me quote:

The surveys also found correlations (statistically significant relationships) between violent game play and some common childhood problems. Boys who played any Mature-rated game a lot had twice the risk of certain aggressive behaviors (e.g., getting into fights, beating up someone, damaging property for fun) or school problems (e.g., getting in trouble with a teacher, getting poor grades), at least once during the past year, compared to boys who played games with lower age ratings. Among girls, the risk of problems was three to four times higher for those who played violent games vs. those who played other games.

Interestingly, boys who didn’t play any video games during a typical week also had a higher risk for problems; however, there were not enough boys in this group to find statistically significant differences. Kutner and Olson stress that a one-time survey can’t show cause-and-effect (it could be that already-aggressive teens prefer violent games, for example) and that most children who play violent games do not have problems.

They also document many creative, social and emotional benefits from video game play, even games with violent content, which were used by many children to relieve stress and get out anger.

Ultimately, the authors express concern that “focusing on such easy but minor targets as violent video games causes parents, social activists and public-policy makers to ignore the much more powerful and significant causes of youth violence that have already been well established, including a range of social, behavioral, economic, biological and mental-health factors” (page 190).

Watch the video interview (Adam Sessler also did an interview with the authors at X-Play but I can’t find that particular episode on the web stream - it’s available though for download at iTunes):

I’m not a political or legislation blogger - but I AM a gamer and I’ve always found gaming - even “violent games” to be a huge source of relief when all other forms of stress relievers have failed. Studies like the aforementioned always fail to see the other end of the valley - on the number of gamers who play violent games and HAVE NOT resorted to violence to resolve an issue.

Okay let’s put this in check. The proposed bill only says that this shouldn’t be available to minors. All I’m saying is that although there are some connections to video games and violence, these are very loose ones. The correlation isn’t 1 is to 1. The book is a very good read and I highly recommend it to you if you can get your hands on a copy.

iPhone 3G unlocked and more coverage

Posted in Tech on 12/07/2008

Happy weekend folks! I have a few news items from Cellphone9, most of which are YouTube videos sent by the official AT&T video production unit on the launch and demo of the iPhone 3G:

## iPhone 3G isdelivered by mail guy and secured inside the AT&T store

## iPhone 3G unboxing by the AT&T guy, Duncan Riley and Wirelessinfo. More unboxing videos here.

## iPhone 3G is unlocked on the same day of launch by Furiousim

## iPhone 3G GPS and Maps navigation demo

## Walt Mossberg is not so amazed with the iPhone 3G

Today, ACER launched their new mid year desktops and portables with the Aspire One leading the pack. So ACER finally releases their first ultraportable and there are a lot of things to like about it. First off, a sweet Intel Atom processor under this ultraportable’s hood and a 8GB solid state drive.

One peculiar item of note is the RAM - 1GB RAM with 512MB soldered into the device and the other 512MB is expandable to 1GB giving you an odd total RAM expansion of 1.5GB. It’s odd that ACER would put a small cap to the RAM expansion capabilities as 512MB doesn’t really matter as much in cases of ultra light devices.

So we played around with it today and yeah, it’s everything an ultraportable should be (I obviously can’t give feedback on the battery life). I noticed that the Aspire One didn’t mention Bluetooth in the specs. So there you have it - three, wait, three big brand ultra portables in the Philippine market with the ASUS eee, HP Mini Note (review here!) and the ACER Aspire One. We’re waiting for the MSI Wind to come among the big players.

There are other ultra light devices out there such as the Red Fox but I honestly don’t know how these fare. Any feedback on these?

The Aspire One comes in Sapphire Blue and Seashell White.

Technical Specs
AO 110-L08b (blue)
AO 110-L08w (blue)

Intel Atom Processor N270
1.6GHz 512kb L2 Cache 533 MHz Front Side Bus
Linpus Linux Lite OS
1GB Memory (512MB on board)
8GB Solid State Drive
8.9 inch WSVGA TFT
Multi-card reader
WLAN
Webcam
Comes with notebook sleeve
89% full sized keyboard
1 Year Warranty on Parts and Labor
1 Year International Travelers Warranty

In May of 2007, the LAGALAG moleskine notebooks looked like this:

LAGALAG before the trip

14 months later, the notebook is FAT with stories to share from 20 Filipinos around the world.

14 months later, it landed on my doorstep via express mail and duty bound, I had to fill up two spreads. So here they are:

LAGALAG Spread 2

LAGALAG Spread 1

A tattoed military man in Japan rescues a dying man inside a car.
A writer in Cambodia loses himself in a foreign land through a painful ritual.
A former recording artist discovers new wells of creativity in Canada.
A man in the gaming industry prowls the streets of Manila in search of lost messages.

They have never met each other but they are bound to share one amazing journey around the world. They are just four of the twenty Filipinos in Lagalag, sharing one thing in common – they all take pictures.

Twenty different ways on how Filiipinos see the world.
Twenty photos. Twenty stories.
One destination. Your doorstep.

Dadaan ba sa iyo ang biyaheng Pinoy?

LAGALAG: The Traveling Journal of Filipinos Project

I interviewed Wil about Project LAGALAG back in May of 2007. This was as memories served me right, the first podcast interview I’ve ever recorded.

After finishing my two spreads I had wanted to deliver the moleskine personally to the next guy as he was based in Makati. I held back.

The novelty - the mystery of reading about the personal accounts of many other Filipinos I’ve never met seemed to be even more charming than reading it from a blog - which practically is the same thing. There really is some charm to it. The personality of the author’s penmanship, the awkward strokes on the edges of the paper, the glue and felt marker stains …

Editor’s Note: Kopi Roti BF Homes is now open! You can proceed here for more details and photos.

Many reasons why I’m plugging this:

1. Kopi Roti is an excellent brand. Anybody who knows good coffee (and BREAD!!) knows Kopi Roti! And now finally, us folks from the south need not go up north to savor Kopi Roti. Their complete address is:

Unit 104 A Ground Floor,
The Pergola Lifestyle Mall Aguirre Ave,
BF Homes, Paranaque City

This is in the new promenade mall across BPI, right beside Jollibee BF and the Ruins Night Market.

2. This particular franchise is operated by my high school batchmate from PAREF Southridge ‘98 (Sonny, pa-libre naman dyan!).

3. They have a blog. And this blog is rather specific to the franchise in the south. The anticipation is building as they plan to open this July. Sonny and Mike sure know how to market this thing. The anticipation begins with photos of the store under construction.

Finally construction of our Kopi Roti store started last June 26. We are estimating the construction to last only 20 days long. Our neighbor tenants in the Ground Floor Sarabia Optical, Simply Bread, Baker’s Depot, and Figaro are nearing completion in their construction and will open mid to late July. We will be opening shop before the month of July ends :D

Photo c/o www.kopirotisouth.blogspot.com

They probably aren’t famous by name but once you watch this series of sketches, they might ring a bell:

Yeah they’re the official I’m a Mac and I’m a PC guys in the UK.

So it’s been a while since I last recommended an audiobook. As a huge fan of sketches - British sketches to be specific, who can’t ignore Mitchell and Webb? They’ve released a series of three sketches with 18 episodes (about a total of 8 hours!) titled That Mitchell and Webb Sound.

They’re extremely hilarious - if only just for the language!