PRESENTING …. THE BUGGED LIFE ISLAND PARADISE! HOP ON IN (Log in with yout Google ID), THE WATER’S GREAT!
I’ve been toying around with Google Lively – an ultra underrated virtual world simulator similar to Second Life but different in many aspects. What it is: the Google engineers have made a proof of concept part social network, part Second Life, part game and it runs pretty well on just your browser. No need to download an external application to run this, and heck is really easy to use!
Let’s start creating our Philippine blogosphere rooms!
As of now it only works on Windows Vista and Windows XP. My character ID is a little piggy named “jayvsterrific.”
Exciting! Exciting! Exciting! So I tried to introduce the Pampers World event to some friends and the first reaction I got was … “well I’m not a parent yet” and I said … well that’s precisely the point!
Pampers World is launching this July 26 and 27 2008 (full schedule here) at the Glorietta activity center. Without trying to give out any spoilers I just have to point you to the teaser media on this post and on the Facebook event page to give you an idea of what you can expect. All I have to say is, I highly recommend bringing your cameras and video when you and your friends come to the Glorietta this coming weekend! (I smell a blogger meet up, anyone?).
When you see the world through a baby’s eyes, you know how to make it better.
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!
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.
