A FUNNY thing happened on the way to the Facebook log-in page. Earlier this month, hundreds of users wanting to log into Facebook got “lost” and stumbled into a technology blog instead that had just written about the social networking site. And they couldn’t tell the difference.
HOW do you write about technology and opt out on the latest social networking craze? Simple, just say “no.” Last week, when Gmail popped up a screen announcing Google Buzz, I viewed this as yet another annoying attempt by some company to benefit from a online community I would help create with content that cost them next to nothing. You know, just like Facebook. “Share updates, photos, videos, and more. Start conversations about the things you find interesting,” the announcement said. Not interested, I ignored the large blue button that said “Sweet! Check out the Buzz!” and clicked on the tiny link that said “Nah, go to my inbox” instead.
DO you have a Facebook account? It seems like every dog and his brother is on the world’s biggest social networking site these days. Facebook happily reports that it has more than 350 million active users. Of these, about 8.4 million are from the Philippines, which makes it the ninth biggest country in terms of Facebook users, says Nick Burcher, who has tracked usage statistics since 2008. In Asia, only Indonesia, with 14.7 million users, is bigger than we are, according to the December 2009 figures. The biggest country, by far, is the United States, of course, with 101.3 million users. Surrounded by so many millions of Facebook users, I sometimes feel a bit of a Luddite for steadfastly refusing to hop on the bandwagon.
WHEN Barack Obama used Twitter as a potent campaign tool last year, Filipino politicians took notice. Now, with national elections just a few months away, a number of them, too, have their own accounts with the popular micro-blogging service. “What’s a 52 yr old guy to do the night before his wedding?” posts Senator Mar Roxas, one of the first politicians in the country to sign on to Twitter, on the eve of his marriage to broadcaster Korina Sanchez. “Tying the knot in the age of Twitter is certainly something, haha.”
WHICH blogging software or service is best? This question from a reader caught me by surprise because I didn’t have a ready answer. But for most users who simply want to get their feet wet, a free public blog site is probably the best way to go.
IT’S an hour and 15 minutes by a 19-seat twin turboprop Dornier from the A. Soriano airfield in Pasay City to the El Nido airport in Palawan. From there, it’s another 45 minutes by a motorized outrigger to Miniloc Island, a gorgeous island resort. I was on a family vacation and on my own dime—and I was determined not to bring any work with me. So, even though there was free wireless Internet access at the clubhouse, this didn’t matter. I had deliberately left my notebook computer at home. This reminded me a bit of International Internet-Free Day, an annual event promoted by the Global Ideas Bank, a Web-based think tank, designed to get people to log off, get out and enjoy the real world.
Old Digital Life Web site
SOMETIME today, this blog reached a milestone, going past 1 million page hits. That might not sound like a lot, but it took me awhile to get to this point. I started using ExpressionEngine to run this blog in January 2006, so my tracking really started just then. Before that, Digital Life began as a simple Web site in 2003 on a different URL. You can still see what the old pages looked like back then, thanks to The Way Back Machine.
Christine, whose HappySlip won the best podcast blog at the 2007 Philippine Blog Awards, also came in second in the YouTube Video Awards in the comedy category.
PEOPLE who are new to blogging often ask me, “With so many blogs out there, how do you know which ones are good?” I usually answer: “Visit them and decide for yourself.” Many of us who write or just read blogs develop our own A-lists. These are Web logs that we visit regularly because the content is compelling or because the style of writing is engaging. The best blogs combine both.
One of the organizers of the Philippine Blog Awards, Abe Olandres, is interviewed by RPN-9.
I’m sitting here at the Globe booth just outside the Philippine Blog Awards, waiting for the ceremonies to begin. After more than a year of communicating with him on the phone and online, I finally met Abe Olandres, one of the organizers and, as it turns out, my Web host, too.
PERHAPS it’s a sign that this blog has arrived. In the last few days, I’ve been getting my fair share of comment spam. These scumbags think they can post their spam messages on my Web site as a way of driving traffic to theirs. Sometimes, they even start their spam with what looks like a legitimate comment. “Great site!” then their URL. Very funny. Listen up, creeps. Comments are moderated, okay? So there’s no chance in hell that your dumb commercial messages will ever make it into this Web site. So why don’t you morons just save all of us some time and trouble? Don’t post your spam here; it will never get through.
LAST month, I wrote about a battle for the future of the Internet that most people still don’t realize is already being waged. On one had, you have the big US telcos who want to divide the Internet into a fast and slow lane, and charge big online companies such as Yahoo, Google, eBay and Amazon and video streaming Web sites more money for “premium” services. The rest of us—small companies, bloggers, and individual Web site owners—would be relegated to the slow lane.
IN a major victory for the blogging community, a US appeals court has ruled that bloggers and Web masters enjoy the same protections against divulging confidential sources as established media organizations. The ruling stems from a case in which Apple Computer tried to browbeat three Web sites and their Internet service providers into revealing the identities of people who leaked confidential information about a digital music device codenamed “Asteroid.”
Digital Life is a blog that features a technology column by the same name that appears every Tuesday in Manila Standard Today, a national daily from the Philippines. This blog gives readers easy access to the column, which started in November 2002. Copyright 2009 Chin Wong.
Made the switch to Linux? Tell me about it here and get your own penguin! Click here for a high-resolution image.
| September 2010 | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| S | M | T | W | T | F | S |
| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | |||
| 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 |
| 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 |
| 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 |
| 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | ||
