This is the third time that I’ve been invited to conduct a seminar-workshop on blogging by the Department of Trade & Industry. This time it’s for DTI - Tagum City. Apparently, one of the participants in the 2nd seminar is from Davao del Norte Province, so now they want their own.
As before, I’ve invited Ria to partner with me in conducting the seminar in Tagum. So tomorrow early morning we’re going on a one-hour bus ride to the north.
Read on»
Blog Oh! Blog, a site that’s dedicated to WordPress, is running a contest for all bloggers around the whole wide world. This über-sexy CMS just turned 5 yesterday, and B.O.B. is running this online contest in its honor.
Not using WordPress? Jai (the blogger behind B.O.B.) didn’t mention anything about this contest being exclusive to WP users. So just jump in and, who knows, you might win a theme! And that’s gonna be the start of your own love affair with WordPress.
Read on»
You gotta love this one –
I must say, sometimes I do spend way too much time on my blogs. That’s five blogs that I take care of personally, a few community blogs, my father’s, and a couple of blogs that I maintain for my friends. But it’s fun! 
You got that right — we’re gonna have our very own WordCamp in the Philippines this year!
Read on»
Janette Toral’s writing project, The Top 10 Emerging Influential Blogs, is now on its second year. (This time, Janette has acquired a domain name for the project, influentialblogger.net, which is quite catchy.)
The noble purpose of this writing project is to give recognition to the blogosphere’s relatively new but prominent blogs. (To help them along the road to blogosphere fame, too!) Any blogger — not necessarily Filipino — may join this worthy endeavor. To do so, please start by reading this post. In short, you will need to nominate 10 blogs to your own list of emerging, influential blogs.
Below is my list. These are blogs that, in my opinion, have exerted some well-deserved authority over their chosen subject matter / advocacy. (Listed in alphabetical order.) Read on»
The iBlog4 Summit, in my honest estimation, was a success. It was well-attended, and the content of the talks and presentations was, on the whole, engaging and educational. Some of the talks were even inspiring, especially that of Juned Sonido’s, who talked about photo-blogging.
Although I don’t really do photography, it doesn’t hurt to learn about it, right? Juned delivered an easy-to-understand guide to photography for blogging, and gave us a taste of his own unique approach. He also brought out his impressive collection of cameras, from the ultra-professional to the basic point-and-shoot. Read on»
2:01PM
The speaker now is Manuel L. Quezon III, and he’s giving us his take on how he blogs, particularly on how he presents his opinion via blogging. Very insightful. I like what he just said about the ‘human aspect’ of blogging, which is, after all, how a blogger should approach his or her writing.
Earlier, after lunch, Aileen Apolo and Coy Caballes gave a presentation on video blogging and podcasting.
The present slot is made up of three speakers: Quezon, and a journalist, Luz Rimban, came before him. And then Janette Toral.
Rimban focused on Elections 2010. She encouraged the audience to blog about the coming national elections because the media is not expected to cover everything. The media, Rimban said, will focus only on what’s “newsworthy”, and so bloggers have a unique position, and that is in the bringing of man-on-the-street news to the voting public.
Interesting: Quezon says he uses Twitter a lot. He believes Twitter will be very useful during the elections. Thinking about the American grad student who was arrested in Egypt and who used Twitter to tell his friends about the arrest, I think Quezon has a point.
Janette Toral is up next. She will talk about “How bloggers can participate more effectively in the 2010 elections”. She is advocating freedom of expression and for bloggers to be more participatory in the coming elections.
11:00AM
Karlo Licudine was asked by someone from Inquirer.net: How much do you earn from problogging? The answer: $1,000/mo.!!
The mom is here! She asked: Can we stop giving you allowance then? 
The next speaker is Juned Sonido. His talk is entitled “pHoToBlOg”. Some of his blogs: pinoysnapshots.com, baratillo.net, dalanghita.com, etc. He also writes for b5media and is part of the Blog & Soul Movement.
Juned is telling us about how to create a photoblog. I’m feeling frustrated, because I don’t even own a digicam!
For the platform, Juned is praising Multiply and Blogger (blogspot.com) as excellent sites for photo-blogging. And now he’s showing us his tools of the trade: his cameras and lenses. (I’m drooling now.) Wow! He has sooo many cameras with him!
I’m gonna take a break from liveblogging. Winston of BatangYagit.com will borrow my laptop.
11:43AM
Winston is taking photos of the event. We’ll be uploading pictures later.
Just finished his talk is Jonas Diego (jonasdiego.com, what else?), who does Web comics. He uses blogging as a means of promoting his creations.
Lunch!
9:45 AM
Arrived at the iBlog4 venue with Ria and Winston (after losing our way for a little bit inside the huge UP campus). Settled in just when the first speaker was wrapping up her talk. Now it’s a live video feed via Justin.tv, with Brian Gorrell, talking about how to blog (duhh). More of tips, really.
9:50 AM
Brian Gorrell says try not to get sucked into your blog, that we should be able to walk away. Good point. I should listen.
Gorrell says freedom of speech is very important… and that his blog is a prime example of it. Hmmm… Perhaps. Now I hope someone will talk about responsible blogging.
We’ve been asked to disconnect wifi for a while. I guess they’re fixing the Internet connection… More later!
9:58AM
Now the audience has a chance to introduce their blogs. I grabbed the opportunity to talk about MindanaoBloggers.com. Nice idea by the organizers.
Read on»
I’ve been here less than 24 hours since arriving this morning and I can already feel the reverberating centeredness of Metro Manila. This is where important things are happening, and this is the place from where many, many things emanate.
Like blogging, for instance. Although we do have a good number of bloggers in Davao and blogging there is alive and, well, kicking, Manila is still where the highest concentration of bloggers can be found. Read on»
