The Geek Brewery

Exactly one week ago, bloggers from all over the Philippines gathered at the University of the Philippines Diliman for iBlog5: the 5th Philippine Bloggers Summit.

iBlog is an annual gathering of bloggers to discuss state of blogging in the country and other sorts of stuff. There are also lots of informative talks, both for new and old bloggers.

This year’s iBlog is more successful in terms of attendance. I met a lot of new bloggers but unfortunately I was not able to remember all of their names and URLs.

That’s it. My very short and boring iBlog post.

Hey guys.

Several few hours ago, I delivered a shout-out during the 2nd Mindanao Bloggers Summit held at Family Country Hotel and Restaurant in General Santos City.

The slides I used for my presentation is available here. Please don’t expect a lot from it since I made it on-the-spot, like 3 hours before my shout-out.

Hey guys!

The 2nd Mindanao Bloggers Summit is less than a week away. The organizers and volunteers (including me) are starting to get busy, really busy. Kuya Avel and company is brewing something big, bigger than the tuna in GenSan.

Aside from the post-summit events (tour, Sashimi night, among others), there is certainly more reason to attend the said event. I will be speaking for the shout-out in the afternoon — will rant about my blog, my blog life (blogger’s events, etc) and life as a student blogger.

I, too, am very excited for my shout-out. In fact, I’m now starting to outline what I’ll be saying. For parties interested on getting the outline, I’ll post them on my blog right after my shout-out (yes, there’s free wireless Internet connection in the area powered by 802.11a/b/g technology).

Weeeee, exciting! See you there!

Recently, I’ve noticed the trend that more and more bloggers (including me) post sizzling-hot current events to increase their blog traffic. These events include heinous incidents (the RCBC Cabuyao Bank Robbery), board and college admission examination results release, controversial controversies, among others. We optimize our pages a lot to top the search engine results page. We tend to overlook the fact that this traffic is short-term, as short as a day – on lucky instances may even extend to only up to a week.

The tips I’m about to give you is how to convert your short-term traffic increase to long-term. These tips doesn’t guarantee success as I myself haven’t tested them yet. I’m still planning to shift to this traffic-increase model scheme this coming months.

• Make your pillar articles (your best content) as accessible as possible. Even if their reading a board exam result post, make sure that links to your pillars are visible. Once they get a chance to read your impressive and good posts, the more chances that they’ll return to your blog and subscribe to your feeds.
• Reduce the number of advertisements on your page, or make them less-likely to look like one. In the short-run, this might hurt your earnings a bit — but surely the short-run trade-off would bear even bigger fruits. Personally, I’m less likely to return to a blog which slaps advertisements on my face.
• RSS feed buttons and email subscription fields should be strategically placed. Usually, a reader expects an RSS feed button on the “above the fold” (top) part of the page. Also, putting an email subscription field at the end of an article is also effective especially for the techy ones who doesn’t understand RSS.
• Reply to comments. I rarely do this, but I’m planning to make this a habit. A visitor is more likely to come back to your site if they see that you reply to comments. Should they have questions, they’ll surely watch out if you’ve got them a reply.

That’s it. Just four short tips. Should you have more, just put place them on the comments and I’ll add them with a link back to you (instant link).

So the next time you’re posting a sizzling-hot current event, don’t forget to follow my tips. I bet their effective as they sound. Good luck.

Res Ipsa Loquitor. I’m voting for Batang Yagit because he’s a geek like me! Click here to view the guys who made the right choice for the 2008 Bloggers’ Choice Award of the prestigious Philippine Blog Awards 2! Geeks rule!

Hey guys, I’m very excited for the upcoming WordCamp Philippines 2008 this September 6, 2008. I feel so privileged to attend such an event – not all countries had the chance to hold a WordCamp. Thanks to Mindanao Bloggers Inc for having the guts in organizing one.

The event will be held on De La Salle College of St. Benilde. This means another trip to Manila, weeeeee.

Before I end this short post, I’d like to thank the WordCamp Philippines 2008 sponsors for supporting the event:

• i.PH: the Domain for Individuals
• Free Online Flash Games
• Wazzup Manila Philippines
• Real Estate CRM
• Real Estate Website Designers
• Orange County Real Estate
• Auto Insurance Quotes
• Lane Systems Inc.
• RedMedia
• Orange County Business Lawyer

That’s all.

Bloggers are greedy. Greedy are bloggers.

Most of the bloggers I know except my very own sister who have tried monetizing their blogs are greedy. Sorry for the generalization but I bet its true 99% of the time.

And since I am tired of structuring good sentences and paragraphs, I’ll bullet the rest of this post.

• At one point of a blogger’s life, he (can be used in refering males/females) sees himself drowned by sponsored post. If not by sponsored posts, with so much advertisement blocks around that’s occupying much of the space.
• Most bloggers find it hard to blog a long and fun experience to the extent that they never post about it. But a blogger can easily make a paid review given a certain price.
• Cruel bloggers aka modern-day civilized bastards like me, have thought of starting a “fight” with other more famous bloggers. Personally, I have thought of writing an article on a local blogger in the Philippines who is claiming to earn more than he does. Shame to him that his blog is driven by pornsters looking for Pinay scandals! Another hint: he’s not blogging lately.
• I can’t explain how the above item is related with greed.
• A blogger that receives his earnings in cold cash starts to become anxious of his earnings in the succeeding payouts.
• There’s more, it’s also the time projections for next payout’s earnings are projected; which are usually higher. (A Blogger’s Proactivity)

Oh know, I’m crapping this blog with this post. Okay, I’ll stop now. Add things on the list. Discuss them in the comments area and have fun.

Yes I’m greedy. But as famous Jun Lozada said, “moderate your greed”.

Ui, binasa niya ang post. Pacheeseberjer ka naman! Cheeseburjer, cheeseburjer. Plug ko lang: watch these Davao Bloggers on their cheeseburger video.

I’m supposed to catch up on some stuff I missed to do, but I preferred to take a break first. 16 days almost internetless, I deserve a break.

Last Thursday a several hours before I flew back home, I bothered to visit the David & Goliath stall at TriNoma to check out some of their Dude tee designs. There I saw what I was expecting, the Little Losers collection and the Bloggers Suck shirt I first saw during the iBlog 4 (I think it was kuya Juned who wore the shirt, not sure).

Since I did not have the guts to buy a Little Loser shirt that time (I think I just didn’t like the available Losers), I decided to get myself a 995-peso Bloggers Suck shirt. I tried the first size I saw, and indeed it was a perfect fit for me.

While paying in their counter, the guy who was manning the counter asked me where I live (maybe ’cause I was wearing pambahay or home clothes). I told him that I live in General Santos and he answered “ah, so malapit lang pala bahay niyo” (ah, so your house is just nearby). Then I realized that a General Santos avenue near TriNoma exists so I clarified that I live in General Santos City of Mindanao. Then I asked him a series of questions regarding the arrival of the complete Little Losers collection. He was some kind of surprised since I knew a lot and was very interested on the collection. He also told me that they had a Little Losers Bloggers Party and so I told him that I was there. I can see his amazement to see a person from miles away buy a shirt from them. LOL. After the short talk I gave him a Gift Certificate which I think he was not expecting.

So where did I get the One Thousand Peso gift certificate? (more…)

Yesterday, we (a group of bloggers) went to Serendra and Bonifacio High Street to have the second leg of SPOT Pass: An Exclusive Blogger’s Tour (speed-eating food tour). I was really amazed of the place; high-end restos and specialty shops flock around us. I’ve passed by the same area two years ago, but haven’t had a close encounter like I had yesterday.

While walking around the area, I noticed these countless numbers of pale yellow-painted condominiums. I can’t stop myself from thinking that the place was a perfect world. Later on, a question boggled my mind. Where the heck does those people park their cars?

Yes, indeed it was a perfect world. The question I had in mind was answered when I saw their underground
Rent a Parking Space area. Their Rent a Parking Space system was very (more…)

Waaaaa, I hate to have the same title with my sister’s post bad sadly I can’t play with the title cause it’s the title of the event.

SPOT Pass: An exclusive blogger’s tour is a two-day food tour event organized by SPOT.ph, an online review central for establishments in the city. The first day was held last April 25, 2008 and I was there; the second leg would be tomorrow and I’m most probably attending it.

For our first day, we ate at Trinoma’s different restaurants. Almost all of them were super-high-end which I believe I can’t afford until I earn $1000.00 a month in (more…)