Jose Rizal On Facebook

It's very easy to create a Facebook account and Facebook page.  That's why celebrity and personality pages have to be confirmed whether it's the "Official Page" or not.

Checking out Jose Rizal on Facebook, and you'd end up with lots of Jose Rizal search results. 
Here's one Jose Rizal page with 27,554 likes.  I guess this is what his page would look like if he were alive and on Facebook.

one of the many Jose Rizal pages on Facebook

With all of his writings and published books, Rizal would've been a great blogger and social media user.  Happy Rizal Day !

Note: The Twitter hashtag for Rizal from now til his 150th birth anniversary on June 19, 2011 is #Rizal150.

Facebook Page Ousted from Top Page On Facebook Again

Recently, the official Facebook page on Facebook finally gained the top position in the Facebook page rankings with over 30 million followers.  It's top rank though was short-lived as it was ousted again by the number 1 page on Facebook: Texas Hold'em Poker, with 31,352,713 fans and close to 100,000 new fans daily.

Twitter Trends in Manila for Christmas Day

All keywords and hashtags lead to Christmas as Pinoys on Twitter are all greeting each other a Merry Christmas.

Trending Twitter keywords in Manila for Dec. 25, 2010 9:00am PH time

Trending keywords / phrases:

• maligayang pasko - universal Filipino Christmas greeting
• #nochebuena - Christmas eve late feast just around midnight
• #meri - Pinoy slang of "Merry"
• busog - the effect of the #nochebuena feast
• fireworks - some people light fireworks to usher in Christmas
• godbless - supplementary greeting along with maligayang pasko

Merry Christmas to all from pinoysocialmedia.com !

Merry Christmas From The Post Office to Facebook

In the '80's and 90's, Filipinos usually would received greeting cards from their friends and loved ones through the mail.  At the turn of the century, it became a combination of e-cards via e-mail and SMS messages.   For a number of years, people would send a generic Christmas greeting to all their contacts on their phone.   Of course each text would cost at least P1.00.   The cheaper way was through e-cards but you'd have to know and input the recipients' e-mail address and type or paste it in each form.

Fast forward to the present day and age of social media.   You'll still get a couple of SMS greetings most likely from those you haven't heard from in a while and you may even get lucky and receive one or two Christmas cards in the mail.   What you do find yourself receiving much more are Christmas greetings on Facebook or twitter than any other means. Why ?

Probably because you have more Facebook friends than your contact list.   Probably because it's so much easier to keep in touch nowadays via Facebook.  Probably because your contacts may check their Facebook 1st even before their e-mail (or they use the Facebook messaging system as their e-mail). Probably because it's easy to send a virtual Christmas gift on one of those Facebook Christmas apps. Probably because practically everybody is on Facebook.  Probably because it's easy, convenient and free.  Probably one or all of these reasons have compelled you to use Facebook as the medium to express your Holiday greets.

Whatever the reason may be, one thing is for certain:  social media has changed the way we greet our friends and relatives.   Social media not only provides us with an alternate avenue for communication but a very convenient one in a fun environment at that.   Now that's a Merry Christmas worth poking for.

Southern Mindanao Bloggers Holds BlogFest SoCCSKSarGen 2010

The SoCCSKSarGen Bloggers successfully held the first-ever BlogFest SoCCSKSarGen last 11 December at the Grand Royale Ballroom of the East Asia Royale Hotel, General Santos City. It is the largest gathering of bloggers in Mindanao this year.

More popularly known as the Sox Bloggers, the group is composed of more than 200 bloggers and new media enthusiasts who have bonded together for the common advocacy of projecting South Central Mindanao in a more positive light through their blogs.

For the past three years, their blogs have increasingly influenced other people’s perceptions about the region and have won in different blog award bodies such as the Philippine Blog Awards and Digital Filipino’s Emerging Influential Blogs Search.

BlogFest SoCCSKSarGen 2010, aimed at enhancing the blogging capabilities of its members and increasing their passion for its advocacy, featured several web luminaries who gave talks on different topics.

The speakers are: University of the Philippines Journalism Professor Danilo A. Arao (Journalism Ethics for Bloggers), Google Inc. Philippine consultant Aileen Apolo-de Jesus (Making the most of the Internet and Google), Zamboanga blogger and IT consultant Ryann Z. Elumba (Spicing Up Blogs With Animation and Video), Head for New Media for the Presidential Communications Operations Office of Pres. Benigno Aquino Jay Jaboneta (The Role of New Media in Nation-building), with Avatar Media and Davao blogger Maria Jose (State of the Philippine Blogosphere).

They were joined by Web Developer and ENoa Corp. Online Marketing strategist Dale Palileo (SEO and Traffic Generation and Monetizing your Blog), Tactical Technology Collective member Bobby Soriano (Internet Security for Bloggers), REACH Networks Country Account Manager and Travel agency operator Michelle Lopez Solon (Exposing Local Gems on New Media), and E-commerce consultant/trainor and author Janette Toral (New Media and its Role in Businesses).

Atty. Jong Gonzales, City Administrator of General Santos, subbing for Mayor Darlene Antonino-Custodio delivered the first keynote speech entitled “Effecting Change through Blogging” in the morning., Later in the afternoon, South Cotabato and General Santos’ Representative Pedro B. Acharon, Jr.  talked about the “New Media’s Role in Defining the Legislative Agenda”.

A total of 119 delegates from all over Mindanao attended the BlogFest. The Sox Bloggers’ lead convenor, Avel Manansala, reported that some bloggers from the Visayas and Luzon have also participated.

After the last of the talks, Janette Toral, the lead organizer of the search for the Top 10 Emerging Influential Blogs awarded three of the Mindanao bloggers who made it to the list of the Top 10 Emerging Influential Blogs of 2010 – Orman Manansala (Ganda Ever So Much), Brendel Balaga (Get Prettified) and Maria Jose (Kusina Maria).

In the end, the Sox Bloggers and their counterparts from other areas have solidified their aim to continue with their advocacy to present a more balanced view of the region in particular and Mindanao in general and with all the new learning tools presented to them at the Blogfest, they will be more than equipped and up to the challenges posed before them in achieving their goals.

The event was sponsored by East Asia Royale Hotel, Sagittarius Mines, Inc. as its Platinum Sponsors. The Gold Sponsors are Smart Communications, Inc., the office of South Cotabato Rep. Pedro B. Acharon, Jr., Gaisano Mall of Gensan, and Dolores Hotels & Resorts. The Silver Sponsors are STI College Gen. Santos, Opera Software ASA, and Robinsons Place GenSan. The Bronze Sponsors of the event are Geiser Maclang Communications, Montage Digital Photography, Inc., PCWORX General Santos, Royale Iris Studio Productions, OMF Literature, Gensan News Online Mag, Ganda Ever So Much, Alexis Chua, South Cotabato Tambayan, Go Sarangani! Travel and the office of Councilor Margareth Rose N. Santos.

Third of a Million More Pinoys Sign Up On Facebook

As of December 15, 2010, the number of Facebook users from the Philippines increased from last week's 18,901,900 to 19,227,280, a 325,380 increase in a span of 8 days.   The increase still puts the Philippines at rank 6 in terms of Facebook users per country worldwide but increases the total Facebook audience share to 3.35%. 

10 Largest Countries
1.	United States	146,983,800
2.	Indonesia	31,784,080
3.	United Kingdom	28,665,360
4.	Turkey	24,366,580
5.	France	20,469,420
6.	Philippines	19,227,280
7.	Mexico	18,243,080
8.	Italy	17,872,960
9.	Canada	17,522,780
10.	India	16,915,900

For the month of November, the Philippines ranked 7th in terms of  top growing countries on Facebook with an additional 777,680 users who signed up on the social network.

The Philippines is less than a million users away from outranking France for the 5th spot.

The 18-24 age brackets still dominates the Filipino Facebook population with 7,924,640 or 41.2%.  Teenagers are a growing population on Facebook with 3,660,520 comprising the 14-17 age bracket.

52.1% of the Philippine Facebook population are females, with 795,760 more than males.

Stats are based on checkfacebook.com and socialbakers.com

Hashtag Abuse

Hashtags were originally created by the Twitter community to easily group tweets.   The nature of Twitters limited character space gives one just a little leeway on adding a hashtag or two.

A hashtag is similar to other web tags- it helps add tweets to a category. Hashtags have the 'hash' or 'pound' symbol (#) preceding the tag, like so: #traffic, #followfriday, #hashtag.

Hashtags have greatly helped the twitter community and make it a fun place.

Some people though, abuse the use in hopes of being witty and cute.   Sometimes it works, and sometimes, it's just plain annoying.

Take for example the recent burst of tweets from the lotto winner topic.   Some tweets just made their hashtags as cryptic and eyesoar as possible putting together entire sentences and rendering them as hashtags.   The idea of a hashtag is to let other people possibly adapt and use to talk about a certain topic, not to invent and use a new one for each and every tweet.



Here are some tips on using hashtags:

1. Use twitter search and type some keywords related to your tweet.  Find out if someone else has used any hashtags in relation to the keywords.  If they seem relevant, you can adapt the hashtag.
2. You can use more than 1 hashtag if you see it fit to categorize your tweet into more than 1 topic.  For example, a sports-related tweet can have both #baseball and #homerun if they're on-topic.
3. Capitalize each 1st letter of the word if your hashtag is composed of more than 1 word.   #CrashTestDummy is much more readable than #crashtestdummy.
4. Refrain from using underscores.  Just like registering domain names, it's best not to use underscores.
5. Don't create variations of a hashtag.  When you create one, stick with it.   #AsianTribe and #AsiansTribe may confuse readers if you're referring to the same thing or not.
6. Check if your message contains a word that you can use as a hashtag.  If there's one, prefix the # symbol to it so you won't need to type the same word at the end of your tweet.
7. No j3j3m0n or LoWeRcAsE-uPpErCaSe combination hashtags please.  Hashtags are meant to be read, not encrypted.
8. Make sure your hashtags are related to your tweet.  Placing a totally irrelevant hashtag to a tweet is just the same as spamming.

Don't abuse your hashtags.  Make them count.

"Vizconde" Emerges as a Twitter Worldwide Trending Topic



Dec. 14, 2010 2:00pm PH time

 After breaking news that Hubert Webb has just been acquitted from the Vizconde massacre for charges of murder, news, comments and discussion broke out on Twitter.   And the more than usual retweeting and talk about the acquittal has elevated "Vizconde" to a current worldwide trending topic on Twitter.   In addition, the hashtags #HubertWebb, #Webb and #7-4-4 (referring to the judges' decision) received much tweets too.  

Within less than 3 hours after the news broke out, Hubert Webb's wikipedia entry has also been updated to reflect the phrase "former convicted murderer."

Philippines Among The Top Countries With Newest Facebook Signups

Source: http://www.socialbakers.com/

Aside from the Philippines ranking 6th in the top 10 countries with the most number of Facebook users, the Philippines is also in 4th place in terms of the most number of new users within the past 3 months.

According to socialbakers and checkfacebook.com, the Philippines has gained a total of 2,533,040 new signups on Facebook, a 13.5% growth within the 3 month interval, bringing the total up to 18,768,040 Filipinos on the largest social networking site.

United States tops the 3 month growth, followed by Indonesia and Mexico.

The Philippines is also less than 2 million users away from surpassing France for the 5th spot.

Interestingly, Asia now constitutes over 122 million Facebook users with Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Taiwan and Thailand acquiring new Facebook users in the hundred thousands to millions within the past quarter.