Telling it like it is

Created by: Online Schools

I read this story about a “campaign” to get rid of emoticons in e-mail or any form of communication on the Internet. I couldn’t stop laughing.

Ever since the Internet was born, language has evolved. We now have new words like the “Web,” the ‘Internet,” and the like. We also take for granted words like surf or ping. Back then, you would imagine an image of a beach or a comic book whenever you hear these words. Today, we have words or phrases like “Tweet it” or “google it,” which are synonymous to doing a specific task online. In the Philippines, when someone tells you to “YM” me, he or she is not only referring to an instant messaging service by Yahoo!, but also to let you know you have to ping her or him.

The article I noted earlier is calling for the eradication of emoticons in modern language. Emoticons are those symbols that intend to express a specific emotion like for a smiling face or :p, which means you’re kidding or you’re just trying to annoy someone. I don’t think we will be able to eradicate these funny and sometimes annoying characters. They have taken a life of their own. I’ve seen books inspired by it. In my country, they’re part of the youngsters’ lingo. Destroying or eradicating them would mean deleting a significant part of their culture.

Sometimes, dropping an emoticon in a serious email softens the blow or lighten ups the mood. It even accentuates communication. So on the call to get rid of emoticons, I say, NO! Let it be!

:p

Check out Purple Thumb, Yahoo! Southeast Asia’s election website that will feature the live video stream of the June 30 inauguration of President-elect Benigno “Noynoy” Aquino III.

Certain technologies sometimes fail to deliver what they promise.

Let’s talk about the latest wireless Internet technologies that are now available in the Philippine market.

I don’t want to name products. But let’s just say there are two popular (and perhaps the only two services available now) services that boast broadband speeds without the need to connect to a wired network. They use the existing mobile phone networks.

Recently, I’ve heard complaints about one service that promises to deliver high-speed data that goes beyond the 3G (not the gravity) speeds. I read in one mailing list that the service had been out for 2 weeks. That’s pretty bad!

I remember when I was hooked up to fairly new fixed wireless Internet service several months back. I did experience hiccups.

Lately, I still experience “no Internet” service for days. Just recently, I lost my Internet connection after a thunderstorm.

I got a call from the customer service after numerous tries. The customer support agent was patient enough to determine what was wrong. Eventually, he concluded that my wireless antennae might have been damaged during the thunderstorm.

The next morning, my connection was back. Hmmmm…

Another wireless service I dub “I ain’t roaming” is perhaps a dud. It WAS the first of its kind in the country. But it has so far failed my personal reliability test. I’ve been using it for the past weeks to provide me wireless Internet from anywhere where there is mobile phone network coverage. But one day, I found its PCMCIA card not working.

The card was not initializing and so it won’t connect to the mobile network. And for some reason, it reconfigures your Windows wireless Internet settings. So I had to figure how to revert back to the normal settings of detecting any wi-fi network available.

Anyway, this wireless roaming Internet service provides intermittent wireless Internet connection.
Moral of the story: wireless Internet technology in the Philippines is not yet reliable. Most of the wireless Internet services offered today don’t exactly provide the quality of service they promise.

The sad thing is that the local firms might be over-selling this service, amid problems and complaints of poor quality.

First off, thanks Dr. Stephen Quinn for citing our experience here in the Philippines.

My prof in convergent journalism, Dr Quinn, wrote a story for the Sydney Morning Herald, titled the On the Beat with Citizen Reporters, where he details how technology has changed the way news is delivered, at least for some organizations.In today’s world of wireless communications, blog, and the Internet, nothing still beats good journalism.

Excerpt:

THE power of the mobile phone to capture history has been enthralling news watchers as never before and is changing the way news is reported.

Most of the eyewitness images of the Virginia Tech shootings came from amateurs using camera phones. So, too, did images from major news stories such as the London Tube and the Mumbai rail bombings.

Old media (the likes of Time Warner) has hit back on new media (read Google) for its continued violation of its copyright. The CNET article writes:

“The Googles of the world, they are the Custer of the modern world. We are the Sioux nation,” Time Warner Chief Executive Richard Parsons said, referring to the Civil War American general George Custer who was defeated by Native Americans in a battle dubbed “Custer’s Last Stand.”

“They will lose this war if they go to war,” Parsons added, “The notion that the new kids on the block have taken over is a false notion.”

Time Warner defended its discussions on copyright protection with Internet search leader Google, which another panel member, Viacom, has sued.

It is easy to hit Google (and YouTube) for all its faults. But without these two companies, today’s Internet is not as interesting as it should be.

Old media needs the Googles of this world, vice versa. But as more people are hooked to the Internet, new media is becoming an alternative medium to old media that is controlled by a few. Yes there will be some consolidation. But there will be new forces that will emerge. And they don’t have to be big. They will be niche players who will have a “steady” stream of revenues from a market that prefers personalized content free from commercial interests.

It was too good to last. Yes, Pandora, the Internet streaming service that allowed people to rediscover music is gone. I was introduced to Pandora by my officemate. In not so many words, she just said, “Go to Pandora.com. You’ll love it.”

I replied, “Pandora what?”

“Just go!” she snapped back.

So I opened my browser, and for the next few hours I was hooked. Pandora became my dose of music everyday. What was so addicting about this service? Well, it is powered by an intelligent system that works like a DJ. Once you type in a song or a band in a search box, it goes through its database and starts playing it. It doesn’t stop there. It plays another song that sounds like the first but this time from a different artist. If music had its own genome, Pandora claims to have mapped it. And that makes this service unique. It plays the music based on common traits found in music. In fact, you might be surprised how you’re playlist will turnout as you listen to more songs.

This week Pandora has announced it was blocking listeners from other countries due to licensing issues. Sigh.

I have finally surrendered to the powers of Twitter.

To those unfamiliar with this new innovation in, er, communication and social networking, Twitter will test how well you are in one-liners. It is essentially blogging but you’re only allowed to tell everything in 140 characters (I think that’s the same limit as your regular text message).

Twitter is fast becoming a global community of users (Scoble, Borat) answering one question, “What are you doing?” –actually that’s the one-liner you’ll see on the website.

So what’s the big deal and how come the likes of Borat, Scoble and Stephen Colbert are hooked on Twitter? Well, it extends the concept of social networking to mobile blogging. I believe some people want to let their friends know what they’re doing (but some would say this is just plain crazy). Get a life man! Okay, okay. But it goes beyond that. There are a number of other applications like sending quotes: Iheartquotes, which offers amusing and interesting quotes.

That’s all that I can say for now about Twitter. I want you to try it. If you don’t like it, you can unsubscribe easily. Leo Laporte just did that recently.

Oh, you can set Twitter to receive “updates” from friends on your instant messaging client (Google chat) or your mobile phone (this you’ll have to pay as you receive text messages).

The beauty with Twitter is that it will allow you to send a tight sentence while you’re on the move. This can also be a great tool for journalists, I think.

At the moment, most users feel that this is a cute way of letting your friends know what you’re doing/thinking at the moment.

Lately, it has become a good tool for advertising.

p.s. There’s a rival service called Jaiku, which offers the same kind of service.

In my case that’s close to 3 years now since I started. It is actually the same age as my second daughter’s. She’s turning 3 on April 15

Bloggers worldwide celebrated 10 years of blogging, while Catholic Filipinos celebrated Holy Week. But do check New York Times magazine’s timeline of blogging. It reveals that the first blog was actually produced in 1994 by student Justin Hall. So that makes 13 years of blogging. In 1994, Jorn Barger coins the word “weblog.” He currently maintains the Robot Wisdom blog.

Okay that’s a lot of information you have to remember

I guess the issue on who started it will spark a debate. But the important point here is that blogging has changed the way we live, play, and relate to people. It has changed our lifestyles. Admit it. You’d rather be somewhere else right now if you weren’t blogging. In my case, I might have been out having breakfast with a book in hand. Well, that picture has totally changed since I got hooked. Several years back, I would open my computer to check news then my e-mail every morning. Today, I open my blog after breezing through my Google Alerts, answering High Priority e-mail messages. It takes me a while to figure out what to write about. I maintain a handful of blogs –mostly for non-profit. So I write from the hip. I write what comes to mind immediately.

When I found that it’s been 10 or 13 years since the first blog was written, I thought I should also look back and see where has this innovation in social networking taken me. Here goes (this is based on my poor memory):

• 2004: My second daughter Fiona Celine was born into this world. Got excited and blogged about it on Blogspot.
• late 2004: Daughter was growing up fast. Running out of things to say. Decided to shift to a personal blog. I chose “loves blogs, tech, and guitar” as a one-liner to identify my blog’s theme.
• 2005: Left Blogspot/blogger and moved to WordPress. Never looked back.
• 2006: Created more blogs on WordPress but eventually most were abandoned. Was a certified blog addict!
• 2007: Changed one liner on blog to “New Media Me” hoping to focus on how blogging has affected my journalism career.
• March 2007: Nominated and made it to the finals of the Philippine Blog Awards 2007. Lost to Inside PCIJ. Also started blogging for our news website. We called ourselves Blog Addicts.