Finally, I got to meet Marc and Abe in person at Jill’s (@ the Fort) where SEO Philippines’ first Beercon was held. It was perfect timing. I got home from Thailand that day October 28, refreshed and renewed after a tedious work schedule and a cold that wouldn’t go away (I’m better now). What a perfect way to cap a terrific vacation.

Google’s Country Representative, Aileen Apolo, made an interesting presentation about Google and its plans for the Philippines. Unfortunately, setting up a real brick-and-mortar office isn’t included in those plans. But who knows. But, she encouraged everyone to be GAP (Google Advertising Professional) certified and rounded up the benefits of doing so — you get recognition from Google and basically a great career ahead of you. Demand for Adwords is picking up in the Philippines so getting certified is a no-brainer if you’re a brooding SEM. Marc mentioned a while back that he wants to be the first Filipino to be certified. Hope he gets it so many others will follow suit!

Aileen is also visiting the South, particularly my city Davao! Yeah! I look forward to helping her out in her gigs here.

Pics after the jump.
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Yep, I’m in Manila again. I wrote about WiFi here not being free in most places here and that is still the case. However, just like back in Davao City, I am blogging through someone else’s WiFi. Thanks, whoever you are. Yes, you can call me a WiFi pirate. Arrrr.

Actually, I’m here because I’m going to Thailand tomorrow with my aunt and cousin. I am looking forward to using my semi-SLR Canon S3 IS to take pictures and see if there is any hope in me to excel in this craft. This is also a welcome break from all my work activities. But I have a lot of stuff to finish, namely:
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Marc Macalua recently wrote about Google Setting Up Shop in the Philippines. Like everyone else, I’m excited! This is major. I actually know about this already, thanks to Marc and a certain telling post at the SEO Philippines discussion group (hehe).
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It’s limited, but hey, it’s a start.

Looks like J. Angelo’s PayPal for the Philippines movement is seeing fruition. Filipinos can now purchase wares on the Internet via PayPal but is limited to only $100 unless a credit card is verified. However, receiving funds is still impossible which most of us are really after. But I don’t see that happening until the appropriate legislation is passed that will get us off the list of money laundering countries.

But still, I’m happy of this development. Will start shopping tomorrow and see how it goes. Good job, Angelo!

Back at Techcrunch, Michael Arrington confirms that Google has acquired YouTube.

My thoughts:

There was word that although YouTube has dominated the online video sharing market, its founders Chad Hurley and Steven Chen aren’t making serious money out of it and are actually living on credit. YouTube’s only future is to be bought out by something bigger, in this case Google, who beat out Yahoo! at the very last moments of the deal.

Google’s been aggressive in pursuing video as part of their advertising business that makes up most of their revenue. But what’s odd is that with their recent $1 billion agreement with MySpace who has their own video sharing space, it’s interesting to see if Google will be allowed to display video ads alongside MySpace’s. Looks like a conflict of interest in the horizon. The numbers tell it all. About 70% of Youtube’s traffic comes from MySpace. If Google decides to insert advertising in all of YouTube’s videos shown on MySpace, they get instant free advertising, right? MySpace appeared to be surprised by the whole buyout event, so it’s safe to say they’re already pondering the same thing.

So far, YouTube captures about 34 million users a month, while MySpace’s own tube gets 17 million but they’re catching up very fast. If and when MySpace decides to get rid of all YouTube videos from their site, that will spell trouble for Google. And honestly, online video buffs will be put off when they begin to see advertising in YouTube videos. Hey, that’s the one major reason they watch stuff on the Internet. No ads!

On the bright side, Chad and Steve are now about $200-$300 million richer. I can practically see them swimming in a sea of liquefied gold in this video they made post-Google:
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Just a very straightforward and unobtrusive social bookmarking plugin for Wordpress that allows your visitors to submit your blog posts to select bookmarking services. Includes StumbleUpon, Digg, Del.icio.us, Spurl, Simpy, Furl, Dzone, Reddit, Yahoo! and Newsvine. Uses text links instead of icons as seen on this blog.

Plugin Name: Name Dropper
Description: Plugin that allows your visitors to submit your blog posts to select bookmarking services.
Version: 0.2
Author: Andrew dela Serna

Installation:
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Marc Macalua just posted the winners of the Isulong Seoph contest which ran from June 1, 2006 to September 30, 2006. My congratulations to the champ, Gio, whose entry IsulongSeophil.com stayed solidly on top.

Pic after the leap.
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Is it just me, or did the Ateneo Blue Eagles completely suck in the last two games of the 2006 UAAP championships? Forget about my earlier post on them. The UST Tigers deserved this championship more than anyone.
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Here’s a treat for StumbleUpon.com members! The Stumble Upon It! Wordpress plugin allows your visitors to submit your blog posts to StumbleUpon.com’s bookmarking service. I’d like to thank StumbleUpon founder Geoff Smith, who was cool enough to work on the interface to make this possible!

Plugin Name: StumbleUpon It!
Description: Easy plugin that allows your visitors to submit your blog posts to StumbleUpon.com.
Version: 0.1
Author: Andrew dela Serna

Installation:
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