I finished off the year 2007 mostly away from home this time. It was difficult not being on the Internet for a while, since I could not recall any day of the past year when I wasn’t. This separation anxiety made me reflect a bit about how much I have accomplished and if I’m ready to take on the challenge of doing more in 2008.

I think the major obstacle that I face which I also faced last year was my lack of focus. I tried too hard in everything. Blogging, programming, graphic design, community management, SEO, even baking. You name it, I’ve done it all. Ok, maybe except e-commerce, which I’m taking up very soon. But the thing is with me is I’m always up for learning new things at the expense of not concentrating on the stuff that I’m good at. So, I’m making 2008 the year where I’m putting all my chops into one or two projects, and build on those. I have a few small “partnership” sites in development that I’m equally excited about as well.
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Karlo Licudine is one of the most talented bloggers and illustrators that I know. While chatting over IM we were thinking of a “project” in which we can collaborate. Naturally, Karlo pitched the idea of creating a site that will showcase his comic strips, which the Filipino blogosphere has grown to love. And so, a few months later and a dozen visits to the Internet Cafe (for Karlo at least), BlogComics.net is born! Karlo is the main talent here, while I serve as technical backup.

Kudos to Karlo! I hope you guys will visit BlogComics.net often, you won’t regret it! ;p

The Google blog revealed that they are currently beta testing a new Google service — Google Knol, which appears to be a direct competitor to Wikipedia, About.com and the much-hyped Mahalo:

Earlier this week, we started inviting a selected group of people to try a new, free tool that we are calling “knol”, which stands for a unit of knowledge. Our goal is to encourage people who know a particular subject to write an authoritative article about it. The tool is still in development and this is just the first phase of testing. For now, using it is by invitation only. But we wanted to share with everyone the basic premises and goals behind this project.

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I’ve been asking around several forums on what they think about Yahoo!’s search engine and how often they use it.

The results were, well, not that surprising. It looks like no one uses Yahoo! except for checking their emails, browsing groups or chatting on their messenger client. Not one used Yahoo! search as their primary engine. A few searched on it to check for SEO rankings or to search something that they couldn’t find in Google. When I asked if they noticed an improvement in Yahoo!’s search quality, all those who replied said they didn’t see any change. When I asked how its search quality compared to that of Google’s, at best, it was “slightly worse” than Google. No one found it at par or better than Google.

I want to determine how Yahoo! Search stands in the Philippine market, but don’t let my initial findings influence you. Please answer these questions by leaving a comment below:

1. How often do you use Yahoo! Search?
2. How does Yahoo!’s search results compare to Google?
3. Rank the following according to the frequency of your use of Yahoo!’s services: email, search, groups, messenger

Really would appreciate your cooperation. Thank you!