racoma.com.phJ. Angelo Racoma on technology, economics, writing, problogging, and getting things done

This is perhaps the best news I’ve seen lately. I got an email from PayPal saying Philippine users can now withdraw PayPal funds into our local bank accounts.

New! Withdraw Your Funds to Your Philippine Bank Account

Now you can add your Philippine bank account to your PayPal account, so you can withdraw your money directly to your bank. It saves you time and gives you faster access to your PayPal funds!

Plus, there is no charge to withdrawal amounts over PHP 7000*. So go ahead and add your bank account today!

Withdrawals of less than PhP 7,000 are only charged PhP 50. How great is that?

For more information, head on to the Philippine PayPal withdrawal page. A list of supported banks is here.

I think I’ll link up my PayPal account to those banks which have online access, so I can monitor how quickly funds are transfered.

If you watch local (Philippine) television you would be bombarded with regular messages explaining some discrepancies in data gatherings for ratings in certain towns. Here’s my take on the ratings game, as posted on the Blog Herald.

[I]t dawned upon me that the reason behind all this fuss is money. For us consumers ratings could simply be indicators of how popular a television (or radio) channel or network is, for a given time of the day. However, for the network and for the media industry, ratings represent pricing power. For media that are not able to count exact “hits” or “page views” ratings are used as an indication of popularity and reach. This translates to how much the television network or station can charge advertisers, particularly as they price ad spots on cost per thousand pairs of eyeballs (or impressions, if that’s a better term).

Check out the BlogHerald editorial to see how I think this affects us, as bloggers.