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

I reported on the Blog Herald how Blogging Pro has released its latest InSense theme under a sponsored scheme. This means a sponsor paid for a link at the footer of the theme. The benefits? Users get a great DesignDisease-designed theme, the designer gets paid good money, and the sponsor gets inbound links.

I know several designers who give away WordPress themes to blog hosting services for free, so long as they get a link back to their sites. Now this seems to be a great business model for people who want to monetize their theme creations. Not all bloggers can afford to pay for your themes. But there are companies and businesses that would be willing to foot the bill. In the end, everyone’s happy: users get great themes, designers get good money, companies get inbound links.

There are some who aren’t too happy with such an arrangement, and view sponsorship as a sneaky way to get backlinks. However, Blogging Pro is quite candid with the fact that their theme is sponsored, and the theme license even allows for the removal of the sponsor link if a user chooses so.

Fellow Blog Herald writer Lorelle VanFossen has this to say about sponsored themes:

Actually, this was brought up over a month ago and was seriously slammed. People were digging into their WordPress Themes to remove these. There was a huge backlash against Theme designers and sites which sponsor such links.

A link back is considered appropriate. A link to a “sponsor”, aka advertising, is very much frowned upon by serious bloggers and WordPress fans. The average blogger won’t care or even notice, as you say, but the ones who do have spoken loudly that they find this bad manners, poor taste, and, for some, criminal.

Personally, I would think there is no harm in having themes sponsored, as long as this is stated explicitly outright, and not done in a sneaky manner. Even better if the user can opt to remove the link.

What do you think?

When Abe Olandres was appointed to the helm of the blog herald and subsequently took me in to help with management (long story–you can email me if you want to learn about it), several fellow Filipino bloggers lauded it as an accomplishment. Some considered it a “Filipino takeover” of the blogosphere. In fact, it was even covered by Inq7 on its tech pages, which is a big thing, considering inq7 is among the most popular of Philippine sites. Coverage in inq7 spikes up traffic, and is akin to being DUGG frontpage (though not on such a massive scale).

Why the fuss? We didn’t even purchase the Blog Herald ourselves. (Don’t ask me how much the purchase price was. If I told you, I’d have to kill you.) We were merely trusted enough by the new set of owners to manage editorial, marketing, and technical aspects of the blog.

Still, this is a big deal, in my opinion. It’s an accomplishment not only for Abe and myself. It’s another feather on the caps of the Pinoy Blogger–and I mean this as a collective. By this I mean it’s not by far the only accomplishment that Filipino bloggers have achieved in the international realm that is the blogosphere. There have been many others before us.

Let me point you to Abe’s recent post about 2007 as the year of the Pinoy Blogger.

See, when I took the position over at Blog Herald, there was quite a mix of ruckus and excitement. It was in the news (well, our news) and some people were asking me why there was so much excitement in our little part of the world about the development.

I explained that our generation (i.e. Filipinos) have become known around the globe as any of of these types of people — domestic helper, nurses, sea men, care-giver, or call center agents. In short, we’re looked down by most as cheap 3rd-world laborers. I have aunts that are working as nurses in the US for decades, uncles, cousins on a cargo ship at sea, relatives who are domestic helpers (OFW is the proper term) in Singapore; HK, older cousins who graduated as nurses but ended up as care-givers in UK and even more younger cousins who are now waiting for their Nursing Boars exam results. So, a fellow Filipino taking over a top position in a pre-dominantly western niche is real news.

It’s in response to Joey Alarilla’s article on inq7 about a media revolution in the Philippines not happening in mainstream, mass media, but in new media–particularly the blogosphere.

I donit think it’s sensationalistic to say that Filipinos are taking over. At the risk of using a horrid cliche, I believe we are now seeing the tipping point for Filipino presence in the blogosphere. This is another arena where Filipinos can compete globally–and succeed.

One point that I didn’t elaborate on in my CNET Asia post is that the Filipino bloggers I cited are all based in the Philippines, which is significant given the brain drain and the feeling of our countrymen that they have no choice but to seek greener pastures abroad.

Knowledge is Power

It’s all about redistribution of capital. Arguably, most of the worldis riches in terms of financial resources still lies in the hands of the developed countries, the first world–mostly the west (I am an economist, yet I speak in terms of “first world” and such, even though they’re considered obsolete). However, in this Information Age, the foremost capital is Knowledge (with a big K). And arguably, we Filipinos–and others in developing economies–are every bit as capable as those in the developed world to develop this new capital.

I say redistribution, because we suddenly find ourselves capable of wielding this new power, wherein previously one would require material possessions and riches to be considered powerful. Knowledge is, after all, something that you don’t need machines to produce nor dig deep underground into, nor use heavy machinery to forge. Knowledge itself, is that that creates value and even material wealth for the enjoyment of people.

Of course, it is something that also has to be developed and nurtured (and need I say how important a good education system is?). And successful blogging is an offshoot of having the adequate skills and knowledge–the ability to think critically, and the ability to communicate effectively.

For now, I’m thankful that I belong to these exciting times.

So does 2007 hold good promise for the Filipino Blogger? Well, I do hope so! And Iim going to do my part to make sure of that.

I’ve been meaning to post here several times over the past few weeks, but just couldn’t. Why? Well, these are super-busy days. I know I promised to write only stuff of substance here, but instead of waiting for that right moment and writing for hours on end to come up with interesting blog material, I thought I’d rather have more frequent–if short–updates.

So here’s what I’ve been up to lately.

* Been busy driving the car that blogging bought around town.
* Bought a 5.5th generation iPod (the iPod video) and a Belkin TuneFM to stream tunes to the car stereo.
* Been busy writing on my network blogs, as usual.
* Been busy writing stuff.
* Braced myself for another possible power outage due to suppsedly super-storm Reming.
* Attended the 9th Philippine Web Awards, where Pinoy Tech Blog was a finalist. Congrats to Noemi, who won.
* Very briefly attended the Digital Filipino Club EB where I was supposed to speak. Had to rush off to some other place that evening.

The Blog Herald

Big thing the past few days: the Blog Herald acquisition. Abe gives his insights on his blog. And here’s my introduction. Hey, if it’s a blog that’s just been sold for presyong bahay (that means its price could probably buy a house here in Manila–at least that’s how rumors peg it. Hey don’t ask me!), who wouldn’t get excited?

Of course this has implications on my regular blogging activities. It’s quite complicated. Let’s just say I’m refocusing my efforts to writing on a more limited set of blogs rather than many blogs at a time. For one thing, I had to give up Blogging Pro as it was directly in competition with the Herald. I’ll be more actively blogging on my other favorites, Apple Gazette and ForeverGeek, though.

De-Stressing (or is it supposed to be “distressing”?)

Hmm. What else happened? Oh, I tried out the Shiatsu massage at newly-opened Blessings spa along E. Abada street (parallel to Katipunan Avenue here in Quezon City). It’s great, especially since they have a 50% discount from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. until end-December. Feels pretty great to de-stress every once in a while, especially if you spend almost most of your waking hours in front of keyboard and screen and behind the wheel. Can I write a review? Probably as soon as my scheule clears up.

So there you have it, folks. Three weeks worth of posts in a few paragraphs. My life’s interesting, ain’t it?