How Do You Bring Reading and Learning to Philippine Cellphones?

November 29, 2007 · 1 comment

EDSA Dos. Electronic cash. Train passes. Dual-SIM phones. Miss calling phones. Most of the innovations in this texting republic take on specific and unique needs—be it avoiding theft, minimizing expenses, or ousting no less than the President of the Philippines. Could literacy and education be added to that list?

Last night I learned literacy rates among Filipinos have diminished by 7% since 2003. And that predictably, text messaging and online gaming have taken the place of reading books.

Shortly after, I discovered Japan has found yet a new use for its unbelievably versatile mobile phone: Cyber University. With almost 2,000 students enrolled since its opening in April, this university offers over 100 courses online, through a computer or a mobile phone.

It seems futile to develop and implement the same technology here, especially to the people that need it the most but in all probability have no phones anyway. To those who do, however, I can definitely imagine something on a smaller scale. The wildly popular Inday could be a start.

A few nits to pick first: her English is only almost believable, far from sophisticated, and even slightly forced. Her quips aren’t as witty as true comedy should be. One joke reveals how little she understands Rizal, which, like the others, clearly assumes anyone Inday talks to is dumber than her.

However, “intelligent” text jokes with a dash of vocabulary lessons might be the spoonful of sugar that helps the medicine go down—in a most delightful way!

Paying Attention to Kids

November 22, 2007 · Leave a comment!

Laptop Club Drawing

I find the awe over kids drawing paper laptops as design inspiration surprising and ironic. (You can find more photos of the kid’s “laptop club” in this interview.)

The article says we should pay attention to how these schoolchildren are designing their pretend laptops:

The kids have seen and used computer keyboards. Their designs are partly their own memory of what computer keys they’ve seen, party keys they would like to see, and partly keys they feel ought to be. It is this aspirational aspect of design that I think is most telling. Why shouldn’t our keyboard have a button that evokes “best friend”?

Don’t get me wrong: I’m a firm believer that kids are way more sensible than adults. And the world needs more articles like it.

But the phenomenon is not new. We’ve all gone through that phase when we build our castles, (flying!) cars, and spaceships with pencil and paper. (I tried really hard to draw my dream car before. The dashboard was especially tricky since I realized the possibilities were endless; it was, after all, my dream car.) Then build ‘em with LEGO. Then build ‘em with hard-earned cash and/or sheer will.

I hope that by then cars could fly.

Real(ly Long) Names, Short Nicknames, and the Consequences of Your Online Identities

November 15, 2007 · 18 comments

I have a long name.

  1. Three first names: Adelaida Sophia Marie
  2. Three-syllable middle name: Figueras
  3. Three-syllable surname: Lucero

It is exactly the reason I have a very short nickname, Ia. Though some people have difficulty pronouncing or spelling it.

In elementary school, I grew up writing “A. Sophia Marie” as shorthand for my first names so it would be quicker. Plus I knew at least two classmates who also had three first names: Cathy Mae Margarette and Jacqueline Patricia Michelle.

When I stepped onto high school, the teachers did not understand what the “A.” was for, and thus I used only “Sophia”, since they never really cared and I would rather be called that than let them assume to use the first name as my default name. (I also found another classmate with three first names: Aimee Yvonne Criselle.) It was the same in college, since it was our student numbers that identified us.

The Early Years of the Internet

Things became different when the Internet kicked in. You wanted an email address that could identify you as you, but unfortunately you lived in the Philippines and a million other Americans had beaten you to it. And thus began the unsavory fad of attaching numbers to cutesy, meaningless code names like bluewhiskers28, or unpronounceable aliases altogether, like aoikoorikaze (aoi = blue, koori = ice, kaze = wind, all Japanese words that may or may not be grammatically correct when put side-by-side, but used anyway due to once-blind anime fandom and teenhood).

Continue reading ›

ABS-CBN Signs an Advertising Deal with Multiply

November 9, 2007 · 2 comments

Yesterday I learned Philippine television giant ABS-CBN has signed an advertising deal with social networking site Multiply. The official press release writes:

The partnership allows Multiply to monetize a significant portion of its traffic while still retaining a primary focus on product development and global customer acquisition.

Unlike MySpace or Facebook but like Friendster, Multiply has become very popular in this country (39% of its site traffic and 5th largest site locally according to Alexa), which explains why this TV station has taken interest in it. TechCrunch reports:

Under terms of the agreement, ABS-CBN interactive will sell advertising and mobile services for Multiply’s Filipino users, with the two companies sharing revenues.

One the one hand, this is great news for the Philippine state of new media. Someone from the mainstream recognizes its growth and wishes to take advantage of it. On the other hand, this is merely an ad deal, which means there doesn’t seem to be any significant drive by either company to create something ingenious on the Web, which this country is in dire need of.

That said, I think Filipinos tend to use the wrong technology for the wrong things. Because Multiply provides an all-in-one, practically unlimited storage for all sorts of digital media from pictures to videos, Pinoys have found pretty clever uses for the site. The best example would be selling wares there (that last link is secondary proof—you shouldn’t make a directory out of a blog!). Shouldn’t Etsy or Shopify be more appropriate and convenient?

Of course this just brings us back to the first attraction ABS-CBN saw in the first place: Filipinos are on Multiply; why bother with anywhere else?

November is Also NaBloPoMo

November 5, 2007 · 1 comment

I’ve known November to be National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, for the longest time now—way before blogging became this popular.

It’s quite a catchy idea (the nickname helps, too) but I was never really attracted to the idea of scrambling to write 50,000 words within thirty days. What would I do with a crammed novel, anyway? (Am I contradicting myself about the beauty of cramming?) Though it might just be the solution to those who’ve put off writing their own novel forever, and it’s a pretty exciting activity, it works only if you have time. Perhaps ShoStoWriMo, which happens in February, is better. Never underestimate the power of a short story.

So someone came up with a challenge that should be more doable—since many people are doing it already. Now, November is also NaBloPoMo, or National Blog Posting Month. If you’re up to the challenge, join up and write a new blog post every day for the rest of the month. (Its website is oh-so-aptly Web 2.0, too.)

Unfortunately, I learned of this four days too late, which makes me technically disqualified.

Will I ever learn to post daily, though? Blogging should be all about expression rather than fullness of intention, whose side-effects include constipation, not to mention confusion and naivety. Let’s see.

Selling Out on WordPress Themes

November 4, 2007 · 10 comments

This post is two-fold. The first half is about something that happened a long time ago, but becomes relevant because of the second half.

Themes Changing “Ownership”

I may not be the expert on problogging but acquiring a WordPress theme feels weird. Cutline, created by Chris Pearson, is now being managed by Brian Gardner under Splashpress Media since May 4, 2007.

Imagine a very special theme with carefully planned features and support to speak of despite being completely free of charge, having its own top-level domain blog (but of course, since themes are blogs) and a sizable fanbase. It is so special that it actually gets sold.

In the same way people ask “what does it mean to change management and authorship of a blog?” I also ask, “what does it mean to change management and authorship of a theme?” Most blogs have distinct personalities behind them and when they change ownership, the authors are likely to change as well. The writing style changes, the choice of topics changes, and the overall vibe of the blog changes. Selling a theme seems to be no different. Continue reading ›

MC1: A Phone With “Miss Calling”

October 25, 2007 · 3 comments

Tagged the mobile phone made exclusively for Filipinos, the MC1 is essentially any ordinary cellphone with one additional feature: you can make missed calls on purpose.

To understand the true value of a missed call, or in local vernacular, miskol, it is necessary to look into the essence of what happens to be the 2007 Sawikaan Salita ng Taon (Word of the Year). In this event, the miskol, entered by Ateneo de Naga professor Adrian Remodo, was deemed most descriptive of our present lifestyle and values. That we find it more sensible to make a non-call to let the other ringing phone know something’s up, whether in emergency or triviality. Mostly because it’s cheaper.

…have you ever had that awkward moment when you place your hand in between your phone and your face just to be able to cancel that call? Or how about that time you cursed at your boyfriend or even your own mother for answering a call which they are supposed to miss? With an MC button you don’t even have to put your phone against your ear and you would never have to worry about your load going down the drain for an “interrupted” miss-calling.

First, I’d have to say the winning word of the year wasn’t that much of a revelation because “miskol”, together with the runner-up “friendster” and last year’s winner “lobat” (low battery), has been in our slang vocabulary for so long now that it doesn’t feel characteristic of the particular year it was declared the winner. What has happened this 2007? A lot. Second, is our country unique in this miss calling ritual? (Edit: It isn’t.)

The word of the year might not be such a waste if the MC1 comes out this year. But if you’ll really think about it, one does not need a physical phone to set up a miss calling feature, except maybe because the really kuripot might want a dedicated button for it. Unfortunately, it’s not that easy to develop a mobile application that works well and works everywhere—though that should be the next step in the mobile arena.

Perhaps someone could follow in the innovative footsteps of Jaxtr or Jaiku or GrandCentral. Oh looky, 2 out of 3 are Google acquisitions already! Perhaps we need Google to create a real paradigm shift in mobile communication. Sorry, Apple, you closed the door with your iPhone 1.1.1 firmware update; you were supposed to think different! Nokia, you might seem a bit more sexy because of this, but I wish for every phone, regardless of brand, to work as well as you claim.

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