BEST BLOGS

Best Technology Blog – Jaypee Online
Best Travel Blog – Langyaw – Sojourns and Off-the-Beaten Path Travels
Best Entertainment Blog – Lessons From the School of Inattention
Best Personal Blog – Writing on Air
Best Food & Beverage Blog – Table for Three, Please
Best Family & Living Blog – Make or Break
Best News & Media Blog – Virtual Journals
Best Business Blog – Negosyo Ideas
Best Sports Blog – Fire Quinito
Best Hobby & Recreation Blog – Bearbrick Love
Best Fashion Blog – Who is Elyoo?
Best Photoblog – I Am a Documentary Photographer
Best Culture and Arts Blog – magnetic-rose.net: Japanese Pop Culture for Filipino Fans
Best Commentary Blog – The Marocharim Experiment
Best Videocast Blog – Entrepbuff.com
Best Podcast Blog – Brink Notes Entertainment Daily
Best Humor Blog – The Professional Heckler
Best Gaming Blog – Blog Mike Got Game!
Best Advocacy Blog – Autism Society of the Philippines
Best Beauty Blog – The Doctor Is vaIN

SPECIAL AWARDS
Best Blog Design – The Site Guy
Best Filipino Blog Abroad – The Warped Zone
Best Foreign Blog – My Sari Sari Store
Blogger’s Choice – Micamyx
Best Filipiniana Blog – Pilipino Komiks

TEN BEST POSTS OF THE YEAR

Karnabal by Tuyong Tinta ng Bolpen
Finding Your Soul Mate: A Statistical Analysis by Guttervomit
Lost Gems Of Philippine History: The 1896 Board Meeting by It’s true! It’s true!
The Diving Boys of Quezon Bridge by Dennis Villegas
Twenty Pesos by Lostphotograph
The way of the leaf by SMOKE
Portrait of a dramatic highlight in Nick Joaquin’s A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino by Gibbs Cadiz
Kaya Dumarami ang Bading Kasi… by Manila Gay Guy
The Parable of the Furry White Rabbit by Good Times Manila
The Amazing Bulul: A Story of Epiphany by The Cat Whisperer

Entrepreneur magazine is a good source of business ideas. Entrepreneur.com.ph claims to be “your guide to starting or growing your business, providing relevant and practical information on the ins and outs of everyday business. From tips on how to handle money wisely, to success stories of ordinary folk turned entrepreneurs, Entrepreneur.com.ph is your prime source of infomation for everything business.”

There’s Inquirer Business, a component of Inquirer.net, the official news website of the Philippine Daily Inquirer, the Philippine’s most widely circulated broadsheet.

On the other hand Pinoy-Business.com has a discussion about some business ideas or opportunities, like pawnshop, lending company, candle-making, sari-sari stores, water business, junkshops, chicken inasal, barbeque, hobbies,  home-based business and other franchising prospects. There are also some business opportunities posted at the Group Blog and Business Directory. Perhaps a quick search for Pinoy business opportunities or Philippine entrepreneur opportunity will help.

We shall be featuring other helpful sites. If you know one, please let us know through the comment section below.

VisitPinas.com

VisitPinas.com is also a site where we invite non-Filipinos to visit the Philippines.

If you love to travel (or would want to write something about why everyone should visit a place, see or do something, somewhere in the Philippines), then you’re most welcome in this collaborative site.

Please feel free to share your Philippine travel logs and invite others to join the group, and, of course, visit the Philippines. Visit Pinas.

(The Blog Spotlight is a review of the blogs listed in the Directory. Here’s how to add your blog in the Directory. This is done for free.)

Yugatech

YugaTech is known to his friends as “Abe”, but he prefers to be called “Yuga”.  Abe runs his own web hosting business, and he is also a “professional blogger, a blog consultant, a serial netrepreneur, and resource speaker, among others.” Now, this may surprise you – Abe has a Bachelors Degree in Chemistry and Computer Engineering from the Ateneo de Manila University. Go read his CV or his list of projects so you won’t be deceived by the humble demeanor of this netrepreneur.

You could get the latest updates on matters relating to the world wide web, particularly affecting the Philippine scene, from Yugatech. You could also pick up a tip or two on blogging and how to make your website work better.

(The Blog Spotlight is a review of the blogs listed in the Directory. Here’s how to add your blog in the Directory. This is done for free.)

Help, Donations and Assistance. Extend your generosity to our brothers and sisters to a number of organizations, including the Philippine National Red Cross and Kapuso Foundation.

The Philippine Daily Inquirer is launching a relief drive for victims. “Donations in kind, such as instant noodles, canned goods, formula milk, blankets and clothes, are urgently needed. These may be brought to the Inquirer office at 1098 Chino Roces Ave. corner Mascardo and Yague Streets, Makati City, and to any of its classified ads branches, and to any McDonald’s branch within Metro Manila. For questions and other concerns, please call 8978808 loc. 260 and look for Megi Garcia.” The has also Inquirer pointed to the list (“How to Help”) of MLQ3, (How You Can Help Victims of Tropical Storm Ketsana/Ondoy) in Here’s to Life and Fran. See also “How you can Help” at ABS-CBN.

There’s a verified list of relief centers for victims, where you could bring your donations. Please tell us through the comment section below if there are other options.

Stories, Photos and Videos. The Inquirer reported, as of 28 September, a total of 100 people dead and  P109-Million worth of infra and crops damaged caused by Ondoy.

• Video: Floods wash away cars in UERM (Inquirer)
• Video: Aerial inspection of Ondoy’s damage in Pasig, Marikina and Rizal (GMA)
• Video: Metro got 1 month rainfall in 6 hours (ABS-CBN)

GMA has maps of flood stranded-people requiring rescue, as well as urgent cases. If you have other sources or compilation of photos, please let us know through the comment section below.

ABS-CBN also has situation map of Metro Manila, with google maps, as well as announcements, updates and advisories. Also check more photos and videos from ABS.

Poll: How Ready is the Government? The government has admitted that it could not cope with the massive flooding, but this may not necessarily mean that the government is not prepared. It’s true that we should give thanks to all the help extended to our brothers and sister who were victims of Tropical Storm Ondoy. This, however, is an entirely different issue from whether the government was ready to cope with emergencies of this nature and scale, whether natural or man-made. What’s your opinion on the readiness of the Government in responding to the emergency? What do you think should be done, now or in the future? The poll is found below. Your comments and suggestions are also welcome at the comments section below.

Before we proceed, here’s how to add your blog to the Directory. Be sure to go over the short FAQ, especially on the part about what we consider as blogs ripe for listing.

So, how shall it go? We’re unsure about that (we’re unsure about a lot of things, except, of course, our gender). Let’s just say that right now, we’ll review the blogs in the Directory, with no specific schedule and with no specific criteria. This is highly subjective.

Again, let’s make that very clear — this is purely subjective. If you don’t agree with our observations, you’re free to use the comment section. Wala pong personalan.

Choose a blawgging platform. There are a number of choices, depending on your preference. While social networking sites like facebook multiply, and friendster also have built-in blogs, I still go for wordpress or blogger.  Each one has it’s strengths and weaknesses but in case of doubt, try wordpress.

Select a physical theme. A “theme” may refer to your blog’s appearance. In my book, it should be minimalist – refreshing to the eyes and easy to navigate. Here are great free themes from Wordpress.

Decide on the content theme. Theming is not just about the looks. I have to use “physical” theme above to distinguish it from “theme” as it relates to contents. Decide whether to include all topics in the same blog or to focus on a single topic. Time element is a major limitation in having separate blogs for each topic.

Consider adding sitemeter and analytics. In the words of Google Analytics, this tool tells you everything you want to know about how your visitors found you and how they interact with your site. This is not only for probloggers. For those who consider blogging as a hobby, like me, it’s a cool way of following the growth of one’s creation. I tried to add Google Analytics to this blog’s Site Meter, but I still have to find a way to integrate it with K2. For a basic comparison of Site Meter, Google Analytics and Measure Map, check FatMixx.com (”Measure Map, Google Analytics, and Site Meter: A simple comparison”).

Blog syndication and aggregators. Syndication is used to describe making available a feed for an information source. There are a number of aggregators, some of which are bundled in a single feed management provider like Feedburner (it also has an e-mail subscription feature). Some aggregators/bookmarking services for this site include del.icio.us and reddit.

Submit to search engines and directories. Search enginer spiders will eventually find a blog with sheer lapse of time. However, there’s a way of expediting the process. For starters, proceed to submit your site at established search engines like Google and Yahoo. Also, try submiting your blog at MSN or at FreeWebSubmission (this claims to include Google and Alexa). On the other hand, if you try Alexa, you’ll still go through DMOZ, so better go direct to DMOZ. You could also do this with our very own, Yehey!. Submission in blog directories also help, although I understand there are limitations in some directories.

Consider claiming blog at technorati. There are many reasons for claiming a blog at technorati. Wordpress has instructions on how to put embeds, but it didn’t work for me (for a time, the “quick claim” mode wasn’t available). As I understand it – and I may be wrong – the technorati embed uses javascript and this isn’t allowed by wordpress for security reasons, with certain exceptions.

For more tips on blawgging, and blogging in general, I sugget problogger’s article on 31 Days to Building a Better Blog – Day 31.

We assume, of course, that you’re familiar with a blog, and, in all probability, you’re a blogger yourself. Whether you’re a blogger or someone who simply loves to read/write, this community is for you.

This could be a ranking site for Filipino blogs, but there already are a number of these sites. This could also be a blog feed aggregator. There are a number of options open to explore.

We just don’t know exactly what. We don’t even know when this will bear fruit.

Perhaps you could help us.  This site will eventually put the spotlight on you, so it’s only right you tell us what you need or what you prefer. Your suggestions are most welcome.

We shall, in due time, let bloggers know what this is all about.

Thank you.