Barack Obama in Manila!

Funny commercial leveraging Barack Obama's popularity in the Philippines.



It turns out that there was a viral created behind the commercial. Check out this blog, or this Youtube channel, which supposedly "documented" unconfirmed sightings of the US President-elect in Manila, Philippines.

This commercial rocks for 2 reasons:
1. Barack Obama is wildly popular even in the Philippines.
2. Filipinos love spoofs

What you do in school won't help you succeed

I believe this simple XKCD comic strongly. What you do in school won't be of much use when you begin your career. What school helps you with specifically is soft skill development, so that you will learn how to learn (and thrive) in whatever new place you are put in.

Hit Pres. Bush with shoes @ sockandawe!

So Pres. Bush evades flying shoes very well... therefore some guy created a game for you to practice your throwing skill! Play the game at www.sockandawe.com


Why does negative stuff spread faster on the internet? :)

Singkit na Pag-ibig: song for a Chinese-Filipino affair

Singkit na Pag-ibig (or Chinky-eyed Love) is a song created by some of my friends at De La Salle University, primarily as a birthday gift for my friend. This is for Filipino men who have fallen in love with Chinese women, and have encountered cultural obstacles. My friend is from La Salle of course, and it's common knowledge that there are many Chinese students in La Salle.

The first line of the song "Gua ai di" is Chinese for "I love you" to those who do not know.

I thought of putting this song up to be a little different for Christmas. :)

SUMO Paint = Photoshop in your browser

I recently discovered SUMO Paint, a browser based photo editing application, much like Photoshop.

You should try it, it's a very nifty tool.

For people who are more artistic, try out JacksonPollock.org. This is a site that allows you to paint like Jackson Pollock himself.

Manny Pacquiao pulls a lot of advertising weight

I'm watching Pacquiao's match with Oscar de la Hoya right now on GMA 7 in the Philippines, and I'm frustrated by the relative length of the commercials compared to the fight itself.

For every 3 minutes of boxing, there's roughly 8 minutes of commercials! Drat. Out of these few dozen commercials, probably 5 of them had an internet or mobile marketing component.

Yahoo sport's round by round coverage of the fight is very detailed. Read this, and it's like watching the match without commercials. (Well, there's an ad in the website too. But you can choose to ignore them.)

http://sports.yahoo.com/box/news?slug=ki-liveboxing120608&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

Intel hero webcomic series

Intel found a way to at least make their processors more interesting. I'm liking this webcomic series.

I also like how they localized the comic (even a bit) by using Manila as the "city."

The URL is here.

Email marketing: Tony Romas b-day treat

As several members of Pinoy Exchange probably would receive once a year, I got this email from the restaurant:

TONY ROMA'S WISHES YOU A HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

As a Friend of Tony Roma's, you can enjoy BUY 1 GET 1 FREE ON ALL MAIN COURSES

any day within the month of your birthday.

To redeem this offer, please print and present the attached Birthday Voucher
with your Friends of Tony Roma's Card to our server on your next visit to
Tony Roma's to enjoy this special treat.

Please note that each member is only entitled to one redemption in the month of your birthday.
Presentation of identity card may be required for verification purposes. For other details,
please also refer to the terms and conditions stated in the voucher.

Should you require any clarification, please do not hesitate to contact any of our managers

by phone or email.

Thank you and we wish you an enjoyable birthday meal at Tony Roma's.

I never gave my opt-in to Tony Roma's explicitly...

Funny series of comments in Techcrunch

Upon reading the news about former Yahoo Exec Dr Qi Lu moving to Microsoft as head of online services, I chanced upon this funny series of comments by some users:

Google's strategy

If you want to understand Google's strategy, then you've got to read this.
As mentioned, the presentation talks about, and
1. Why won't Google be affected by the [global economic] crisis?
2. Why is Google trying to change the mobile world?
3. Why isn't Youtube a content portal?
4. Why Microsoft fears Google?
5. How is Google competing with Facebook?
There are 9 more questions, and they're equally interesting.

All about Google

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: google strategy)

On being happy and angry during graduation

I remember this short blog post a few minutes after graduation more than a year ago, scrambled together to form an essay. If I were the one who gave the response for the graduates, it would most probably be along this idea. I must note beforehand: The reason why I did not speak during graduation was that I did not submit my entry. Work sort of "interfered."

This is not related at all to digital marketing, but I felt you'd find this write up interesting. Tell me your thoughts.

I am angry, but I am also quite happy. This would be the best way to explain how I feel right now, as a graduating student standing before you all, and soon, the Philippine society. I know this wasn't the type of opening you all were expecting from me at such a grand event as commencement exercises, so let me explain myself.

Happy.

There are several reasons to be happy.

One. We are students schooled in ideas, concepts, and technology that will be obsolete in 2 to 3 years. We are schooled to find solutions to problems that don't even exist yet.

Now why be happy about this? Because there is one competitive advantage the Lasallian education gives us: the ability to adapt to change, and the discipline to attain success in the face of dizzying changes.

And that means we can manage almost anything that the world may slap on us. We will soon find our way around these hurdles, thanks to the torture that our school training gave us. Do I need to elaborate on the "torture" part? On the "dizzying changes" part, I recommend you to watch "Did You Know" in youtube.

Two. The education that we have is not manifested in our diplomas alone. This is an education that is also deeply rooted in values. And that means we have a smaller probability of getting swayed by corrupt practices when we leave the University's four walls. We have a smaller probability of instigating the corruption in our areas. We have a bigger probability of putting an end to corruption and lead the country out of poverty, like Moses who lead the Israelites out of Egypt. But I will come back to this topic in a while.

Three. The third reason is us. There is unlimited potential in each of us, and we can tap these to affect our society. Whether or not we tap these potentials is outside the scope of the school. The school has equipped us with the two important things I have stated above, and it is up to us to awaken our passions and awareness. That will be our foundation for our impactful contributions to society.

Angry.

But why angry?

We are not special. We are not the only batch of graduating students of DLSU. To think in numbers, hundreds of thousands of Lasallian graduates have come before us. Scores of graduation speeches have been said. I bet all of them declare that we - the graduating students - are the future of this land. That we should help those in need, that we should not only look for bettering ourselves but always to think of the common good. The list of these grand ideas goes on.

People say this because these lines are proper, and at such a time when our egos are tremendously boosted by the attire, diplomas, and medals, why can't we? Having it any other way would seem completely stupid. But ask ourselves: If we hear these, do we take it to heart? Or are we already thinking of how we will spend the night in celebration of this "momentous" event? Or thinking of where you can find work? Or, as quite many scientific studies tell, thinking of sex?

Picking up from where I left off a few minutes ago, we should be angry because even after the hundreds of thousands of graduates that have come before us, many of whom carried a huge sense of idealism we currently (might) have, the Philippines has not progressed far. Some would even argue we have progressed in the opposite direction. Corruption is still the norm in most of our government. Worse is many of the people who occupy positions of power in our society are from the creme de la creme of Philippine Tertiary Graduates (like La Salle). What has happened? They have forgotten the speeches they've heard or written years back. They have switched off these ideals talked about so loftily.

But, being angry can sometimes be a good thing. Suppose someone tells you that you did a poor job, and you won't be able to bounce back. What do you do? Accept what you were told? Or will you get angry and tell the person, "I will shove your words up your rear." Then propelled by this anger, you deliver and make the person eat his words in the end.

There are other things we should be angry about, but as we are all graduating students, I believe we have the capacity to figure these out ourselves. This serves only as a spark plug.

Therefore we should be angry, and keep this anger in our hearts and minds.

These are the reasons why I am both happy and angry.

I have been quite emotional when I was writing, so I know that I messed up some of the points.

Whopper Virgins: good or bad?

Take a look at Burger King's latest campaign, called Whopper Virgins.

I don't like it for 2 reasons:
1. I'm not comfortable with giving very poor people a BK Whopper and leaving them after filming. It's like an insult to their poverty.
2. They directly attack McDonald's because they ask people to compare a Whopper with a Big Mac. Will BK ever include in the documentary an instance where people preferred a Mac to a Whopper? We'll see in 5 days.

This post said it nicely:

If visiting poor people in remote locations, some who would be at best surviving on below poverty levels and throwing a burger in their faces isn’t bad enough, it gets better, because they also ask the Whopper Virgins to compare the taste of the Whopper to a McDonalds Big Mac as well.

It’s hard to place exactly where this begins on the level of wrongness. The pipe flute South American music on the website, the pictures of people with horse and carts on one side, and on the other someone eating a Whopper. Hey, but that’s ok, because the testing was “done by independent 3rd party testers.” I think I’m going to throw up now."

Doom is now a Flash game on Kongregate.com

To all classic game lovers, I found something over at Kongregate which you might like: Doom 1 is now a Flash game!


Gaming is a good way of reaching young people (both male and female) because it is highly engaging and in this short attention span world, engagement is precious. :) Flash games are the most common, because they are easy to develop and post in sites. Flash games also boast high quality graphics and gameplay.

Males love action-oriented games, while females enjoy more casual, laid-back games.

I would love to see Starcraft in a Flash game too!