cyberbaguioboy blog hacked?

You might be surprised by this new look. I've redirected my blog to this temporary address to check what happened to my blog. I think it has been hacked. Anyway, I am working on it. I hope I could still retrieve my past entries. Darn!

This blog is no more.

Please visit my official blog at cyberbaguioboy. com.ph

Video of Pacquiao fight up

This was fast. The video clip of the Solis vs. Pacquiao fight is up online. Check it out.

(UPDATE 2) Pacquiao wins! (but...)

See the varying views and opinions of bloggers about the fight. Akomismo for instance did not mince words. Excerpt:

How do we define shameless? (Sa Filipino, walang hiya.)

• Vote Manny Pacquiao signs on top of a Filipino flag during an international, televised sporting event.
• Cheers of “Congressman!” after winning via knockout in round 8.

I’m tempted to scream, “Go to Hell, Manny Pacquiao.” But he’ll win the elections anyway, and that is a fate worse than hell.

I don’t have much love for the Pacman. Read the following essay for my reasons why:

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(I'm blogging here because my main personal blog is down!!! Wondering what's happening again).

Analysts say the fight was a mismatch. In fact, this blogger feels Manny Pacquiao does not deserve his money and was hoping to only watch the pre-main fight event of Arce vs. Mijares.

Excerpt:

I had really planned to order, watch, and score tonight's Top Rank PPV card featuring Manny Pacquiao v. Jorge Solis and Cristian Mijares v. Jorge Arce (the only fight on paper worth paying anything for), but then I sat down with my digital cable remote, went to the info, and worked my way over to the 'Buy' button.

And I couldn't do it. I had spent the last couple of days trying to rationalize why I would be paying to see Manny Pacquiao drill a sacrificial lamb, $44.95 for a big (quantity, not quality) card where the only thing I truly cared to see was Mijares/Arce. I couldn't figure out a good reason to order this show, save for my completist nature of needing to see every "big" fight.

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Did I say more? Hehe.

Thanks to NeTVision I was able to watch the fight "live" via the Internet. This is the future of television. It is delivered on your PC. Wohoo!

INQUIRER.net also delivered a blow-by-blow running account of the fight.

INQUIRER.net unveils blog network

Finally, INQUIRER.net unveils its blog network. Joey Alarilla, our resident game editor/blogger, admits he is the guinea pig in this project ;-)

Again you might ask, why do we blog? For INQUIRER.net, it is about extending the conversation with our readers. We get a lot of feedback from readers everyday. We hope to engage readers in a more, well for lack of term, interactive conversation. I've also been blogging for close to 3 years now. It started when my youngest daughter was born. Somehow, my blog evolved from being an online diary of my daughter into something more personal. It currently features my musings on blogging, technology, journalism, and recently, politics (since I cover the elections).

The INQUIRER.net blogs network aims to be not just any blog network. We hope to use it to make news your news too. And as Joey says, we also hope to take advantage of today's technology and use it to keep the conversation going. Happy birthday INQUIRER.net blogs!!!

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By the way, INQUIRER.net is currently co-convenor of Media Nation, a gathering of different news organizations in the Philippines.

Cyberbaguioboy down?

I got a shocker this morning. I opened my cyberbaguioboy blog and found it was inaccessible. Hacked, I thought. Servers down? Yesterday it was still fine. I wish my postings are still intact. sigh.

Videos on-the-go

I'm now taking more videos using camera phones. This is a recent addition to my job as a technology reporter. While this technology has been around for some time, news organizations have not really used this innovation to do interviews and capture important events. This year, we have increasingly used video clips taken using a camera phone. The quality is not as good as broadcast TV. But it is good enough for viewing on YouTube, which has been the host of videos I send over to our editors.

Here's an example of a video I took while covering the Commission on Elections.

Students prefer Internet news: study

A recent report from the Carnegie-Knight Task Force at Harvard University has revealed that schools look up to Internet news as a mode of classroom instruction. Excerpt:

Internet-based news is trumping both television news and the daily newspaper as a mode of classroom instruction. Furthermore, national and international news sites, such as nytimes.com and bbc.com, are trumping local news sites in America’s schools. These conclusions stem from a recent national survey of 1,262 social studies, civics, and government teachers, who reported on their use of news in the classroom, including trends in their use of particular media.

For close to a year now, I've been studying my Masters in Journalism through an online medium of instruction. So far, learning and interaction are a lot better especially for working professionals like me. Online education or e-learning combined with traditional methods of teaching is increasingly being introduced in undergraduate schools. This recent survey shows students prefer to get their dose of news from the Internet, which is a lot more convenient and interactive. From my own experience, e-learning still requires discipline on the student's part. You still have to actively participate in discussions (through discussion boards), online chats, and group work. So it is really important that Philippine government should connect more schools to the Internet. I think once they're connected, students will find learning a lot more interesting.

Week 8: The Internet is not for geeks only

Here's an interesting development in citizen journalism. BBC announced plans to offer training to citizens who want to go into "citizen journalism," according to an article in the Editor's Weblog, citing at least two sources.

Apparently, BBC wants to open up its in-house training program to the public. As I was reading this, I recalled Karen Lema's blog titled, "A little journalist in us." She somehow sums up the point that citizen journalists, bloggers, or mobloggers --for bloggers who use mobile devices --need to learn a thing or two about "journalism." They have to follow certain principles in journalism--which I completely agree with. These principles involve being objective, thorough, honest, balance, and truthful. BBC's move is clearly a move towards teaching these same principles to bloggers, CJs, mobloggers and whatnot.

But what is journalism, anyway? What do they do? Some say they're storytellers. Others say they make sense of facts and information they get and hopefully re-tell them straight to readers with much honesty and integrity. That's the ideal scenario. But over the years, we've seen the quality of journalism decline despite the ideals this vocation proclaims. Journalism has been maligned by the very people who preached objectivity, truthfulness, honesty, and transparency. The public has also grown tired of the traditional media.

Now, here comes the Internet allowing anyone to be a "journalist" and the traditional media is now trying to figure out where they fit in. For sometime, traditional journalists saw the Internet a fad and hoped it would go away. But it didn't. It changed and still continues to change the face of journalism.

It's correct to believe that the Internet or technology per se are just tools, which journalists can use in their practice. However, these very same tools are now available to everyone to disseminate information While journalists proclaim they had years of training and experience, the public's collective and collaborative efforts have slowly matched what media had been offering: information. Are they doing journalism? No or perhaps not yet.

Bottomline: I would be slow to dismiss all these developments in technology and journalism as fads. While our roles as journalists will not change very much in the future, we should also understand how these things will work for us and not against us.

And to end, here's an interesting quote from colleague and Filipino journalist and blogger Joey Alarilla's column from INQUIRER.net:

We are living in an age where we can shoot videos and take photos using our mobile phones, and upload these on the Web for use with articles. This is far cheaper and speedier than the old way of having a TV reporter, camera crew, producer and editor create a short segment on television. And you can already shoot the video with the Web in mind, with an understanding of how it will complement the other elements in your multimedia story.

This is what many in Old Media still don't realize, that we have to create content for the Web, instead of just uploading shovelware.

Week 7: On-the-go journalism and web 2.0

When bombs went off in Mumbai, the first thing I did was go to Flickr (click photo to see more) and YouTube to check photos and videos taken by people who might have witnessed it. These popular social networking websites now allow people to capture history. In today’s wired world, the unfolding of events can be documented almost instantaneously with technology. But can we describe this practice journalism?

Armed with a phone camera, I have been taking snapshots of events/people while on field since last year. But due to frustrating speeds of sending photos via today’s local mobile network, I still download these photos onto a PC before sending it to my editors. Perhaps this is the first step towards mobile journalism. (Also listen to the short podcast I did).

Mobile journalism involves Internet technology and telecommunications. Both are modern tools for delivering news on-the-fly. When I started working for an online publication six years ago, the standing order was to: “write for today and not tomorrow.” Today, that has changed to: “break the story now and add photos, videos and audio quickly.” Sounds like a lot of work? Yes it does. But since the Internet is multimedia, people expect more from journalists (who do not necessarily work for the online medium) to also produce photos, videos and audio. Mainstream media is now looking at hiring younger and more tech-savvy journalists to cover news because they understand readers' behavior today.

At the recent Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, a blogger observed how fellow bloggers attending this big event have become source of “scoops” and “inside information.” Not every journalist could cover this event alone. But they have provided "just in time" information for mainstream media. He called it “instant journalism.” I simply call them “leads.”

Week 6: CJ is still journalism gone hi-tech.

I recently had a brief online exchange with a colleague on how bloggers and journalist would soon become "one." He disagreed, stressing bloggers and journalists have clashing values. Journalists follow established standards, while bloggers don’t. But in countries where media is censored, blogs have only been the means to do “citizen” journalism.

Citizen journalism is an idea that can be broken down further to understand what it is. Journalism is a "profession," for some a vocation. This title has often been given to people who work for media organizations. Their role is to deliver news that hopes to help citizens make better and more informed decisions.But the act of doing journalism does not necessarily mean one has to be employed in a newspaper.

With the Internet and blogs, regular people are now empowered to do journalism. That is if they follow the ethical "standards" of thoroughness, accuracy, fairness, transparency and independence.

Dan Gillmor says it best: “Technology has given us a communications toolkit that allows anyone to become a journalist at little cost and in theory with global reach. Nothing like this has ever been remotely possible before.”

But to quote Spiderman: “With power comes great responsibility.”

I believe citizen journalism is journalism the way it was, or the way it should be. Citizens now have been given back the power not only to consume but also “pro-duce” news, as Gillmor puts it.

What blogs have done to journalism is make citizens part of the news process. Bloggers won't replace journalists. But both will be working together in the future to deliver a better version of the news. Call this the future of journalism. But I would simply call it journalism with stress on the citizens.

Newspapers can't predict their future

This is not a required post, but I just want to share this with the rest of the class.

I picked up this story from The Editors Weblog. The headline says, "Newspaper executives can't predict future of industry." Indeed, it is also conventional wisdom now to think that the Internet is causing the "death of newspapers." But there is more to this ongoing trend. (Also read this related story from New York Times). Excerpt:

After years of endless discussions on the future of the newspaper industry, trying to figure out whether it will bounce back or is doomed, some top newspaper executives finally revealed the honest truth. They simply don’t know. These executives met at the annual media conference in New York – where The New York Times Co. explicitly refuted rumors about a change in their stock structure.

The ‘real news’ was the honesty that newspaper executives seemed to have agreed upon.

Week 5: Embracing “citizen” journalism

I recall an interview with one of Philippines’ top blogger Abe Olandres. The premise of that interview was this: Should bloggers follow ethical guidelines in journalism?

Abe is a well-read professional blogger writing about technology. He prefers to be called a "meta-journalist," a term that describes his tech punditry. But after reading Mark Glaser's article , I say Abe is a journalist.

No matter how he puts it, Abe is doing journalism. He writes based on facts -- but insists that some are based on "speculations" or better, an informed guess based on industry sources.

As Max Kalehoff, an executive at Nielsen BuzzMetrics, wrote on Jeff Jarvis’ BuzzMachine blog :

Why not just call journalism “journalism” — a word the citizens, amateurs, networks, distributors and professionals can understand? Journalism can be “practiced” in all sorts of ways, and by virtually anyone. You don’t even have to be a citizen or a professional; you could be a foreigner, or even an alien from outer space. But I do agree with your overall beat: journalism is not some exclusive club; it’s something that takes many forms, including all the ones you describe.

Citizen journalism has emerged because of the Internet and blogs. Similar to Dan Gillmor's story on Joe Nacchio, Abe and other local bloggers like J. Angelo Racoma have become sources of my stories. From time to time, they pick up juicy information, which I end up writing as a full-blown news report.

As Gillmor pointed out, citizens like Abe and Racoma are no longer consumers of news. They make the news. They are today's citizen journalists. Gillmor adds:

[T]echnology has given us a communications toolkit that allows anyone to become a journalist at little cost and, in theory, with global reach. Nothing like this has ever been remotely possible before.

Week 4: Radio Style

Slug: Morning news 12-11-06/Erwin Oliva

(Focus: Intel helps hook up poor communities to the Net to narrow the proverbial digital divide)

One hundred fifty residents of General Trias in Cavite can now surf Internet, thanks to Intel.

Leighton Phillips, Intel World Ahead program manager, says Intel is investing one billion dollars in five years to train and connect more people living in remote areas to the Internet.

Phillips says this global project also intends to develop content relevant to rural communities because many people still have difficulty understanding the Internet.

He says Intel and the members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nation are now working closely to help poorer communities become Internet literate.

In the Philippines, Intel is working with the Commission on Information and Technology, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization National Commission of the Philippines, and the Asian Institute of Journalism and Communication.

Florangel Rosario Braid, UNESCO National Commission chairperson for communication in the Philippines, says Intel is helping fulfill the organization’s plans to create relevant digital content for rural communities.

Week 4: News Story # 2

Intel helps ‘marginalized’ sectors get on the Internet

By Erwin Oliva

In today’s digital society, the number of people without access to the Internet is still surprising.

Intel hopes to change that in five years.

Committing 1 billion dollars to push initiatives geared for “marginalized” communities in the world, the chipmaker has initiated various projects worldwide, including in the Philippines that intend to connect people to the Internet, educate them about information technology, and develop more relevant community-based information accessible via the Web and other digital means.

Intel’s program, dubbed Intel World Ahead, has started connecting Philippine communities to the Internet using a Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (Wimax) technology, a new technology that provides wireless Internet access at great distances.

Intel worked with local telecommunications firm Innove to wirelessly connect 150 local residents in Gen. Trias, Cavite and Alabang, Muntinlupa, Intel World Ahead program manager for Asia Pacific Leighton Phillips said.

Intel’s Wimax deployment is part of the Asian Broadband Campaign Wimax trials conducted in select countries like the Philippines, the Intel executives said.

Meanwhile, representatives from Intel met with members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nation (Asean) in Manila recently to discuss projects, and best practices, Phillips said. The Asean members and Intel discussed how they could use public domain to develop web content for marginalized and rural communities.

The Intel executive said that content on the Internet remains irrelevant to most marginalized societies, while cost of access remains expensive.

Intel was committing US$ 250,000 in an Asean project to produce more relevant content, and was offering an e-learning software called SKOOOL.

The Intel World Ahead program intends to push various programs to developing regions in the form of accessibility, connectivity, education, and development of applications and content.

The US$1-billion commitment for five years intends to fund efforts to connect the "world's next billion users, while training 10 million more teachers and 1 billion students," Intel said.

Intel is now working with the Philippine Commission on Information and Technology (CICT), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization National Commission of the Philippines, and the Asian Institute of Journalism and Communication for the Intel World Ahead project.

Florangel Rosario Braid, chairperson for communication of UNESCO National Commission of the Philippines, said Intel’s project is consistent with its plans to develop relevant digital content for marginalized communities.

Week 4: News Story # 1

Apple at the bottom of ‘green’ product list: Greenpeace

By Erwin Oliva

In the PC industry, Apple computers represent style and innovation.

But among environmentalists, the computer company occupies the bottom of a list of manufacturers racing to make their products “greener.”

Environmental group Greenpeace’s second edition “Guide to Greener Electronics” showed Apple Computer at the bottom of the list of top 14 manufacturers, while Finnish mobile phone maker Nokia remained on top.

Greenpeace ranks these manufacturers of PCs and mobile phones in the guide. Companies earn points if they have eliminated the use of the most hazardous chemicals, and have implemented recycling policies such as financing take-back, reuse or recycling of end-of-life products.

"Despite being the world leader in innovation and design, Apple is losing the race by failing to keep up with the other companies," Greenpeace International toxics campaigner Iza Kruszewska said in a statement.

Apple currently occupies the bottom position because it made “absolutely no improvements to its policies or practices since the ranking was first released three months ago, although most of its competitors have improved environmental policies," Kruszewska added.

In the Greenpeace guide’s first edition, Apple was third from the bottom of the list.

Meanwhile, new policies on use of chemicals and the proper disposal of electronic waste kept Nokia at the top. The Finnish company, however, has yet to state clear timelines for phasing out polyvinyl chloride (PVC) in all its products. PVC is a plastic material that is deemed harmful to the environment.

Kruszewska said top-ranked brands are taking precautionary chemical policies. They have committed to eliminate the use of the most hazardous chemicals in their products, while acknowledging individual responsibility for financing the take-back and reuse or recycling of their own-brand discarded products.

Greenpeace said PC makers Acer and Lenovo have indicated plans to eliminate the use of the most hazardous chemicals from products. Lenovo's strong policy commitments elevated the company's ranking from the bottom spot to 8th place. Acer also made progress, as it moved to seventh from 12th position.

Motorola has also made improvements, moving up to the fourth position, next to Fujitsu-Siemens. It was ranked second worst in the first version of the guide, according to the Greenpeace guide.

Korean manufacturers LGE and Samsung and Japanese firm Sony's rankings have gone down because they support regulation in the US that places the responsibility for product recycling on consumers instead of the producers.

Malaysia warns of crackdown on news blogs

I feel sad whenever I read this kind of stories. Cracking down on blogs will only push more Malaysian bloggers to blog.

As this story reports:

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia -- Malaysian officials have threatened a crackdown on divisive postings on news blogs, in what an international media watchdog calls a move to expand controls on the traditional media to the Internet.

All Malaysian news blogs may have to be registered with the Ministry of Information, local media reported earlier in the week, citing Deputy Science and Technology Minister Kong Cho Ha as saying the laws were necessary to dissuade bloggers from promoting disorder in Malaysia's multiethnic society.

Blogs in countries like Malaysia are becoming the last bastion of freedom of speech. In this age of convergence (which I would like to define as the death of traditional media as we know it), blogs have provided an enviroment for people like Jeff Oii.

Also this week, reports indicated that Malaysia was mulling laws on blogging. Excerpt:

KUALA LUMPUR--Malaysia may introduce tough Internet laws to control bloggers and prevent them from spreading "disharmony, chaos, seditious material and lies" on their websites, a report said Sunday.

Deputy Science and Technology Minister Kong Cho Ha said moves such as registering bloggers would be difficult, but accused some writers of posting controversial articles to attract readers.

Leo Magno, my editor, has written a special report (you can also read the other parts here, here) on how blogs and podcasting has changed the face of journalism. In the third part of this report, he states:

[B]bloggers and podcasters in particular -- are getting influential, if we are to define influence as being noticed and listened to by government, mainstream media and the public. We have also discussed the pitfalls of referring to this trend as a new form of journalism. We have also heard from mainstream media and from new media publishers who, they said, do not even consider themselves journalists.

Theoretically then, bloggers and podcasters should not be harassed or censored if they are seen merely as flies that refuse to go away. But why do charges of sedition and active censorship still occur? Why are blogs and podcasts being monitored by government? Why is there a seeming insecurity on the part of traditional media? Why should new media grassroots journalism be considered a threat?

Blogs and podcasts are disruptive technologies. They arrive at the party, offer something new, start playing a new song and dance to a new beat, they tear the piñata down and before you know it the tables have been overturned and the party will never be the same again. That party is traditional media -- television, radio and print. Any new addition to a set with the potential to disrupt established norms would naturally be seen as a threat. Traditional media is pushed out of its comfort zone of having the final say on matters of news and opinion. Traditional media may even feel that with grassroots journalism they may become disenfranchised.

Perhaps blogs, podcasts and new media in general are seen as threats because of changing information assimilation behaviors of the audience.

The newspaper's death explained

Slate's Jack Shafer tries to explain why newspapers are now pushing the "panic button," as readership numbers are dwindling. He writes:

A good three decades before the newspaper industry began blaming its declining fortunes on the Web, the iPod, and game machines, it knew it was in huge trouble. In the mid-1970s, two of its trade associations (which have since merged)—the American Newspaper Publishers Association and the Newspaper Advertising Bureau—sought to diagnose the causes of tumbling newspaper readership since the mid-1960s and recommend remedies.

But towards the end, he explains that the appetite for news has not really gone down. Generally, it is the behavior of readers that has changed a lot with the introduction of the Web, iPod and game machines, as he puts it. He goes on to quote Preserving the Press, which offers some solution to newspapers.

The solutions proposed by Preserving the Press and Shaw's article read like the standard prescriptions written today: Make an attempt to "reconnect" with readers, who feel alienated from newspapers. Make coverage more local. Hook kids when they're young. Let readers "sound off" about issues on special pages of the paper. Connect with and hire minorities. Expand the weather report. Introduce or expand op-ed pages. Spice up the design and print more color. Run more lifestyle, consumer, and personal-finance articles. Chase potential readers—and advertisers—into the deep suburbs.

Read more of this article here.

Essential tools for "backpack" reporters

As I was reading through Berkeley's Multimedia Reporting and Convergence online training module, I found this interesting feature by Jane Stevens that details what "backpack reporters"-- a term given to multimedia journalists -- need in the field. They include:

• Laptop computer loaded with Photoshop, Dreamweaver, iMovie or Pinnacle Studio 8 (or Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere if you're doing advanced video editing), Flash and a text editor such as Word.
• Video camera and accessories (lenses, filters, microphones, headphones, batteries, cables, tripod)
• Digital video tape (more than you think you'll need - tape's cheaper than missing the most important shot of the story)
• Lens cleaners (brush, tissues, solution -- clean your lens before every outing)
• Absorbent soft towel (for emergency lens cleaning)
• Duct tape (if some part of your camera breaks, as mine did in a Moscow subway station)
• Pocket knife (remember to put this in your checked luggage when traveling)
• Rubber bands (you never know)
• Extra batteries for microphones (replace these every few months)
• Camera and microphone manuals (unless you've memorized both)
• Plastic bags for camera (as emergency protection if you don't have a raincoat for your camera, or if you're moving between extremes of heat and cold and need the camera to adjust slowly)
• Plastic bags, small and zip-lock for used DV tapes
• Water bottle (for you)
• Power bars (for you -- you never know when you're going to skip a meal)
• Pens (if nothing else, to jot a quick ID on the tape you've just shot)
• Small notebook (of course, your camera is your reporter's notebook, but a small notebook is handy for writing down shots that you don't want to forget, especially if it's raining and you can't read what you've written on your hand)
• Backpack journalist vest with many pockets (you don't have to go the extreme of still photographers with their 87 pockets, but it's more efficient to have towel, batteries, DV tape, notebook, pen, knife and duct tape within easy reach)

WEEK 4: Multi-media journalism in the Philippines

Perhaps the closest example on how journalists in the Philippines are using “multi-media” techniques when they report is INQ7.net, the company I work for. When we started, our news website was called “shovelware,” which means content taken from the print edition is just “shoveled” into web. There was not much difference between the print and web version except the latter is online. Also the web version followed the “narrative” style of the print. There was not much interactivity.

A year after it was launched, INQ7.net covered the “People’s Revolution 2.” It was at this historic and defining moment that INQ7.net transformed into a semi-multimedia news website. We broke news as it happened – through our breaking news section. We worked like the wires. But that’s just text. Eventually, we incorporated videos taken from our partner TV station and provided links to videos related to stories. We also provided a streaming audio of a local radio station for people who wanted to hear almost real-time broadcast of the events at that time.

Special websites have also emerged at that time. We created these sub-websites within the news portal for special features. It usually contained text, audio and videos, and other information we deemed useful for our readers.

The level of “interactivity” or multimedia techniques used in INQ7.net are not as sophisticated as the examples of Touching Hearts or 360 Degrees, which are in fact, larger projects that take time and specialized skills to develop. INQ7.net is, however, evolving and will feature more of "less linear", multi-media news.