What I Learned From The iBlog5 Philippine Blogging Summit

I learned a lot from the iBlog5: The 5th Philippine Blogging Summit,  the first blogging summit I ever attended. Congratulations and well done to the iBlog5 event organizer UPIS and Ms. Janette Toral. Although I missed being physically present on the morning sessions I was able to listen to the interesting topics while I do my house chores, check e-mail, plurk and attend to my daughter (multi-task) thanks to live streaming of AJ of Baklaako.com and Janette and thank you for the iBlog5 shirt I won from the raffle.

Some even thought I was at the venue because I was Plurking some of the interesting lines that caught my ears especially when the Do’s and Don’ts of Blogging 101 topic was on by Benj Espina and Juned Sonido and the Blog Promotion & Traffic Generation Strategies 101 Winston Almendras and Coy Caballes.

I was an hour late for the afternoon session and missed Legal issues in Blogging by Atty. JJ Disini but the people at the registration told me they have recordings of everything so I can still watch it later when they post it. It was raining really hard when I went to UP the overpass was flooded so I went inside the venue with my jeans soaking wet up to my knees.

I was able to catch the talk of  Dir. James Jimenez, COMELEC-EID Director,  his topic was about COMELEC on Blogging & Bloggers. I was surprised that Mr. Jimenez told us some insider info on what to watch out for in the 2010 elections since they will be pursuing the use of the automated system. In my opinion it would be to the best interest of the Comelec and the Philippines if he kept that little but big secret by himself. Now 200 people knows and it could leak around or someone in there working for a politician will use this info. Very dangerous!

Jannette did the The Bloggers Election Handbook project release and spoke some very interesting topics in blogging that I think are very useful. She is such a good person, I am always inspired whenever she talks and whenever I get to talk with her. By the way she was the first person in the Philippines to predict the power of blogs and the digital world.

Some of the speakers for the Blog Advertising Situation in the Philippines gave us their perspective based on their personal experience. Mannix Pabalan of AyosDito.ph gave us something to look forward to and advices bloggers to work harder on their craft and improve their writing. Most agree that the blog advertising in the Philippines is in an infancy stage.

Laszlo Lim, Business Development Head of Yehey.com gave bloggers their reason for doing blog events and how clients view blogs and bloggers.  Yehey has been in the industry for 13 years so whatever they do are tried and tested formulas nobody could ever beat and some would try to copy.

Jayvee Fernandez of Blog Bank also advised bloggers to work on their blog identity and learn to write well so that we won’t get over powered by journalist who will soon enter the blogging world since print publications are closing down. I was also interested by what he said about when you view your stats and saw that your blog viewers/readers stay more than 1 minute, you got a captured audience there. They are the audience you should take care of because they are the ones that gives value to your blog.

Eric Ramirez of Nuffnang Philippines said the market is small contrary to what the others had said.  I guess they haven’t formulated a good strategy yet although they showed a number of upcoming clients.  He also said that the young founders of Nuffnang take bad feedback about them seriously. That’s a relief.  I hope they do better and learn from their mistakes because they will soon be a year old.

I had an interesting chat with Jing, General Manager of Nuffnang Philippines.  She told me that she sent me an e-mail through my yahoo two days ago, surprisingly I can’t find it in my inbox or even in my spam folder.  Uhmmm maybe she spelled my e-mail wrong ? again?  I don’t know.  I don’t know what the e-mail was about she didn’t tell anything just said check my mail ‘coz she sent me one.  I expect the email is about this incident or it’s just another of those press release so that she can say something to me?

Moving forward,  Kristine Mandigma of the Philippine Online Chronicles promoted their site and causes because they don’t actually have any advertising experience since they don’t have any on their website.

Now the topic Blogging to the Next Level by Fitz Villafuerte and Anton Diaz was the most interesting topic during the afternoon session.   Fitz told us about Problogging and the Top 5 Tips  Problogger will and will not tell you (the secret for their success amassing to almost $1,000 a month!)

The obvious tips  were (and the secrets are) : 1) Blog about your passion (that has commercial value) ; 2) Get a domain name and webhosting (if you want more technical control of your blog, but blogs in free sites can earn as much as self-hosted blogs); 3) Write quality content (about topics people will actually search for) ; 4) Learn Search Engine Optimization ( and Social Media Optimization where you can get referral traffics and repeat visitors) 5) Be patient, stay focused and committed ( because it’s not easy to write for and maintain multiple blogs)  Having multiple blogs means multiple sources of income.

Anton Diaz gave us a picture of the types/classification of bloggers (not the type that others have classified them such as the PGB (Patay Gutom Bloggers) by Carlo Ople LOL!).

There are four types of  bloggers and that is from Artist > Advocate > Entrepreneur > Maven. I think maybe since I am advocating Autism Awareness and Welfare you can say that I am an Advocate Blogger (supporting a particular cause or issue), but since I am also earning from my blogs I could say I am an Entreprenuer Blogger (promotes his personal brand as an asset critical skill here is Internet Marketing)  , although I also consider myself an Artist Blogger (characterized by personal expressionism and writing naturally) since I write about my passion, and to an extent a Maven Blogger ( care about other peoples growth, paying it forward, emotionally and financially free, 50% will love you 50% will hate you for your opinion) because I also help other bloggers, those who are new to blogging and teach them from my experience but has not reached that financial freedom yet to be able to die doing this .

Quoting Anton: ” The focus is not on what type of Blogger you want to become but knowing are you evolving as a blogger. Continually improve your skills and mindset as a blogger because blogging is the greatest empowerment tool ever invented on the internet.  Blogging empowers you to live a life of meaning and purpose.”

I’ve learn so much and met a lot of bloggers in this event the iBlog6 is something to look forward to.