by admin | Sep 19, 2015 | Opinion
By Jerome Auza
What do you get when you have 11 million tweets in less than 24 hours? Popularity, bragging rights and more commercial contracts. And possibly a new Guinness Book of World Records entry.
The number of Twitter tweets is used as one of the measures of popularity of a certain topic or hashtag. A recent great example of the proper use of this social media platform is Eat Bulaga’s Kalyeserye, a comedy series that mixes studio and street scenes and a unique love story where the pair communicate only via dubbing of songs and hand written notes.
The longest running noon-time show in the country Eat Bulaga surprised its fans two months ago with the new comedy segment which includes a love story between Yaya Dub, played by Maine Mendoza and Alden Richards. Mendoza, who became popular on Youtube because of her hilarious Dubsmash videos, is a new talent introduced by the show. Richards is a budding actor who was paired with Mendoza in the segment.
The other characters in the segment played by hosts Wally Bayola, Jose Manalo and Paolo Ballesteros while the original trio of Eat Bulaga Tito, Vic and Joey act as if they are directors and commentators adding more comedy into the already hilarious conversations of the characters Lola Nidora, Lola Tidora and Lola Tinidora among others.
The segment is a completely new concept in the Philippine television industry and has made Eat Bulaga capture the coveted number 1 position in TV ratings for noon-time shows. It combined traditional TV promotions and social media techniques to increase its popularity.
The show’s excellent use of the social media platforms Twitter and Facebook prior to the start of the segment helps build excitement among the fans. Each segment ends with a cliffhanger scenario and the fans are left wondering and discussing in Twitter and Facebook what might happen next. So they keep watching the segments.
It also helps that the segment has the kind of unpredictability because it mixes reality and acting into the love story of Alden and Yaya Dub. All the while Lola Nidora tries to keep the two apart and wants them to wait for the “tamang panahon” or the right time. Even the real life parents of Mendoza and Richards tweet about the show. And so the conversations on social media continue every day, building up to a major event every Saturday.
For marketing professionals, it is worth studying how Eat Bulaga used social media in promoting the Kalyeserye episodes. 11 million tweets is a big deal because it means there are millions of unique users tweeting about it. And there are way more Twitter users who don’t tweet but see the hashtag and links and therefore exposed to the topic. Just imagine the commercial endorsements that Eat Bulaga can make because of this popularity. In fact, they already have two major commercials based on the Kalyreserye concept.
by admin | Sep 15, 2015 | Opinion
Governor Edgar Chatto has been insistent about a synchronized fight against drugs, a fight that will snowball from the barangays to the city, leaving drug personalities no place to run and hide.
We can always understand that. For the past years, Bohol has never “hosted” drugs as problematic as this.
Then provincial commander Constantino Barot showed not much drug apprehensions. Sources even revealed that an expressed instruction to the police stated: drug is not a police priority. Let the PDEA do it.
As it appears, it seems a legitimate order. The PNP is not principally tasked with the drug problem, as the law provides. On it are usually unnamed PDEA agents.
But, intelligence community reports can never be stopped; not even by powerful people who want it stopped. Like water seeking its own level, reports have a nasty habit of getting to popping in analysts tables who treat them as A-one.
Since Police Director Dennis Agustin took over from Col. Barot, the biggest puzzle started to take shape.
As it appears, Colonel Agustin pieced a puzzle so tough to solve that lives of a police chief and several officers have to be offered to enlighten us about the diabolical ogre we are facing.
Anybody following the high stakes drug drama would agree, when the police shrugged off the drugs responsibility, they allowed the seeds to root enough to send shivers upon police and prosecutors pursuing drug cases.
Which led many to ask: Has Capitol been involved? A pesky candidate has also accused Gov. Chatto of this.
While we are not that quick to the conclusion that Capitol is protecting, things are shaping. And the shape, unfortunately, is that of a fat lie sitting at the Capitol.
Today, we hit the second month after three sachets of drugs were found at the Capitol.
As much as we wanted the full details of the story, it took a brave old man, weeks to leak a plot to hide the drugs. And another month before an order to investigate was issued.
Two months of investigations, and all Capitol can do is accuse the old man and his school of planting drugs at the Capitol? While this alleged school is not entirely drug-free, it would be tough to imagine how Capitol could side sweep into a fallacy of ad hominem just to draw flak away from the government.
You see, Capitol had a window opened to cast away the issue on drugs. Had it exercised diligence in coming out with investigations, or appeased the Boholanos with the heads of workers who tested positive in the drug tests, it could have side-stepped away from controversy.
Unfortunately however, after two months, that window has closed.
by admin | Aug 15, 2015 | Opinion
By: Jerome Auza
I thought it was one of those hoax news one morning when I saw that Google has become Alphabet. But it’s true. Google has reorganized the high level management of the various companies that it owns and created Alphabet to become this collection of companies. Google would be the largest of these companies.
According to Larry Page, former CEO of Google and now CEO of Alphabet, “Our company [Google] is operating well today, but we think we can make it cleaner and more accountable. So we are creating a new company, called Alphabet. I am really excited to be running Alphabet as CEO with help from my capable partner, Sergey, as President.”
According to the home page of Alphabet (www.abc.xzy), Alphabet will handle capital allocation. The new Google will be trimmed down of the other companies that are doing things far away from the main Internet products. These other companies will be under Alphabet instead. Each company will have it’s own CEO.
Do you know what alphabet also means for this new umbrella company? It’s betting on new things or “alpha-bet”. Alpha is a term used in the tech industry to mean new or prototype. By investing into new things, Page is excited to “getting more ambitious things done.”
Don’t worry, everything Google will still work as usual. But surely, the word alphabet will have another meaning and future books for kids may have “G is for Google” in one of the pages.
I should add that their URL or website address is very clever: www.abc.xyz.
by admin | Aug 8, 2015 | Opinion
By: Jerome Auza
Internet service in Tagbilaran city bogged down for several days in Tagbilaran City starting on August 1 crippling several Internet enabled firms and many offices and home users subscribed to PLDT. The service was restored on August 6 in the afternoon.
Auza.Net was one of those Internet enabled firms that was severely affected by the issue. We had put in place a redundancy link to the Internet using Globe. Unfortunately, the line had problems also. There was no dial tone which means there was a cable cut somewhere. So there we were, on Monday morning, trying to find a workaround for our connections.
We had 3G service on some mobile phones so some of the staff used it on Monday while I was scrambling to find a way to get a decent connection. We soon figured out that the PLDT service was down only for some websites like Facebook, Google, Yahoo and most other websites. However, it was operational for Gmail and Google Apps, BPI Online Banking and, luckily for us, on one of our remote servers in the US. So we simply routed our Internet traffic through that remote server in order to be operational again but at a much slower speed.
Other companies were not so lucky. They were totally down and had to resort to 3G service or WiFi from coffee shops that were not affected.
The question I want to ask PLDT is “What took you so long?”
I thought there was multiple redundancy within the PLDT network. I thought there was spare capacity available for immediate use if there are International routes that are congested. I thought we were ready for BPO/KPO operations in Tagbilaran from the telco perspective.
Several hours of downtime is probably a reasonable time to fix a network issue given we are in the Philippines and not in an industrialized country. But six days of downtime is just unacceptable. Even the business accounts that paid a premium for their service were down for just as long.
To be fair, the leased line connections of PLDT were operating normally. PLDT prioritizes these expensive connections for repairs when there are network issues. Large BPO/KPO companies would be using leased lines so they would unlikely experience that much downtime. In addition, this was the first time our connection at Auza.Net was down for an extended period. Usually a router reboot would solve the connection issues we experience once in a while.
Small firms relying on the Internet could be shutdown and lose business if downtimes like this happen often. How can we encourage ICT companies to flourish in Tagbilaran and Bohol if once in a while they will have to endure extended downtimes counted in days? What would our freelancers do to continue providing their services? What will tourists feel when they cannot post their vacation updates because the hotel they stayed in had no Internet the entire time they were there?
But do you know what’s the irony? PLDT didn’t breach its service level agreement (SLA) at all. I actually signed up for “Minimum of 10% of subscribed speed at 80% reliability where available” as stated on the contract. The 20% unreliable period within a month is 6 days.
So the downtime last week is within the SLA.
I think Globe also commits to only 80% reliability. So even if you have connections from both telcos, the chance of both of them being down at the same time is actually quite high at only 80% reliability of each. This actually happened to us last week.
We need to demand much more than 80% reliability of the Internet service we are subscribing. Even worse, this 80% is counted against 24 hours operation. Whichever regulating agency allowed that 80% reliability in the SLA should seriously review it.
Just think: it is actually within SLA that the telco can be down for one day per week. It is within SLA that one cannot use the Internet for one day per week. On a daily basis, it is 4.8 hours. If that 4.8 hours happened during office hours every day it is still within the SLA. I think that is a joke. And I pay for it. Everyone who needs Internet pays for that joke.
by admin | Aug 1, 2015 | Opinion
By Jerome Auza
Last week I went to Shanghai China to install software one of the customers of our client. My first impression as I was on the taxi on the way to the hotel was that the city was so massive. Construction was going on on both sides of the road and that was in addition to the already tall and numerous buildings along the way.
The biggest surprise though was that many commonly used websites like Google, Twitter, Facebook and many more were completely blocked by the so called “great firewall of China”. I had prepared for that by installing virtual private network (VPN) software on my computer which would theoretically get through the firewall.
However, the VPN software and services I prepared were blocked also. It took me several hours before I figured out a work around. And not only was it a bit difficult to do, I managed only to get Google search and Google mail to get through. Google Drive, Facebook and many other sites were still blocked or very slow to load
As I experienced this restriction, I can’t imagine if this was the case in the Philippines. Many people would go crazy not being able to share stuff on Facebook.
Filipinos complain of many inconveniences that we experience. But we should be grateful that at least our freedom is a right rather than a privilege. China remains to be a communist country.
Arriving back in Manila was a relief. I could now access my stuff.
by admin | Jan 31, 2015 | Opinion
by: Jerome Auza
January 29, 2015, the day when the 44 PNP-SAF casualties arrived at Villamor Air Base, President Benigno “PNoy” Aquino chose to attend the inauguration of an automotive factory instead of leading the arrival honors for the fallen police officers. This became the subject of criticisms against the president in social media.
Perhaps in an effort to save face, the Office of the President released a press statement saying that “Majority did not criticize Aquino’s absence at Villamor”. Unfortunately, at the same time the press release was done, the hashtag “#NasaanAngPangulo” was trending on Twitter both in the Philippines and worldwide. When a hashtag is trending, it means that it is what users of the social media site Twitter are talking about.
I don’t blame the President for the unfortunate event. But he is the Commander-in-Chief and the person who “green lighted” the covert operation to capture a dangerous terrorist. He should have exerted all efforts to be seen as being in solidarity with the men who made the ultimate sacrifice defending our country, and perhaps the world, from terrorism. He should have been at the arrival honors and sent somebody else to the automotive factory.
The press statement that was a lie. Screen grab from http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/668911/majority-did-not-criticize-aquinos-absence-at-villamor-says-palace
#NasaanAngPangulo shown trending in the country and worldwide. Screen grab from http://www.rappler.com/technology/social-media/82359-nasaan-ang-pangulo-trends
Now, having made the blunder of being absent at the arrival honors ceremony, the President’s press writers should have not made any more excuses and blunders by publishing an obvious lie about the majority that did not criticize. Perhaps they had too little time to check Twitter of what was the sentiment of the public on social media. By doing so, the president instead appeared to be insensitive, callous or indifferent.
“Sa amin pong monitoring hindi naman yan majority view (Based on our monitoring, that is not the majority view),” Communications Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. said. Of course, he did not mention what majority he was talking about. Maybe it was just majority of the friends of the president that did not criticize him. But the public was hash tagging with might #NasaanAngPangulo. Isn’t that criticism? In my opinion, that statement was a blatant lie. How could they possibly get the opinion of the “majority” in a few hours but miss the trending topics on Twitter?
In this age of social media and the Internet, public officials can be caught lying by the public so they should perhaps avoid lying at all. Or even better, make better decisions and prioritize national interest like honoring fallen heroes over other functions. I’m sure the automotive factory executives would fully understand if the president had cancelled his appointment with them.
That way, the president’s men do not have to tell a lie to try to save face.
