Philippine website data by Alexa

I check Alexa every so often to check out the site trends in the country. Hadn't checked in a few months but found a few things interesting:

- Facebook has reached the "mass"es. While Yahoo!, Friendster, Google and YouTube have been in the top five for quite some time, there is a new site at #5: Facebook! Wonder how this corresponds to the present number of Filipino users on Facebook... since I heard last year that there were fewer than 1M people on the network.

We can also get a few clues about our most popular online activities:

- Search: Yahoo (#1), Google.com.ph (#3) - Though not sure if these rankings include Mail, Answer, Docs, etc pages.

- Social networking: Friendster (#2), Facebook (#5) and Multiply (#7), Tagged (#15).

- Media sharing / viewing: YouTube (#4), Imeem (#17 - though I guess this counts as a social networking site as well!)

- Blogging / Blog reading: Blogger (#8), Wordpress (#13)

- Photo sharing / viewing: Although Photobucket (#12) is apparently more popular than Flickr (#18)

- Do targeted web banners work? Travian.ph (which seems like some kind of MMORPG) is #14 today. I see the Travian banner ads on so many video streaming sites like Surfthechannel and Yidio, but I've never clicked. Interestingly enough, the messaging is always properly targeted and written in Tagalog! Maybe that strategy is working.

- Microblogging is on the rise. Twitter now #27 & Plurk at #54.

- Local sites in the Top100: Inquirer is still the highest ranked (#37), followed by Philstar & (#57), PEP (#61), GMA (#63), PEX (#65), Smart (#78) >> We are still interested in the news and gossip but apparently we are now interested in telecom info as well.

- Hardcore gaming sites seem to have declined... Levelupgames (#40), Garena (#60), Egames (#70), while casual games seem to be more popular - Y8 (#8), Zynga (#34).

- New search engines. Some people are using Bing (#48) and some people are stalking using Spock (#64)!

- What other content are we looking for? Onemanga (#19), Friendster-layouts (#23), MP3codes (#58), deviantART (#66), Reference (#68), MetroLyrics (#92)

This must of course be taken with a grain of salt, since Alexa can only generate data from users who have downloaded their toolbar.

Twitterverse

My dad asked me the other day what Twitter is and why everybody on TV seems to have one. When either of my very tech-averse parents mentions a website, I know it must have hit the mainstream.

In case you're curious how it all began, here is The Story (so far) of Twitter, courtesy of Manolith.

Cick for larger image.

In April this year, Time included "the Twitter guys" in their list of 2009's Most Influential People. The article was penned by Ashton Kutcher and was released just a few weeks before Kutcher challenged CNN to race him in gaining 1M followers... which quickly led to the now Twitterverse (everybody has one).

Conversation Prism

Beautiful infographic on social media - the key to which is the multi-way conversation between B2B, B2C, C2C.

Click for larger view

I've been looking for some great typography to fill the last bare wallspace in my bedroom but this migth do nicely...

Marvel does Pride & Prejudice

My younger sister, who is an English teacher at UP (University of the Philippines), has been bugging me to read Pride & Prejudice. Of all of Jane Austen's classics I've only read Emma... and only because I read that it was the source material for Clueless.

But this might finally get me on the P&P bandwagon. Marvel has done a remake of the Austen classic... as a comic book.

Am going to read the first issue for free here.

Not sure why Marvel would do this... seems like such a huge jump from their usual material. Can't decide if they're (a) trying to renew interest in the classics, or (b) trying to grow their consumer base to include more females. Probably the latter!

(In other comic book-related news, did you hear that Archie already proposed to... Veronica?!)

got a good product idea?

Then head over to Quirky, a "social product development" site.

Just like Threadless, which produces Tshirts based on the community's choices, users on Quirky can pitch products to members of the site, who can vote on it, give feedback and answer product reviews.

The site has three products on the site so far. The Sling Back, a "universal wire retractor", the Ouch Pouch, an ergonomic, pimped sling, and Pressto, a tofu drainer + cuber ...Not sure what I think of those products so far but the site looks promising.

Just joined the community and voted on a disk drive with two USB ports, labelled "Me" and "Them". Sounds good!

Lost in translation

Dinner plans

Was in Beijing last week. It was my first time to be completely lost in translation, which made it... interesting. I particularly liked their information graphics and English translations.
Here's my complete "Communication, Beijing" photo stream.

Easier cross-browser testing

One of the trickier parts of web design is making sure that pages are compatibile on different monitors and browsers. Now for cross-browser testing at least, there is Adobe Browser Lab.

BrowserLab provides web designers exact renderings of their web pages in multiple browsers and operating systems, on demand. BrowserLab is a powerful solution for cross-browser compatibility testing, featuring multiple viewing and comparison tools, as well as customizable preferences. Since BrowserLab is an online service, it can be accessed from virtually any computer connected to the web. Also, Adobe Dreamweaver® CS4 software users have access to additional functionality such as testing local and active content.

 

The Client-Agency relationship

All AEs have to nego with clients which can get a little... difficult.
This video shows a typical Client-Agency exchange, but real-world situations. How I wish...



Original post here.

Cold War Kids Interactive Video

This is pretty cool. The Cold War Kids' latest video is exclusively online (MTV) and completely interactive.

As the song plays, users can click on a band member to mute / unmute (say, minus vocals or bass), and the different colors to choose different tracks / instruments for each member to play. Nice.

Agency website on YouTube

What a great idea. And surprisingly, very easy to navigate through.

Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix

"1901" is climbing the charts on my iPod at 23 times played. It could have gone a lot higher but I was trying to restrain myself because I'm the kind of person who listens to a song over and over when I find one I like. So now I try to temper how many times I listen to something because I tend to get tired of them quickly, too.

I try not to write about music because I can never think of anything intelligent to say except that songs, albums or artists are "amazing", "moving", "fun" or that they are "climbing the music charts on my iPod"..! But I had to give a special mention to Phoenix on this latest album...

 

And really, all I'm going to be able to say about the music is that - it's great! Buy / download it and I promise you'll be able to listen to all of the songs over and over. "Lisztomaina" and "1901" are fun and "Fences" and "Girlfriend" are more moving? And "Rome" is amazing! Classic Phoenix but cleaner and even better. (I'm sorry, Phoenix!)

I think people were probably excited for this album becuase the band made "1901" available for download on their website a few months ago. They even allowed people to download the different components (??) of the song, making it easier to remix. Web 2.0 must be fun for musicians. 

MMDA Urinal Penholder!!

Oh wow. There are no words to describe this..........

The good news is that you can win one of these lovely MMDA urinal penholders! All you have to do is take a photo of an area in the Philippines that Bayani Fernando has helped to improve and upload it on his website. Good news for everyone. Complete mechanics here.

Looks like part of BF's push to be more Web 2.0 savvy. Clicked through to the Bayani F website and found it very interesting how he is "BF everywhere". Most of the links lead to badly updated sites though...

My question is, who wants to have this guy as one of their SNS friends? Hmmm and where does the pen go??