Janette Toral - Book Author and Publisher

My next book project will be the most ambitious to date. This is to update my e-commerce book but split them into a series to ensure ample coverage.

My priority topics will be in the area of search engine optimization, e-marketing, social networks, e-payments, and make money online.

I know that this project will be tough. But I guess that is the only way that I can set my offerings apart from the rest.

Additional topic suggestions and your insight will be more than welcome.

Two weeks ago, I just released the book Blogging from Home. For this blog post, I’d like to reflect on where I did well and the areas that I’m still working on to date.

• Create a community
  What made this project a bit different is I tried creating a community around it. This includes the launch of an upcoming e-learning program that will further support the lessons taught in the book, creation of a Facebook fan page, and photo gallery of book owners.
• Lower the cost of shipping
  I was able to find a shipping entity that allows me to ship the book at lesser cost ranging from 2x to 3x.
• Expand reseller base
  Despite challenges in finalizing a distributor, I was able to tap into my contact base and make them my book resellers.

I have additional activities in mind to further propagate the book and will post them here once executed.

I’ve decided a few days ago that I shall be focusing my time hereon in publishing books and research reports. I gather a lot of information and experiences online.

This gets shared through my columns and blogs. However, compiling them in a book will certainly make it easier to disseminate these information.

This coming August 13 to 15, I’ll be launching my 4th book, Blogging from Home, during the 2nd Internet and Mobile Marketing Summit. If you have time, you can visit our booth anytime at the event to check out our book.

The book’s regular price is ten dollars (US$10). But you can avail of its launch price of eight dollars (US$8), plus three dollars (US$3) shipping within the Philippines, should you purchase on or before August 15.

This book is designed for aspiring bloggers and newbies who wants to have a perspective on how starting, managing, promoting, and even profiting from a blog takes place. As you may well know, my blogs are mostly simple ones created with various free blogging services. With that, there’s nothing really rocket science with what I do in blogging and have documented them extensively in the book.

This book should have been easy to do, I thought. Yet it took more than a year to finish its manuscript. With so many blogging books out there, I struggled in figuring out my niche. There was even a point of frustration that made me want to cancel this project.

However, I’m glad to have found my voice that allowed the writing and editing of the manuscript done in two weeks.

I’m thankful to have a good friend, Tony Bucu, who handled all of my book layout requirements since I started. He is a rare gem indeed. His current endeavors in entering the music scene is very challenging and hope you folks can check out and buy his work.

I hope you can drop by this August 13 to 15 and look forward in catching up with you.

Hello everyone. The Internet and Mobile Marketing Association of the Philippines (IMMAP) is organizing It’s All Geek to Me! The 2nd Internet and Mobile Marketing Summit 2008 to be held at Hotel Intercontinental, Ayala Avenue, Makati City on August 13 to 15, 2008.

IMMAP is giving away two (2) delegates pass to this event.

Should you like to participate and win one of the passes, this is what you have to do:

1. Make a blog entry about It’s All Geek to Me! The 2nd Internet and Mobile Marketing Summit 2008 and cite why you like to attend this three-day event.

2. Your blog post must have a link to the following:

• It’s All Geek to Me! The 2nd Internet and Mobile Marketing Summit 2008 at http://www.interactivesummit.com.ph.

• The Boomerang Awards 2008 at http://www.boomerangawards.com.ph/.

• Internet and Mobile Marketing Association of the Philippines (IMMAP) at http://www.immap.com.ph/.

3. Post a comment to this blog entry and give me the url link where your post can be found.

Deadline for submission of entries is on July 24, 2008. We will post all entries received here and update this weekly.

IMMAP shall review the submissions and picked their most-liked post.

The winners of the delegate pass shall be announced here on July 31. I hope you can join and see you at It’s All Geek to Me! The 2nd Internet and Mobile Marketing Summit 2008

Hello everyone. I’ve decided to come up with a part 2 of my writing project identifying new and emerging blogs that are making an impact to its readers in 2008. These are blogs that
started anytime from July 1, 2007 to the present. They are gradually
gaining a considerable amount of readership and influence.

This writing project will not be possible without the support of sponsors such as PRC Board Exam Results, RegaloService.com, and Fil-Am Yellow Pages.

Who can join?

• Any blogger in the world. Only one entry per blogger.
  • Blog or website owner profile and e-mail is accessible or visible online.

I encourage you to join and yes your favorite Friendster friends blog can be included in your entry. Cheers!

For more information, visit the Top 10 Emerging Influential Blogs writing project page.

A few days ago, my daughter, "J3", informed me that she has an impostor in Friendster.

I’ve been warning J3 of her excessive Friendster - ing. She just love this community as she has so many friends in it. Due to her young age and of the people she met, it can’t be helped that "girl politics" also comes into play.

Then this, a person created a Friendster profile using her identity, re-posted all her pictures and put vulgar sexual insinuation remarks in it. As a parent, this was horrifying.

Through this experience, I was able to put to test how Friendster handles complains:

1. Report profile
   When viewing the offending profile, you can click on the report profile at the bottom and choose from several options. Unfortunately this options are limited and there’s no way that you can explain things further. I did this for 2 days and even posted a message in the bulletin board asking friends to report the profile as well.
2. Find a contact
   After 2 days with no response, I used my LinkedIn to find someone working for Friendster and initiated a pass on request. That hasn’t reap any result as of this writing.
3. Email help@friendster.com
   I got a response from this one on the next day and the profile I complained about was already blocked.

I was already thinking of taking a legal action if the profile has not been put down in order to find out the identity of the person who did it and make them accountable for it. I’m glad that I did not have to reach that point.

Evaluation of Friendster support
The fact that the profile was deleted was a great relief to me. I think they also need to have more support people working for them in order to improve the response time. The lack of response after using the "report this profile" was very disappointing.

So to prevent what happened to J3 from recurring again, I gave a list of do’s and don’ts or else Friendster will be blocked from our home PC.

• Don’t waste time arguing with people she doesn’t know online.
• Post photos because you want to rather than having a "photo competition sport". I am amazed on the volume of photos teens post and it felt like they are competing with each other on levels of "coolness", "prettiness", among others.
• Use the bulletin board responsibly. It is not a medium to rant, indirectly referring to fellow users (of course they know it is them), and challenge your enemies, no matter how right you are.
• Use other social networks when possible. The reason why teens love it here is the capability of being able to jazz up your profile that sites like Multiply or Facebook can’t offer. But then again, when the community is becoming negative, it is best to switch to another and make it an enjoyable experience once again.

I would like to encourage you to join the Filipina Writing Project. Through this, we hope we can share in the ongoing efforts to bring relevant results to search engine and topple those that exploits the Filipina.

This writing project will not be possible without the support of sponsors such as Barangay.ph, Kababayan.ph, MyUSMailbox.com, and RegaloService.com. Interested sponsors can e-mail me at digitalfilipino (at) gmail (dot) com.

1. Filipina: Isa ring Ina
2. Filipina Writing Contest and My Favorite Filipina Blogger
3. Filipina is a Filipino Woman
4. Filipina Pride
5. Ang mga Filipina ng Buhay Ko
6. The Filipina in the Eyes of the World
7. 3 Things You Possibly Do Not Know about the Filipina
8. A Topless Filipina in Europe
9. What is a Filipina?
10. Ako si Pina.. At ito ang aking kuwento…
11. Filipina - Boholana, Part 1
12. Dalawang Anyo ng Pinay
13. Never Underestimate the Heart of a Champion Filipina

If you haven’t submitted an entry yet, head on to our writing project page on how to join.

iBlog3: the 3rd Philippine Blogging Summit will be
held at the School of Economics Auditorium, in UP Diliman, Quezon City
this April 13 and 14, 2007. This event is organized by the University of the Philippines - Internet Society Program.

We’d like to thank our major sponsor IPVG for supporting this event.

Registration, which will reserve your seats, stuff and schwag, and get you into our announcements mailing list, is now open.

We’ve
got a full program of sessions and activities massive enough to cover
two days (see listing below). And of course iBlog 3 is still FREE in the beer sense, as long as we can help it, free in the speech sense.

Thank you also to minor sponsors Google and Yehey, webcast/podcast sponsor eRadioPortal.com, and name badge sponsor Allfox Computer Center for supporting this event.

iBlog3 Program

April 13, 2007

Morning: Newbies track

9:00-9:15 Opening (National Anthem, Prayer)
9:15 - 9:30 Keynote and Welcome Remarks (Atty. JJ Disini, UP-ISP)

9:30-10:00 Blogging for Newbies (Chris Haravata)
10:00 - 10:20 Do’s and Don’ts of Personal Blogging (Lauren Dado)

10-20 - 10:50 Break

10:50 - 11: 15 Personal Blogging Success Story (Noemi Lardizabal Dado)
11:15 - 11:35 Unlocking your creative blogging potential (Marcelle Fabie)
11:35 - 12:00 What every business person should know about blogging (Arelle Valla)

12:00 - 1:00 Lunch

1:00 - 1:20 Building Communities: One Blog at a time. The E-Games Experience (Jaime Enrique Y. Gonzalez, CEO, IPVG)

Art & Literary Track
1:20 - 1:40 Injecting humor in blogging (Anton De Leon)
1:40 - 2:10 Blogging as alternative publishing for comic book creators (Jonas Diego)
2:10 -2:30 Literary Blogging Experience, Observations, and Trends (Dean Alfar)

2:30 - 3:00 Break

Legal Track
3:00 - 3:30 Blogging and Freedom of Expression in ASEAN (Roby Alampay, SEAPA)
3:30 - 4:00 Bloggers Code of Ethics (Emerson Banez)
4:00 - 4:30 Blogging and Copyright Law (Atty. Jaime Soriano)

4:30 - 6:00 Raffle, Networking

April 14, 2007

Blogging for Newbies
9:00 - 9:20 Abraham Olandres: Blogging Success Story (Philippines’ Most Read Blogger)
9:20 - 9:40 Photoblogging Success Story (Anton Diaz)
9:40 - 10:00 Philippine Politics and the Blogosphere (Manuel L. Quezon III)

10:00 to 10:30 Break

Blogging Trends Track
10:30 to 10:50 Podcasting/Videocasting Growth Trends (Wilson Chua of eRadioPortal.)
10:50 to 11:10 Blogging / Web Marketing Trends (Aileen Apolo of Google.)
11:10 to 11:30 The New Prosumer (Eduardo Mapa Jr. of Euro 4D.)

11:30 to 12:00 Panel Discussion (Moderated by Janette Toral)

12:00 - 1:00 Lunch

1:00 to 1:15 Sponsor Talk

Blogging and Journalism Track
1:15 - 1:40 Blogging and Investigative Journalism (Alecks Pabico of PCIJ)
1:40 - 2:00 Blogging as Mainstream Media (Angelo Racoma of the Blog Herald)
2:00 - 2:20 TV Journalism and Blogging (Malou Mangahas of GMA Network)
2:20- 240 Panel Discussion (Moderated by Rachel Khan)

2:40 - 3:00 Break

Professional Blogging Track

3:00 - 3:30 Blogging for advancing one’s career (Marc Hil Macalua)
3:30 - 4:00 Professional blogging (Jayvee Fernandez)
4:00 - 4:30 Increasing blog popularity (Gail Dela Cruz - Villanueva)

4:30 - 5:00 Raffle, group picture, networking

Don’t forget to register in this FREE event now!

Gallery 7 Digital Studio invites all lovers out there to celebrate  Valentine’s Day by sharing their Valentine’s story to the world!

Two (2) winners will be announced on February 10, 2007 (Manila time) and shall get a Photo-2-Canvas (12×16) with gallery-wrapped frame done in archival quality printing.

Check out their blog for the full announcement.

I encourage you to join. I think the prize is a very nice Valentine gift item.

I’d like to invite my club members who have blogs to join our advertising revenue program.