Best Personal Blog: Misteryosa
Best Home & Living Blog: Wifely Steps
Best Socio-Political Blog: Philippine Commentary
Best News & Media Blog: Inside PCIJ
Best Fashion & Lifestyle Blog: Bryanboy: Le Superstar Fabuleux
Podcast of the Year: HappySlip
Best Technology Blog: Leon Kilat: The Cybercafe Experiments
Best Business/Entrepreneur Blog: Reflections of a BizDrivenLife
Best Entertainment Blog: Retzwerx
Best Sports & Recreation Blog: Who rides a Vespa?
Best Travel Blog: Ivan About Town
PhotoBlog of the Year: Señor Enrique: Wish You Were Here

Check out the rest here

Mr. Joel Disini, the main man behind dot.PH, gives us the reason why registering a .ph domain is still $35.

First of all, DotPH pricing at $35/year is the retail price. The wholesale price is a lot cheaper, and goes as low as $15/year, depending on your volume of registrations. This has been the case as far back as 2000, when very few ccTLDs were selling below the $35 level. The Registrar prices are located here:http://www.domains.ph/PartnerApply.asp

If you want to pay the “low” price of $15 a year, you will only have to register 1200 domain names. Personally, I can pay the $35 a year but what about the kid who just wants to register a domain for his blog that probably will not last a year? The only reason why most people register a .ph is because the .com is taken. The .ph should be available to the masses if Pinoy pride is your aim. The $35 .ph domain is like selling the Philippine flag for $300.

Joel, how about registering your own name?

Read the rest of of Joel’s reply at YugaTech

Jayvee Fernandez has released his 1st BuggedCast. Check it out here.

At 1st it was US based Pinoys who got the Podcast bug, now it’s the guys from the Pinas looking to revive it.

Announced on the Philmusic Twitter:

The PhilMusic Podcast Project is off and running!!

From the Philmusic.com message boards:

I’m a fan of Podcasts, and I’ve always wanted to start one and host one here at PhilMusic.com but didn’t have the equipment to record it. So I’d like to ask if anyone here would like to help out since much of this has to do with the recording studio and audio editing facilities. Here’s what I think we need:

1) Format A. There are two types of podcasts I think would be useful to our listeners. One is the usual radio-style artist interview, plus a chance to spin your CD or actually play some original live music in the studio. This will of course require a real-live recording studio to accommodate everybody.

2) Format B. This type of podcast is more of a talkshow-type roundtable discussion. I love these types of ‘casts (my model for this is Leo Laporte’s TWIT or This Week in Tech). For the people I can think of nowhere else to get a roundtable going than all the chatty people here in Talk@PhilMusic. Topics can range from gear to Music tech, to new bands, to reviews, to whatnot. This can be recorded live (multiple mics in the studio) or virtually (we can use Skypeand record the conference - this would allow overseas guests to join in.)

Join me on Twitter.com/ChristianDeVera

One of the biggest opportunities in the Pinoy internet scene is social news. Popularized by Digg & Slashdot, it’s a web service that allows people to submit articles and get voted on. The articles with the top votes make it to the front page. In theory, it’s real democracy. We need one of these sites for Pinoys. Why? With news still controlled by the old media giants, it’s difficult for a little blogger to get some spotlight. I see a Pinoy Digg helping bring attention things that we need to resolve like the killing of journalists, corruption and etc. Not everyone has the patience or time to read PCIJ or Manuel Quezon. With GMA or Inquirer looking to gain momentum in the blogosphere, perhaps they should have a social section? I can see Yehey doing this as well. ABS-CBN will not do it because they want to own everything. I suspect something like this is in the works with the major players but might be hesitant due to fear being spammed or sued for what other people post on their site. Until then, here are some sites trying to catch on.

OKs.ph is the best looking of the group. It looks like it’s custom programming and not based on the open source Pligg as the others are. Great design and a lot of content due to it also being an aggregator. The downside is that I didn’t see much Pinoy content.

PinoyBlogosphere.net(down as I write this) is on Pligg but has a lot of potential due to the large amount of Pinoys that post on the group blog, PinoyBlogosphere.com. It would be great if they could port the entries from the .com site to the .net side.

Noypi.com is fairly new. It used to be a blog but is now running Pligg. There’s not much content but it’s all Pinoy.

Astigg is another Pligg powered site. They do have a lot more content than Noypi.com. I like the name.

Kablogs = Pligg powered site. Same thing as Noypi and Astigg.

One of the biggest Filipino businesses in the US is video rental. With the popularity of Netflix, a few online Filipino movie rental companies have sprouted, all of which are pretty much clones of of the Netflix business model. While Netflix and Blockbuster have some Filipino movies, stock is limited and it can take weeks to receive your movie.

Philmovies.com
Probably one of the most blatant Netflix ripoffs, it might be one of the best services if you judge a book by it’s cover. If I was Philmovies, I would change the layout to avoid a lawsuit. Apparently, they used to be Pinoyblockbuster.com. I guess there were some issues using the Blockbuster name and being in the very same industry.

Philmovies has been around since 2003 and is “One of the nation’s largest Filipino online DVD movie rental service”. Just like Netflix, Philmovies has a 2 week trial, 1-8 DVD’s out at a time, gift subscriptions, affiliate program and etc. Subscrption plans range from $9.95 to $42.95 a month.

Screenshots after the jump
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Best designed Pinoy blogs for 2006
Basangpanaginip has a list of the best Pinoy blogs for 2006. Is there a worst of list? Maybe this site will win an award

Send FREE SMS to the Philippines
Sick of Chikka? GizmoProject has launched GizmoSMS that allows you to send FREE messages to any mobile phone.

Pinoy Bloggers at the Beach
Marc has some photos of blogger trip to Puerto Galera. Sasha is hot.

Got Pets?
Pinoy Pets Network is going to be an aggregator of you guessed it, Pinoy pets. Thanks Abe.

Grab a Camera and make $
GetRichSlowly has a great introduction on how to sell digital photos online. With so many great locations in the Philippines, this would make an excellent sideline. You might even be able to make a few $ on the collection you already have.

*I need a better name for this News Feature

When I 1st saw that ThePinoy.tv is sponsoring the 2007 Philippine Blog Awards, I got excited and thought that it was going to be a Philippine version of Revision3 or Joost. The thought of a Pinoy IPTV network makes my mouth water. I’ll admit that I was disappointed when I found out that it’s only a video contest. Regardless, I think that there’s a lot of potential.

Talent shows are nothing new to Pinoys with the daily bombardment of exploitation contests on noontime Philippine network TV and the more recent imports such as American Idol and Big Brother. The Pinoy TV contest is simple compared to other online contests by Ksolo and Bix. Submit your video based on the monthly theme and the one who receives the most votes by the users, win $100.
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Philmusic
Philmusic.com now utilizes the popular SMS web application Twitter to keep their readers updated via their cell phone.

Offline Office
Jayvee Fernandez posted an interesting article about the need of a free offline office suite like Google Apps. With the inconsistent internet connection in the Philippines and still expensive price point for the masses, it’s very much needed.