[Philippines] Lola Techie

Funny Grandma Lola Techie Uses Internet

Pardon the lack of subtitles for non-Filipino Geeky Guide readers.

I all started with that video. At first it seemed like yet another weird viral video feature - well, up until you see the Bayantel DSL logo at the end and the statement of how much their DSL service is. And that's probably the brilliance - the concept of a grandmother who is internet-savvy is a novel concept, but not one that's too far-fetched. It's not even a new concept - there have been countless jokes and parodies about elderly people being proficient with the internet and high technology, but this one as executed so well.

Viral marketing isn't all that new even in the Philippines, but this is probably one of the most successful and most interactive campaigns ever. While I can't determine if this advertising campaign has actually resulted in significant sign-ups for Bayantel's residential DSL service, I can talk about just how popular "Lola Techie" has become and what a great branding campaign this has become for Bayantel.

She's not only active on YouTube in order to release her new videos, but she's also on other social networking services like Twitter, Plurk, Multiply and naturally Facebook. Yes, she will add you as a friend and you can play games like Mafia Wars together. Of course she has her own website at http://www.lolatechie.com/ (which is really just a redirect URL), which acts as the central hub of the marketing efforts and naturally where you can sign up for their services as well.

It's such a simple concept yet so well-executed and I can see Bayantel pushing this campaign indefinitely. Lola Techie has pretty much become the new spokesperson for their brand and a pretty effective one, one that really triggers name recall and brand awareness. Plus she's a heck of a lot of fun too. Even though we all know she's not a real person, the people behind her certainly make it feel that she is real and someone we'd all wish to have in our families. Who wouldn't want a high-tech granny who can troubleshoot your net connection issues, right?

I'll leave you all with her second YouTube video, thankfully one with subtitles this time. Just wait for the flash bang grenades, haha. Enjoy!


Funny Grandma Lola Techie Plays Online Game

[Social Networks] Is It Time to Leave Multiply?

Image via CrunchBase

A few years back I decided to streamline my online activities and cut down on my social networks. It took some doing but I eventually killed of Friendster, Ringo and Birthday Calendar at the very least a few other specialized ones. What I was left with was pretty much LiveJournal for my personal blogging, Shelfari for my books, Flixster for my love of movies and Multiply to act as my photo sharing center and pretty much mirror of my personal blog and my Geeky Guide reviews. The arrangement has largely worked out over the years, that is until I finally gave in and created a Facebook account.

As annoying as some of the changes have been to Facebook, the site remains one of the most robust social networks (and gaming website) that I've ever seen and the ease of which I can share random images, videos and interesting links is something that's hard to match using any other service.

Recently Multiply has been making a number of changes too and what's most annoying about the changes is not just how awkward the interface has become, but the fact that they're clearly trying to copy Facebook in some made attempt to remain competitive somehow. This has me thinking - is it time to leave Multiply?

As always, the main things keeping me on Multiply on Multiply are (1) the sheer volume of content I've loaded onto my profile and (2) the network of contacts I maintain there. Number 2 isn't as big an item anymore, I know - most of these same friends are also on Facebook or share some other network I cater to like Plurk or Twitter. Ultimately, contacts were one of the last things tying me to Friendster as well when I was weighing my options and it became a no-brainer whether or not I should stick around.

So now it becomes a question of content - my personal blog entries are all there, albeit only as an exact mirror of my LiveJournal blog. Most of the photos that I have on Multiply are already on Facebook, although migrating those uniquely on Multiply will be painful since I no longer have the hi-res originals for any of those photos.

Oh Multiply, I was much happier with your old interface and how this kept you unique. Now your Inbox is clearly trying to mimic Facebook's News Feed. You've added the option to create Notes as a way to "compete" with Facebook's status messages. You've even added a suggested friends feature just like Facebook. Why are you doing this? Why are you trying to clone Facebook? If Multiply starts offering applications, I am so done and over with the site and I'll just stick with Facebook, I suppose. Why should I maintain two sites that try to do the same thing, albeit one does it a lot better.

And it really does! Sharing videos, links and individual images are a LOT easier on Facebook than they are on Multiply. Why the heck did you change your video import process? Why does a new tab / window need to be opened to edit the video I just imported from YouTube? Why is posting a link so complicated? Why did you have to hide my nice visual network calendar like that? The questions keep on coming.

Have you readers ever found yourself in the same fix? Do you find yourself wondering why your social network of choice has turned into yet another Facebook clone? Do you ever find yourself thinking that you're maintaining too many sites that all do the same thing?

What's your criteria for whether or not a social network or website is worth keeping? When do you decide to abandon ship? I'd love to hear your thoughts on the matter- just mention it in the comments or maybe even email or IM me directly.

[Blogging] Plurk is Not the New Twitter

Plurk by daysies.

Over the weekend I finally succumbed to peer pressure and signed up for Plurk, the latest addition to the ever-growing world of micro-blogging services around the web today. Naturally people have begun to compare this new contender to the likes of Twitter, Jaiku, Pownce and what have you but now that I've had a fair amount of time to play and test the service, I don't really see it as a "Twitter-Killer" as people like to call it.

I can't blame people for naturally deciding it's time to move on from Twitter given their recent slew of service issues ranging from frequent outages to loss of all IM-related functions. As a long-time Twitter user myself, I can't help but share in the frustration and in that sense of vulnerability we feel when something we rely on or have become accustomed to fails us consistently.

However this doesn't mean I'm ready to totally leave Twitter for Plurk.

Twitter quickly came to fame some time back because of the novelty and originality of its core concept - micro-blogging. Instead of taking the time to compose an entry like this one, Twitter worked on the principle that people just didn't always have time to compose lengthy entries and it would be more efficient to have them focus their thoughts into a limited number of characters. Integrate this with mobile phone services and you get a quick easy way to send out updates about your life.

Twitter was always meant as a wide-ranging broadcast service and didn't originally focus on direct one-on-one interaction - the whole convention of using the "@" symbol to "direct" messages at other users was an afterthought brought about by consistent behaviors of the users themselves. For me, Twitter always felt predominantly one-way and not so much as highly interactive and it did that job well. Of course when Twitter started experiencing its outages and lost IM functions, it felt like a lot of the convenience of the service was lost since they could no longer support all the user activity.

Plurk has a different concept presented in a highly playful manner. Whereas Twitter was highly focused on the broadcast (and accompanying Google indexing), Plurk's claim to fame can be found more in interactivity with other users especially with it's web interface built around visualizing your updates and allowing users to reply specifically to other updates and grouping them together.

Thus oftentimes, Plurk feels more like a chat room with a more visual presentation. I find that the niche that Plurk fulfills better addresses the chat / forum market since it makes the exchanging of comments and sharing of media easy and somewhat fun. Built around a supposed Karma system that acts as a carrot for users to update more and invite others to the service, it's highly social in nature and will probably work well in the weeks and months to come. The true test comes to how they handle a much larger userbase like Twitter does.

Thus I think that Plurk isn't really meant to replace Twitter, but it does serve another purpose and a completely different market. Both services are viable in their own right and have the potential to go fairly far. Given the recent progress Twitter has been making in addressing their service issues and bringing things back online, we may yet see a return of increased activity on the Twitter sphere again.