"Menu, please."

At a time when almost everything's made available online and everyone has the means to make their products and services available - or at least, accessible - online, it's really become frustrating to find websites that practically don't tell you anything, or to find that some services or establishments don't even have web pages. That online marketing is powerful is a concept that has been thrown around almost to the point of becoming a cliché. Small business owners and entrepreneurs all over the world have been taking advantage of this wonderful tool for years now, and yet, we still come across these indicators of stubbornness and, perhaps, misinformation.

Sometimes, it's really only just a matter of having enough information online to help people make even the most mundane of decisions – like where to have dinner. Whether you've been operating for 59 years selling your secret flavor recipe of 11 herbs and spices or you're a new kid on the block or you've got a hole-in-the-wall joint with dreams of making it big someday, your customers would certainly appreciate finding online your menu, your [updated!] price list, the location of your other branches, your contact details, promotions, opportunities to make reservations – things that people don't want to have to call you up for actually go to your place for.

The Oatmeal seems to agree.
[SOURCE]

And when you're up against two other joints in the area who also happen to sell your same specialties, not having your own web page can often be the deal breaker.

Putting up a website or setting up a social network account [Facebook!] has become increasingly easy and cheap. Jumping on this bandwagon will certainly bring in the money and will seriously cause fewer headaches.

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#2 - Somayyah Abdullah
[Previous post: #1]

Government 2.0

initiating a paradigm shift from within

Print media is dying in the western world. The calling card, the scrapbook, and the diary have evolved; they’re now collectively known as Facebook. Politics and big business have started to tweet. The word 'tweet' itself, like 'google' of yesteryears, is in the process of becoming part of this generation’s lingua franca. We’re seeing a titanic shift in the way information is being shared. And the government of this Republic, based on the numbers below, should either adjust accordingly or lie forever trapped in it’s self-made quagmire of technological anachronism.

Most of our government websites today use technology that was considered state of the art in the late nineties. Considering that we’re still using boats and planes from WWII, this is not very surprising. Unlike these multi-million dollar acquisitions however, developing and improving our online assets is a much cheaper endeavor, produces immediate results, and, when properly utilized, can be more effective in delivering government services to perhaps 11.4 million RP citizens on Facebook alone. Note that this online Filipino demographic is, in all probability, the same community that actually pays for everything that government does anyway.

Big business has already taken its initial steps in engaging consumers via web services and social media. Bringing government into the picture should not be difficult considering that it already has a willing and ready audience. Imagine the BIR answering questions in Facebook regarding the process of paying capital gains tax. Imagine the Province of Palawan doling out cheap promos for both foreign and local tourists on Twitter. Imagine avoiding EDSA traffic via a Google-MMDA partnership that provides real-time updates of the metropolis in transit. Imagine filling up a government form online and this being processed so that all you have to do when you get to the agency’s office is pay and sign for the transaction.

The possibilities are endless. The costs, relatively negligible. The efficiency and time saved, unmatched. The will and the initiative to jumpstart a paradigm shift that will eventually modernize the bureaucracy? Maybe after we buy another chopper. A newer one, of course. One that saw action during the Vietnam war.

Imitating Style Websites: Another Local Fashion Faux Pas

There’s just something about the Philippine fashion industry that bothers me so much I don’t believe we have a fashion industry: it’s the sheer lack of originality. Yes there’s the fact that it’s usually uninspired and repetitive, but I, with awesome passion, just hate the imitation!

Apparently, this undesirable trend has gone into other aspects of the industry.

While looking for research materials for my SLR on fashion and patents, I came across what claimed to be a resource for Philippine fashion. I initially thought I just clicked a wrong link to one of my favorite websites online, or its sister website. But no, lo and behold, turns out I was looking at a local “fashion” magazine’s website! What I initially thought was style.com, then men.style.com, turned out to be a really, really bad imitation! How wrong is that?

You see, the new trend in major fashion corporations is to keep an online resource or equivalent for the major fashion magazines. Condé Nast Publications is one such corporation essential in the fashion industry, only because they publish what is the biggest fashion magazine, in fact what some recognize as the only fashion magazine, in the world: Vogue. They also publish the other must-read’s (or must-stare-at’s) for the style savvy such as Vanity Fair, GQ,

and Details. As the forerunner in the industry, they realize the importance of keeping an online presence, so they then published style.com and its male equivalent, men.style.com.

And soon everyone followed suit. Clearly some websites went beyond taking inspiration from style.com, and so went for a similar lay-out, similar contents, and hey, a similar name! Actually, it’s not just a similar name, but a popular moniker for Vogue across the world!

The imitation has to stop at some point. I mean as if it’s not enough that clothes are copied, magazines are duplicated but with different names and models, and now, even the websites.

The Imitator however, can rejoice in the fact that the Original is totally oblivious to her existence.

(I originally wrote the name of the local magazine and the website, but that may be fertile ground for a libel suit.) ;-)