The Power of Pen Food Writing Forum Visayas Tour Speakers

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Food has gone out of the confines of the kitchen. For many years now, its emergence in art has influenced our experience with cookery. Aside from the act of preparing a dish; our contemporary culture has opened to many other subjects of interest such as food blogging, food styling, and food writing in general.

In fact, the vast surfacing of blogs and social media platforms have instituted food blogging as a career path for those who would like to establish themselves in the culinary world.

Food writing and critiquing however are not merely made of personal commentaries of one’s experience of a specific dish or restaurant. Its arising demand for discourse and discussion have initiated The Power of Pen, a food writing forum workshop that aims to instruct both amateur and professional writers and culinary practitioners as to how they should utilize writing in their chosen fields of either exploration or expertise.

 On its 5th year, The Power of Pen is touring Visayas with the University of Cebu as its co-­‐presentor and official venue. The forum will be studded by highly commendable personalities from our culinary and cultural threshold from chefs and restaurateurs to authors and publishers.

Sharon Cuneta Rants About Slow Wi-Fi (Internet), Netizens React Harshly

Wazzup PIlipinas!

Sharon Cuneta, like most everyone else, posted on Facebook her frustration about the slow "Wi-Fi" of which she is most probably referring to her Internet connection.

She is not alone on that particular fact since it is actually a nationwide dilemma where people have been complaining to the telco companies providing Internet services that are rather slow compared to the rest of the world. Several studies have shown that we have relatively one of the slowest, if not the slowest, Internet aside from being very expensive.

But netizens reacted to Sharon Cuneta's post and proceeded to blame mostly her husband, Kiko Pangilinan whom they say had several years as a Senator but was powerless to do anything about it.

"I cannot believe (or take) how super SLOW wi-fi still is in the Philippines. How can I expect my country to progress a little faster if it doesn't even have the very basics necessary in this new techie world we move in? So beyond frustrating. Imagine if something like a document was very, very urgent, bound to affect a whole bunch of people, and you couldn't get it across because e-mail (or something as simple as a video upload) just wouldn't fly? Oh, please Lord, let them fix this never-ending problem. It's bad enough that we have to deal with the traffic situation and would rather stay home. Now we can't even expect to get things done ASAP sitting on our butts. Grrrrr!" - Sharon Cuneta

Globe Telecom Acquires New Way to Market Your Brand Via Video Push Notifications

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Globe Telecom, through its Digital Ventures division and subsidiary company AdSpark, recently announced its partnership with Incoming Media for its mediaphoneX solution to power video notifications within selected mobile applications. First to integrate are SEATS, the restaurant booking app, and Mynt, the financial services app.

“The Philippines is one of the most dynamic mobile and digital countries in the world, and Globe and the AdSpark team are the perfect partners to take us into this market. We are excited about their level of innovation and hope to take what we learn in the Philippines to other markets in the Asia Pacific region.” said Mark Adams, CEO of Incoming Media.

Incoming Media is the leading mobile video engagement and advertising platform for brands and operators. The mediaphoneX solution uses predictive data analytics and intelligent content pre-loading to enable the creation of personalized, flawless mobile video experiences. Through the use of on-device, energy-efficient machine learning and context-based predictive data analytics, the Incoming platform learns and understands how each viewer consumes video on their device.

Alongside AdSpark, a Globe subsidiary that is data driven mobile first and digital marketing agency that delivers highly profiled campaigns depending on the need of its clients may it be location based or customized to consumers’ spending behavior, interests and others, have acquired mediaphoneX which is being used by SEATS, a multi-channel restaurant reservation platform that is available on both web and mobile.

SEATS aims to enhance the dining experience by providing diners an easy way to make table reservations 24/7 right on the mobile phone and by providing restaurants with the right tools to manage reservations more efficiently, improve in-house productivity and overall, provide their customers with better service. SEATS provides free, instant and guaranteed reservations at the top restaurants in the metro.

“Globe chose to partner with Incoming based on their unique technology. Their team has spent many years developing a mobile video notification that puts a quality user experience at the center of their solution. We are looking forward to seeing an increase in engagement and additional monetization opportunities for both SEATS and MYNT, and other applications to come.” said Glenn Estrella, Vice President of Globe Telecom’s Digital Ventures and President of AdSpark.

“Globe is always out looking for new innovations to help businesses flourish. Through this new acquisition of mediaphoneX, we have redefined push notifications from as simple as SMS to videos that direct you to the website,” Estrella stressed.

This video push notification technology is available through AdSpark and is currently being offered to Globe Telecom clients.