Digital Trends

Digital and mobile advertising revenues are projected to grow to more than 150 billion dollars by 2011, a 12-fold growth from 2002. Wireless subscriptions continue to grow, from 1.1 billion in 2002 to a projected 3.4 billion in 2011, an expansion of more than three-fold. Broadband is expected to grow from 51.38 million households world-wide in 2002 to nearly 540 million households in 2011, a growth of more than ten-fold. The mobile customer base has grown from 945 million in 2001 to 2.6 billion in 2006.

Young Newspaper Readers

A survey of 3,500 teenagers in the US, Netherlands and Finland showed:
found that:

- Young people are interested in news and see the value of being informed.

- Loyal newspaper readers are more informed, engaged and connected to
community than non-readers.

- Parents (especially mothers) and teachers have successfully influenced
young people to become newspaper readers. ­ Peers are not influential.

- Newspapers must start earlier to establish how the brand of news
emanating from newspapers is different from and superior to other media
options. This strategy should be multi-platform, accentuating content, not
format.

- Young people leaving home provides an important opportunity for
newspapers. The study shows a significant drop in readership at this
life-stage at a time when interest in news is peaking.

- Newspaper editorial content, in general, is disconnected from youth
interests -- and when it is about youth, it is mostly negative. Music and
film top the list of interests while politics ranked in the lower than 30th.

- Social networks can be allies of newspapers, not the enemy. Social network
users are more supportive of all media generally, but also show a higher
increase of support for newspapers than non users.

The Youth and their New Fatigue

All these stories happening all at the same time. Not new. But if you have access to all of these news all the time. Bad news. Young adults are now suffering from news fatigue. To offset this, AP in their website is doing the "1-2-3 filing," where 1 is "starting with a news alert headline for breaking news, followed by a short present-tense story that is usable on the Web and by broadcasters. The third step is to add details and format stories in ways most appropriate for various news platforms."

20,000 workers walk out of Nike contract factory in Vietnam

This is the AP headline. It got me thinking: Shouldn't they be running? Or they don't get free Nike that's why they were walking out?
But this other headline riled me:

China braces for 'suicide attacks' by Tibetan forces

Ha ha ha. The puny Chinese afraid of the Tibetan "terrorists" that they resorted to equating Muslim fundamentalists to "phony" claims like this. Mga buwisit!!!

How to Kill a Country

Atlantic Monthly just came out with an article on how to kill a country. Samantha Power gave ten ways. Check how PGMA is faring in this dreadful checklist.

Not Really Victims of Globalization

A review of the Sex at the Margins: Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry by Laura María Agustín Zed Books, 224pp, £16.99, said:
Most migrant women, including those who end up in the sex industry, have made a clear decision to leave home and take their chances overseas. They are not "passive victims" who must be "saved" by anti-trafficking campaigners and returned to their country of origin. Rather, frequently, they are headstrong and ambitious women who migrate in order to escape "small-town prejudices, dead-end jobs, dangerous streets and suffocating families". Shocking as it might seem to the feminist social workers, caring police people and campaigning journalists who make up what Agustín refers to as the "rescue industry", she has discovered that some poor migrant women "like the idea of being found beautiful or exotic abroad, exciting desire in others".
Let the debates begin.

Gas Price Around the World

As Nash would say in the next blog (Hey, I'm in San Juan. Don't disturb), look at Venezuela. Maybe Hugo is doing something right.

Bayan USA Guide to the US Elections

Look for it at the comment

Columbus Introduced Syphilis

Well, he didn't get it from the Philippines but I'm sure the blame game switched directions this time. Scientific American is now saying Columbus, or maybe his men, introduced syphilis in their return in 1493 to Europe. The first recorded case was in 1495. So the basic theory is that syphilis came from the New World, which is, sing it Lea Salonga, the South or now the Third World or the developing world.

Researchers from Emory University in Atlanta report in the online journal PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases that they used phylogenetics—the study of the evolutionary link between organisms—to study 26 geographically scattered strains of a family of bacteria known as Treponemes, which are behind the sexually transmitted disease syphilis as well as related nonvenereal infections such as yaws. They found that the venereal syphilis-causing strains arose relatively recently in humans and are closely related to an ancient infection isolated in South America that gives rise to yaws.

As Anthony Hopkins said in Dracula, civilization is always followed by syphilization. We gave their VDs and their nights were never the same again.
Yes, dearie. It's not only potatoes which we gifted you.

Filipino Monkey (Via Nash)

2007: The Stories We Forgot to Tell You

How weird was it? Shilpa Shetty, Bollywood star, victim of racism during the Celebrity Big Brother in UK eventually won. A Cambodian girl last seen tending their carabao was found 19 years later after living in the jungle. Anna Nicole Smith died and lovers and pretenders started fighting for her $1 B estate. A collosal squid weighing almost half a ton was fished off the coast of New Zealand and later in Germany, a giant scorpion claw was fished. 33 Virginia Tech students and teachers shot to death by a lonely South Korean. Kryptonite composed of sodium, lithium, boron, silicate and hydroxide discovered. Superman can not be found. In Sudan, a man was forced to marry a goat but Rose the goat later died. I will not discuss the cause of death. A pet camel killed an Australian woman. In August, the Perseid showers commenced. Again in Sudan, a UK teacher was freed over the hoopla of the teddy bear named Mohammad. After lording it out in the 1990s, Netscape Navigator is finally saying goodbye.

Christmas Readings

New Yorker in their Dec. 24 issue returned to Raymond Carver. Rough Crossings is about Carver and his "carver", the legendary editor Gordon Lish. The essay talked about how Lish shaped Carver's distinct style. As an example, New Yorker gave us "Beginnings" by Carver and how it was edited by Lish. For the journalists, here's a short essay about journalism and globalization.

Trading in Bones

I am writing about three outsourcing where India excels and Philippines should take advantage. Trading bones is one of them. Hey, Hey, PGMA, how many journalists did you kill today? Just checking.