Elmot Lumot might not sound just like a problogger to somebody, but it sounds interesting enough – especially once you get to hop around his blogs.

With a number of blogs under his sleeve, you might end up wondering how he manages to find time updating all those blogs regularly. He writes for his socio-political blog at PinoySoundingBoard.com and still has the time to write for his online news blog over at animotivation.blogspot.com.

Of course, there’s his Filipino poetry blog at gaudenciodiaz.blogspot.com, and a blog to post cool videos that he occasionally finds at onlinevideohub.blogspot.com. For those who want the latest showbiz gossips, head on over to showbizrenegade.com, also maintained by this young blogger.

Yeah, that’s quite a lot.

Known in the blogosphere as Elmot Lumot, Gerson Garcia aka Gerald Anderson (don’t blame me for this – he actually wrote it down) was born in Malabon and eventually moved to her mother’s hometown in Bacolod City due to the frequent flooding in their place.

He graduated as the class valedictorian in elementary, and the ‘cutest in class’ from St. Joseph’s High School. (Again, Elmot wrote this so I cannot really be 100% sure of this cute remark…)

He then moved on to Accountancy in the University of St. La Salle in Bacolod. Then one day he saw a miracle in the sky – as if the voices were telling him to enter the seminary and become a priest. Well it turned out he was just hallucinating that time. There were no voices – just a grumbling hungry stomach.

He entered the La Salette Seminary in Silang, Cavite, and finished his collegiate studies. But he was kicked out after three years for being a renegade who seems to love voicing out his opinions.

The renegade Elmot started as a lurker around Bloggista.com and Bloggista.net, as well as Jaypeeonline.net. Around 2007, he then started Ani-Mo! under Blogspot which was pretty much a repository of just about anything he could think of.

He went back to revive his blog in 2009 when he had a ‘commenting contest’ with Jan Geronimo in JaypeeOnline.net. The two became good blogging friends, and his list of buddies through blogs just eventually grew.

Jaypee was then so generous to help him create a self-hosted Wordpress blog, so pinoysoundingboard.com was born.

He currently doesn’t have any exact blogging plans but he would certainly love to increase his blogs’ popularity, rankings, daily visits and active communities. And of course, to earn some damn cash!

When asked about some words that he would love to give to newbie and pro bloggers, he gave this:

Advice? Don’t be twitter noob, that is first. Second, if you want to be an uber blogger, more so a blogging magnate, read bloggista.com and hunt its elusive, secretive and chick-magnet author; and third, just blog man! You will not become a bloggista overnight, persistence, community and humor is the key.

Bloggista.com note: Would have wanted to edit this advice from Elmot, however it will be tantamount to censureship. So I just left it there as-is. LOL…

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Our 8th featured blogger is Bloggista’s stalker in my early days of blogging and at one time sent me a dangerous email and note “warning” me that he’s the cutest bloggista.com fan ever. He went on doing the thing he loves to do – giving politicians and public figures some nightmares with his razor-sharp ala ninja shuriken commentaries and opinions.

Now he’s moved on, showed everyone his writing prowess and realized that everything posted at bloggista.com is a waste of his time and have established his blog-dom well enough he’s getting more and more fans each day. Now I am a fan as well and is planning to run for President of his Elmot Lumot fans club. May god help us.  ^evil-grin^.

Bloggista Featured Blogger is a regular post special “showcasing” bloggers of different niches. If you want to suggest a blogger to be featured here, send me some details (see this post for info). We would be very glad to write a short article and publish it here.

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If you are a regular Bloggista.com follower, aside of course from the poorly written articles and total disregard of the correct use of the English language (can we vote to change the international language to Filipino? LOL), I always make sure that before I share something to my readers, I know it by heart and have tried it.

So now is the time to share to you another source of revenue stream for this blog and in my other websites.

If you are a regular “lurker” to this blog, you probably have noticed lately those double-underlined green links which pop a bubble containing some information related to the word or phrase when you hover your mouse.

These information bubbles contain “contextual ads” from Infolinks, a popular in-text advertising provider. I have been an Infolinks publisher for quiet sometime now. I saw it on my blogging friends’ sites, so I immediately signed up.

The sign-up process was quick indeed. But I did not care to spend even a little time activating it on this blog.

It took a comment from a dude named Oren Cohen on my Christmas 2009 Message post for me to take action and try installing Infolinks on Bloggista.com (later I found out that Oren Cohen is the Director for Strategic Alliances at Infolinks).

And I am so glad I did! After installing the tiny piece of codes, those weird-looking double-underlined green hyperlinks started to appear a few hours later. Actually, there is an option to change it to just single underline, and make it red or blue or brown -- but I preferred the color green, they looked cool to the eyes.

Seeing those hyperlinks in the posts really catch some worthwhile attention -- just like that picture of a man with a toilet bowl on his head at ThirdWorldGeek’s blog. This is probably one of the reasons why Infolinks is becoming the highest paying In-text advertising solution provider to many website/blogs owners.

I responded to Oren in his comment that I will try it for a month and see how it performs. And indeed it performed very well. The revenue even rivals that of Google Adsense, and in many occasions, even exceeding expectations.

In less than a month, my revenue on Bloggista.com in terms of “contextual ads” served doubled.

So if you are looking for additional revenue stream on your blog that works, you can try Infolinks as well. They pay monthly if you reach the minimum US$100 revenue each month. They pay via Paypal, or by check.

Oh, by the way, I am expecting my first Infolinks payment on the 15th of February, 2010. Hehe.

Want to know more about the Infolinks bubble? Check out the following wacky video compiled from different Infolinks publishers like me (too bad, I am camera shy so I did not sent them mine.)

Well, this week, Bill Gates was just like the most of us – rejoined Facebook (well, you can be a fan of his Facebook Page), opened an account in Twitter, and, yes, launched his personal website.

Bloggista’s “Website in Focus” this week is  The Gates Notes – Bill Gate’s website which he will use to let people know what’s going on in his world.

The Gates Notes website pops up a welcome message which read:

“Since leaving my full-time job at Microsoft to dedicate more time to our foundation, a lot of people have asked me what I’m working on,” wrote Gates as a welcome message on his new site. “It often feels like I’m back in school, as I spend a lot of my time learning about issues I’m passionate about.

I’m fortunate because the people I’m working with and learning from are true experts in their fields. I take a lot of notes, and often share them and my own thoughts on the subject with others through email, so I can learn from them and expand the conversation.

I thought it would be interesting to share these conversations more widely with a Website, in the hope of getting more people thinking and learning about the issues I think are interesting and important.”

Bill Gates used his Twitter account to spread the word about his new website. The day after he joined Twitter, he sent a tweet “My new website is live check out www.thegatesnotes.com. Excited to share more about what I’m learning, hope you like it!

I immediately checked the site, and indeed it was new – with no Alexa Rank whatsoever (this is one of the tools used  in measuring a website’s traffic and popularity. The lower the Alexa rank number, the popular is a site. Google has an Alexa rank of 1).

Now here’s the part where every common mortal blogger would envy Bill – in just two days, The Gates Notes broke the 1 million Alexa barrier (from 28 million or no Alexa Rank the previous day. After 4 days, the Alexa traffic rank is below 300K and is close to breaking the 100K Alexa rank barrier – a dream rank of every blogger on earth, I suppose.

On January 19, 2010, twitland got this tweet - “Hello World.” Hard at work on my foundation letter – publishing on 1/25. And it was from an account twitter.com/billgates.

Succeeding tweets were all about the aid and fund-raising campaign for Haiti, starting from a retweet of Ryan Seacrest’s tweet on a fund campaign with CNN the previous night. Then Ryan Seacrest twitted – “It’s official, Bill Gates is on Twitter.”

This is where Bloggista learned about Bill Gate’s twitter account so after checking on it – only 2 hours from joining, he already amassed more than 30,000 followers. And I was one of them. Refreshing it every 5 seconds, more than a thousand more have followed him. 4 days later Bill Gates already have 313,000 followers and still growing…

Bill Gates shares on The Gates Notes the things he and wife Melinda do with their Gates Foundation. He also discusses his thoughts on various topics like Climate Change, Social Issues, Technology, Agriculture, Education, Development, Energy and Global Health.

Certainly, Bill Gate’s personal website and his use of Social Media will let him connect with the rest of the earthlings and seems there’s still a lot to learn even if you’re the top tech guy and rich man in the universe. As what he said in his tweet -

“Thanks to you and all the other people who have welcomed me. I’ve got a lot to learn about Twitter but look forward to sharing more.”

Now, this lesser mortal blogger is on Twitter and has a Facebook fan page too. Add me up, why not? LOL…

Happy Sinulog

This happens in Cebu City every 3rd Sunday of January. The following video perfectly describes the Sinulog in many ways -- it’s history, the beat, the dancing and the events.

You may also check this article, Viva Pit Senor: The Cebu Sinulog Festival for more info like Sinulog photos and more Sinulog beats.

VIVA PIT SENOR!

Image credit: Sinulog.Ph

But only the worthy gets to stay, such as Techathand.net, basically because readers find their articles and blog posts to be continually helpful and informational, as opposed to others who get too wound up in the SEO race.

Techathand.net is your one-stop website for SEO stuff, gadgets, technology and various blogging tips and stories from his personal experiences. Written and maintained by Dexter Panganiban, you would surely be surprised to know that he is actually a Mechanical Engineer who worked in Saudi Arabia.

He began blogging some three years ago when he was looking for some good gadgets. His search brought him to some blogs, with posts about their income from blogging. He eventually went on to read about it, amazed by the possibility of having some kind of income from the Internet. He began commenting in other blogs, and the rest is history.

TechAtHand.net was a winner of the Professional Blog Category from the Digital Filipino Web Awards, and has received a number of mentions in other blogs. However, he does not consider that his blog already boomed as he still has some goals to do.

Dexter has a number of blogs, although TechAtHand.net and his personal blog DexterPanganiban.com are the two blogs which he actively updates. His personal blog holds a lot of personal posts that further show Dexter’s love for his family, and for his Christian faith.

Says Dexter -

As what I always tell to other new bloggers, don’t just focus on earnings or else your blogging career will not last. Be friendly, and politely ask others for tips.

I always believe that no one is an island and therefore collaboration is an important part of the blogosphere. Always respond to questions and comments thrown in your blog.

Check your analytics and know how you could improve.

Dexter loves experimenting on his sites, improving page ranks and optimizing it for search engines.

So we guess we’d be reading more great posts on SEO and blogging from this multi-talented Mechanical Engineer.

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If you’re a Pinoy Blogger you will surely recognize his face – from entrecard, blogcatalog, mybloglog and facebook, Dexter’s avatar has become an icon in the Filipino blogging community. Dexter of TechatHand.net is one of Bloggista’s early “mentor” when it comes to SEO and blogging. He is Bloggista’s seventh featured blogger.

Bloggista Featured Blogger is a weekly post special “showcasing” bloggers of different niches. If you want to suggest a blogger to be featured here, send me some details (see this post for info). We would be very glad to write a short article and publish it here.

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Mafia Wars

This was announced early in December 2009, when Mafia Wars gamers began collecting 3 loot items which are required in getting a Thai Passport and travel to Bangkok once it is available.

These 3 loot items were found in New York  job tier and are as follows:

1. Triad Coin – found in Asian Museum Break-in – Soldier tier
2. Yakuza Sake – found in Repel the Yakuza – Hitman tier
3. Thai Note – found in Smuggle Thai Gems – Enforcer-  tier

Mafia Wars Bangkok Inventory Items

Also, the Zynga Forum posted the Weapons, Armors and Vehicles inventory items (which were later deleted). The following were the inventory items that were supposed to be looted/purchased when Mafia Wars Bangkok is released.

There is no guarantee, however that these items are accurate, as Zynga, the developer of Mafia Wars and other popular Facebook games like Zynga Poker, YoVille and Farmville, may change them.

Mafia Wars Bangkok Weapons

Attack Cobra, Komodo Dragon, Bullhook, Bo Staff, Jade Inlaid Pistol, Forest Scorpion, Hung Fa RPG, Harpoon Cannon, Cleaver, Tanto, Type-103 Machine Gun, Scalding Hot Tea, TAR-21, Raion Assault Rifle, Typhoon Cleavers, Chinese Army Knife, Chinese Army Pistol, Thai Sword, Chinese Army Assault Rifle, Cheng-Wei X94 Machine Gun

Mafia Wars Bangkok Armors

Muai Thai Bodyguard, Silk Scarf, Monk’s Robe, Royal Thai Army Beret, Shaolin Bodyguard, Optical Camo Suit, Ronin Armor, Tiger Sak Yant, Kowloon Police Uniform, Silk PJs, Wrist Wraps, Khen Shield, Royal Thai Army Helmet, Tabi, Yakuza Assassin

Mafia Wars Bangkok Vehicles

Tuk Tuk, Riding Elephant, Royal Thai Army Jeep, Royal Thai Police Tank, Dirt Bike, Lloyds Spectre, Bosozoku Convertible, Seua Daao Sub, Kage Jet, Armored War Elephant, Fugama Kame SUV, Moped, Long Boat, Thai Compact, Japanese Sedan, Junk, Fugama Hasu (Lotus), PLA Armored Car, Malay Mobil Helang

Mafia Wars Bangkok Factions: Triad and Yakuza

Just like in Mafia Wars Moscow Episode where players get to choose between two factions, Thieves in Law Vory or Russian Mafiya, Mafia Wars Bangkok also lets players choose between two factions, the Triad (Chinese Gang) or the Yakuza (Japanese Gang).

As posted in its in-game announcement:

For decades, the Japanese Yakuza and Chinese Triads have battled for control over the lucrative criminal markets of Thailand. As a newcomer, you’ll need to choose a side to succeed in Bangkok. This isn’t a one-way relationship, though – as you increase your standing with your chosen faction, you’ll also earn access to additional items to fill out your arsenal.

Mafia Wars Bangkok scheduled release date

It was initially believed that Mafia Wars Bangkok will be released in December 2009, however recent announcement in the Mafia Wars Official blog said that it will be released in mid January, 2010.

So better get those Thai loot items ready to get your Thai Passport as soon as Mafia Wars Bangkok is available. Now, which faction will you choose?

Zorlone, or Lorenz as known to other friends in the blogosphere, is actually a doctor who has a passion for writing. This doctor apparently loves to write fiction and poetry, as reflected in his blog.

The young doctor/writer/blogger got his medical degree from the University of Santo Tomas. He currently has a small clinic somewhere in Balintawak, Quezon City. On the other hand, this does not stop him from writing daily doses of literature pieces in his blog, as well as joining the recent NaNoWriMo 2009 where he managed to finish a 50,000-word (or even more) novel in just 28 days.

Zorlone, also known as Doc Z, has started to blog around February of 2009, which makes him fairly new around this fiction and poetry niche. However, he has certainly proven that time does not hinder him from being a successful and known blogger with beautiful pieces of literature.

Doc Z went onto blogging because of a certain meeting with Jena Isle in an online forum. From that day on, JenaIsle helped him, and he moved on to writing his own blog which definitely improved his literary skills.

Of course, who wouldn’t remember Doc Z’s guest post here (http://www.pinoysoundingboard.com/2009/11/pinoy-big-brother-double-up-housemates-bare-essentials-with-doctor-z/) when he happily and willingly wrote about this season’s Pinoy Big Brother’s Housemates? Yes, this talented doctor is the one who has checked the health situations of the much-loved (or hated, if you insist) housemates in that popular blue-and-yellow house around Quezon City.

He still considers himself as a newbie in the blogosphere, although he considers meeting people online and attending blog events a great factor to promoting his blog. He says that he knows his niche is not quite popular, but it’s what introduced him to the blogosphere.  We say that his blog contains lots of must-read pieces in its niche.

Aside from Zorlone.com, he also has 140flashfiction.com where he writes stories and blog posts containing 140 words. Surely, this man can tell a fancy and interesting stuff in just 140 words.

I always think that the words we leave online are immortal. It also reflects who we are in real life. We can only hide in our Avatars for a time, but our true colors would be clear as daylight once we translate our thoughts in words in our posts, comments, and everything else we do in cyberspace. – Doc Z

And we’re sure that a lot of people feel the same way, too.

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Our sixth featured blogger is Bloggista’s idol when it comes to “luring” women and girls with powerful poetry and 140-word proses and verses (mostly romantically action-packed fiction stories). Doc Z is also the reason why we would stretch some beer-drinking sessions to early mornings and several more buckets – we have a ready, on-site internist to rescue us just in case. ^evil-grin^.

Bloggista Featured Blogger is a weekly post special “showcasing” bloggers of different niches. If you want to suggest a blogger to be featured here, send me some details (see this post for info). We would be very glad to write a short article and publish it here.

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It was good – everything was good in God’s eyes. God was pleased. Then he created beings in His likeness. He gave them freewill – freedom.

The same freedom which brought sin and suffering and death. A brother killed the other only brother. Then came Noah and the great flood, cleansing the world. But people just don’t change. Came Sodom and Gomorrah, then rulers, government, corruption and greed.

God did not give up. He sent wise men and prophets: Moses, Jesus Christ, the Great Muhammad, perhaps even the Great Buddha to lead humanity to the right path.

Despite all that, men just can’t change. Came the Dark Ages, the horrible Wars, ethnic cleansing, 9/11 and terrorism. Even Mother Nature was not spared. At the rate things are going – mankind is doomed.

Then pffft! Man invented technology, and the internet – which gave birth to an alternate world – the Blogosphere. In the beginning, it was good. Then it became great.

Mankind was pleased. Social Media even made it better. People are sharing, people are talking, people are creating online communities.

Blogging is powerful – it can move people to act, it can inspire people to help. Take the case of Ondoy. It was a showcase how blogging can be so powerful to reach people and fire their ‘innate’ goodness and charity.

It can provide an avenue to earn. It empowers stay-at-home-moms, it reveals an ordinary person’s skills and talents.

However, it can also be dangerous – scammers found a new home, thefts stole other people’s contents. Greediness, bickering, and people with superiority complex abound.

It can be used to sensationalize events. It can destroy people, reputations, businesses, establishments and families.

Which led me to thinking and to ask – are we humans doomed to fail? We were given a chance to create a perfect and harmonious ‘alternate’ world – but people are slowly destroying it.

But there is still a chance, there is still hope – can bloggers change the world?

Happy New Year everyone!

This year has been so fruitful for Bloggista.com, although there was a big reduction in blogging time and posts, but the website network and domains have grown 300%.

Almost two years ago, in January 2008, I made an investment – USD10.00 for bloggista.com domain and 60USD hosting, but since then, that investment have given me more than a thousand percent ROI.

My quests to make money online even as a newbie have yielded fruitful results. Although not as impressive as what others probably have made, those were significant achievements to me.

For one, adsense is regularly sending money (every month), there’s Chitika, Infolinks, and marketing programs like GDI and SFI are going strong and promising.

Two years ago I had no idea making money online was possible. I wasted so much time playing online games, DOTA, chatting on YM, friendster, myspace and other stuffs.

I’m just so glad I came across the GDI program which opened my life to a new world in passive income earning. Yes, making money online is one good passive income option, but it’s not as easy as what others may tell you.

You need to put a huge amount of effort and dedication, passion and commitment to what you are doing. You need to socialize with like-minded people, learn their ways and learn new things.

You need to be able to quickly recognize your mistakes, and do things better next time.

Making money online is possible – but only for those who believe in it, and have the heart and the will to pursue it.

Next year will be another great year especially for Bloggista.com, as new ideas and strategies will be put in place – check out for it.

Also, to celebrate Bloggista.com’s 2nd year “anniversary” on January 10, 2009, special ’simple’ gifts and surprises will be given away to lucky visitors and friends who always visit this site. Also watch out for it. I’m just finalizing the prizes and donors like ThirdWorldGeek and Ceblogger. Other interested to sponsor may contact me.

Again, thank you and GOD bless us all!

A self-confessed tech geek, he has been a technology enthusiast since he was a kid. A usual pastime for him would be tweaking his computer and playing games.

Michael is currently working for an IT company as a software development manager in Australia. On the other hand, his work did not stop him from maintaining his two blogs with passion.

His first blog which is now moved to a new domain called CravingTech started as a forum blog post way back in 2007 when he wrote about a review of his new phone, the HTC P3600i. When he got positive feedback, that’s when he became more passionate as a blogger to share more of such information.

He blogs about technology, as the blog’s name suggest, as well as some site analytics, gadget reviews and blogging tips. After the Nuffnang Blog Awards 2009, he decided that blogging is the real deal when it comes to earning money and be recognized. His blog enjoys a steady good amount of traffic, mostly from the search engines, which is a good measure of a site with great contents and search engine optimized.

Michael is thankful that he gets recognition from other great bloggers, as well as the big hardware & software vendors every now and then.

His other blog, WriteForGod, is where he shares a lot of Christian resources to feed the spirit. Michael, a member of the Emmanuel Baptist Church and a Christian since 2002, hopes to inspire and help other people through this blog – and we think he does a great job.

He surely shares, and will continue to share, a lot of other useful tech blogs and articles to help other techie geeks out there. As Michael puts it -

“Never give up, blog with passion, and always do more than others. You are what you are; don’t try to be like others. You have your own ‘charm!’”

And we guess we certainly have been caught with the charm of that passionate, techie blogger from the Aussie.

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Our fifth featured blogger is one of Bloggista’s first ever online blogging buddies when it comes to SEO and online social networking activities to drive readers and traffic to our blogs. We are both connected on entrecard, digg, reddit, stumbleupon and other networks and have both tried stuffs like beer credits, project wonderful, blog hopping and commenting campaigns. Michael Reza Aulia hails from Melbourne, Australia.

Bloggista Featured Blogger is a weekly post special “showcasing” bloggers of different niches. If you want to suggest a blogger to be featured here, send me some details (see this post for info). We would be very glad to write a short article and publish it here.

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