Thousands of Filipino gamers will converge again at the World Trade Center for the biggest online gaming event in the Philippines. And of course the Multimedia team and I will be there to once more to live blog and live-stream the event.

Check out our new live blog page at http://liveblog.levelupgames.ph

Here’s a screenshot from the Level Up! Flickr page.

Not only, but we’re also going to providing social media coverage of LU! Live 2009 — and you can be part of it!

If you’re on Twitter, please place the hashtag #live2009 on all your LU! Live 2009-related tweets. For instance, maybe you want to plug your guild’s booth at LU! City.

You may also add the tag LIVE2009 on your blog posts, photos (for instance, if you’re uploading LU! Live 2009-related pictures to your Flickr accounts), and videos to share your Level Up! Live 2009-related content and make it easier for other Internet users to find them. We’ll also be able to send more people to your site because we’ll be showcasing posts with the LIVE2009 tag during the LU! Live 2009 live blog and on the Level Up! Portal after the event.

For more details, check out my Level Up! blog post.

See you at the World Trade Center on Nov. 7 and 8!

Here’s an excerpt.

I stumbled upon this brilliant presentation by David Gillespie, thanks to Misty Belardo’s tweet, and I just wanted to share it with you and give my own views about it.

Be warned, though, it has 263 slides, but it’s worth going through the whole presentation and digesting all this food for thought.

Read the full story.

People who may have been excited to play with Google Wave but who, like me, would appreciate a user guide, will be happy to know that The Complete Guide to Google Wave is now available for free online.

Google Wave is supposed to free us from our preconceived notions about communicating and collaborating with people online, but these may be difficult to shake off since we’re all used to e-mail. It’s supposed to give us the freedom we need to use it as a tool in different ways, but let’s be honest, sometimes we want someone to teach us how to float first instead of just pushing us into the deep end of the pool. After all, as the guide notes, Google Wave is “notoriously difficult to understand“.

Read the full story.

Then follow Level Up!’s social media coverage of RWC 2009.

Here’s an excerpt from my Level Up! blog post.

To get updates on the RWC 2009 results, become a fan of the official Level Up! Page on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/levelupinc

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Good luck to Team Philippines!

Here’s an excerpt from my latest CNET Asia blog post.

Reading fellow CNET Asia blogger Lim Sheng Ming’s requiem to GeoCities got me all nostalgic, because like I commented on his post, I created my very first Web site on GeoCities in 1998.

I haven’t seen that site in years, but it turns out that Darkspiral’s Babel Machine is preserved on Archive.org. Man, this dates me, hehe, but let me tell you, nothing compares with the geeky joy of creating a Web site for the first time. I decided to devote that first site to promoting science fiction and fantasy writing in the Philippines.

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Attesting to how social media can be effectively tapped for the tourism industry, the Ultimate Thailand Explorers competition sees Internet-savvy travelers vying for the chance to explore five of the country’s top holiday destinations: Bangkok, Phuket, Pattaya, Chiang Mai, and Koh Samui.

Making it to the semifinals for Koh Samui are Filipino newlyweds Michael Paul and Jennifer of Zamboanga City, Philippines. You can vote for Michael Paul and Jennifer here after registering at the Ultimate Thailand Explorers site.

By voting, you won’t just be helping your favorite team, but you’ll also get the chance to be one of two lucky voters who will each receive $2,500 price packages.

Read the full story.

Here’s an excerpt from my CNET Asia blog post.

At 8:30 pm PT (11:30 am today in the Philippines and Singapore), join thousands of fans around the world who will watch U2’s Rose Bowl concert for free via the live video stream on YouTube.

This isn’t the first time YouTube is live streaming an event, but with the expected success of a concert of this magnitude by a band of U2’s stature, I’m hoping that YouTube will leverage on its dominance of the online video space to make live streaming a permanent fixture on the site.

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For the better part of Friday, the Philippine online community was buzzing over a blog post on EllaGanda.com lamenting the Department of Social Welfare and Development’s handling of  relief goods donated to typhoon victims. The blog post showed photos of “relief goods rotting in DSWD warehouses”, allegedly still undelivered to victims due to the agency’s lack of manpower.

When the blog became inaccessible, other sites such as Jenni Epperson’s Mabuhaygirl.multiply.com and Gang Badoy’s abashet: what a glorious time to be free reposted the original entry and photos. Filipino Internet users spread the word via social networks and microblogs such as Twitter, Facebook and Plurk, even making DSWD one of the top Trending Topics on Twitter for a time.

Read the full story.

Here’s an excerpt from my CNET Asia blog post.

While blogging this, I’m watching the award-winning documentary Squatterpunk directed by Khavn De La Cruz of the Philippines. Squatterpunk, which takes a look at the punk lifestyles of young garbage scavengers in the slums of Manila, is just one of 500 acclaimed and culturally significant films, shorts and documentaries from Asian directors in the online library of AsiaPacificFilms.com.

Apart from the Philippines, the other countries represented include China, India, South Korea, Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia, Japan, Sri Lanka, Iran, and more. To introduce the new site, AsiaPacificFilms.com is offering unlimited access in a free trial until November 1, after which the subscription rate will be US$8.99 a month for unlimited access.

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Here’s an excerpt.

An online petition is now circulating among Filipino Internet users, urging the management of the Philippine Basketball Association team Burger King to donate the lost income of its suspended player, Wynne Arboleda, to the victims of the recent typhoons in the Philippines.

Arboleda has been suspended for the rest of the season in the country’s premiere professional basketball league for attacking a fan who was heckling him. The suspension without pay means 2.73 million Philippine pesos (around 81,540 Singapore dollars) in lost income for the Burger King player.

Read the full story.