Filipino Takes Over US PC Blog

The relentless Filipino takeover of the blogosphere continues. Last month, Abe Olandres and J. Angelo Racoma took over The Blog Herald while Kevin Codamon took over PC Gamers. This week, Jayvee Fernandez took over b5media’s technology channel. Yesterday, Kevin took over That Damn PC.

Blink, and another Filipino will take over another prominent blog (or blog network). Filipinos are the best English communicators in Southeast Asia, heartily embracing social media and flat-world economics. Expect more of our best minds to follow these local pioneers to the world stage. Heck, some of them might be Filipina babes.

2006 a Lousy Year for Studios and Labels

Wired EIC Chris Anderson notes that 2006 was a lousy year for Hollywood and major record labels.

Hollywood didn’t have a blockbuster 2006. In terms of tickets sold, it was up just 1% from the dismal 2005 (corrected for population expansion, that’s no growth at all), and still dramatically down from 2002-2004, which were the last good years before the DVD/home theater boom fragmented the audience even more than VHS had before.

Here’s my favorite, the precipitous decline in gold, platinum, multiplatinum albums (that’s 500,000, 1,000,00 and 1-10 million units sold). According to the RIAA’s database, just 285 albums were awarded one of those certifications in 2006, the lowest figure in 23 years.

Let’s hope they have an even worse year in 2007. In fact, let’s hope they have their last year soon. It’s about time they joined Tower Records in the dustbin of history. It’s about time we took the conversation back from these greedy entertainment execs.