This just in!

I am so excited to share to you,  PTB readers that our very own editor, Calvin Lo was ANC’s Future Perfect guest tonight which aired at 7:45pm.

PTB was invited by ABS-CBN to guest on ANC’s Future Perfect show hosted by Tony Velasquez to talk about affordable Android phones in the market. Calvin Lo, our EIC brought with him the Samsung Galaxy 5, Cherry Mobile Nova, and Sony Ericsson’s Xperia X8.

They discussed about the features of what makes these Android phones budget-friendly and its individual selling points.

Watch the replay of Future Perfect at 10:30PM tonight and at 11AM tomorrow on ANC. ANC is is on Channel 27 on your SkyCable TV.

Expect the reviews of these phones in the coming weeks so that you can prepare your budgets for the Holidays! We already reviewed the Galaxy 5 and specs comparison of the three phones you might want to check out first.

The LG GD900 Crystal is one of the most coolest and interesting looking phone I’ve seen in a while with its transparent slide-out keypad made with tempered glass.

If you’re wondering how the design concept came about with the LG Crystal, here’s an interview with Youngho Kim, VP of design at LG Mobile Communication.

Q: Tell us about the experience of creating the LG GD900 Crystal. How did you come up with an idea of transparent phone?

Kim: We started toying with the idea in 2005 and later the concept won the Presidential Design Award at the Korea Industrial Design Exhibition in 2006. At the lab, we are always examining new designs and always on the lookout for something that would stand out from the rest. Ironically, we created a ”stand-out” phone by making it transparent!

Transparency is one motif that many designers around the world have experimented with at one time or another. It’s like invisibility – the holy grail for designers because we’re essentially working with something that’s almost invisible. But the challenge is also a reward because we’re not constrained by the barrier of a shell or covering. Once the opaque skin is stripped away, the interior is exposed, creating a kind of emotional connection.

Q: There are a few transparent concept products from other manufacturers. What is it that distinguishes the LG GD900 Crystal that your team has developed?

Kim: Everything else we’ve seen are prototypes at the conceptual stage whereas this handset is now just a few weeks from being in the hands of an end-user. Other transparent products have never made it this far and usually have ended up as experimental design concepts that end up in a museum or design studio.

The real challenge of creating the LG GD900 wasn’t that the transparent design had to be attractive but that the handset itself had to function no differently than any other premium mobile phone. Consumer insights, which play a big role in how we approach handset design, have shown time after time that design and style are important but unlikely to be accepted by the masses unless the functionality is all there. Even fashion-conscious customers want a good lens on their camera for those important photos and clear sound even when they’re on the subway.

Q: Did you have any difficulty developing the design of the LG GD900 Crystal?

Kim: One challenge we had to overcome is that consumers want big screens but they don’t want big handsets. So on the GD900 Crystal we expanded the touch screen functionalities to the touchpad itself. We adopted an inner slide system utilizing a gapless rail support mechanism to achieve the simple look. The final challenge was making the electric circuitry invisible which was achieved with the help of a layer of touch-sensitive film. We achieved all these breakthroughs and still managed to keep the thickness to a slim 13.5 millimetres.

Q. Advances in design are often driven by the development of new materials. What new materials were used in the creation of the LG GD900 Crystal?

Kim: We’ve used many kinds of materials on other models that have turned out to be successful and popular with consumers who want a different look. This is easier said than done, as the right materials also have to have the right look and feel. For LG Shine, we used a full metallic body, first ever used on a mobile phone; and for LG Secret, the initial concept was a “style that lasts” and we used premium materials of tempered glass and carbon fibre. For GD900 Crystal, it’s made of a highly durable tempered glass and is framed and reinforced by a band of Liquidmetal, a relatively new material that designers are looking into that is very strong and quite shock-absorbent.

Q: Tell us your outlook for transparent consumer products.

Kim: Transparency is another form of invisibility. It’s something that everyone fantasizes about but until now, that’s all it’s been. The fact that we can now make devices for daily use that are, for the lack of a better word — “invisible” — is significant because we are no longer constrained by a solid “barrier” in design. It’s like a window that is also an input device — it’s revolutionary. We’re excited about what the future holds in the next generation of “design transparency”.

Check out the review of the LG GD900 Crystal at Yugatech.

If you’re on the look-out for some great mobile phone deals, then check out Dial A Phone today and you could find an offer to suit your needs today! Just visit www.dialaphone.co.uk today and take a look around.

With the news of another Filipino landing the coveted job as Yahoo! Philippines Online Community Manager, we hooked up with Jonas de los Reyes to get some inside info about his new role over at Yahoo. A former eCommerce Manager at decade-old Yehey, Inc., Jonas is now based in Yahoo’s SEA Singapore office but will obviously be flying back and forth to the Philippines more frequently to do his tasks in promoting Yahoo’s Filipino online communities.

First question, and for the record, what’s your official title and job responsibility over at Yahoo?

My official title is Community Manager and my job responsibility is basically to drive user engagement of Yahoo!’s community-based services like Yahoo! Answers, Flickr and Yahoo! Groups in the Philippines by establishing connections with the Pinoy online community through product blogs, message boards, emails and YM and through offline activities as well like meet-ups, road shows, workshops and seminars. In short, I’ll be an evangelist of Yahoo! to Pinoys, teaching them and helping them maximize their online experience with our products.

Since the vacant position was listed back in September 2007, I’m sure a lot of people applied for it. Can you share with us the process you underwent in the selection process? How’s it been so far?

The process was essentially like any other job application. I saw the job vacancy in Yahoo! Careers a month before it was posted in a jobs site and applied for it via email and after more than a month was contacted through mobile for the interview. What followed were two phone interviews and then an exam. After that, I didn’t hear from them again until January this year, when I was invited for a final interview in Singapore. Yahoo! flew me to the Lion City for a whole day of interviews by different people consisting of Community Mangers, Product Managers, Producers and Customer Care Managers. A month after that, I was informed the good news that I was hired (a month before I got married, hehehe).

Based on your job title, it looks like Yahoo’s strategy for the Philippines is building on community more than anything else. What are your near-term plans as Community Manager?

As far as Yahoo!’s strategy is concerned, it will be best to refer to the attached articles which outlines our plans for the Philippines. To be regularly updated on initiatives related to our communities of users, you can check the Yahoo! Philippines Answers blog.

Prior to this, you were eCommerce Manager for Yehey for 2 years. How will that experience help you in your new role as Community Manager for Yahoo! Philippines?

I believe any prior experience I have has contributed in one way or another to where I am right now. Whether that work experience before is directly related to what I’m doing now or not, the lessons, insights and learnings that I have gained from them will be something I will bring with me and I know will help me in effectively performing my new role right now.

Can you share with us any figures on usage of Yahoo sites or services in the Philippines? Which ones are the most popular among Filipinos?

Yahoo! does not break down usage figures per country. But what’s important to reiterate is Yahoo! is the Philippines’ leading Internet company, reaching 85% of all online consumers in the country and 53 million in SEA.

You’re the second Filipino (next to GM for Yahoo! PH, Jojo Anonuevo) to take an active role in Yahoo! Philippines. Are we going to see more positions being available anytime soon?

Many more Yahoos have taken very active roles in our operations in the Philippines. In fact, 20% of the regional team here are from the Philippines. This speaks volumes of the company’s commitment to the country and its users every since the Yahoo! Philippines frontpage was launched two years back. Do refer to the attached article for more reference.

The team is definitely growing and I know the company is looking for several key positions including Account Managers, Communications, Search Editors just to name a few.

Any Philippine-specific events or activities we can expect from Yahoo this year?

There are always Philippine-specific events like UP-Yahoo! Hack Day and Flickr “Eye of Philippines” Event that both took place in Manila last year. Please keep a lookout at http://www.yanswersblogph.com.

What’s your personal take on the recent issue on the proposed Microsoft-Yahoo merger/acquisition?

This is not an area I can comment on. What I can tell you is that I’m simply thrilled to represent Yahoo! in our country and be part of the team that ensures the Internet services we have come to love continue to offer us an indispensable Pinoy-centric online experience.

Attached Docs:
Yahoo! Philippines Leadership Strategy.
Yahoo! Philippines: Year 2007 in Review

With an estimated 85% market share in the Philippines, Yahoo! South East Asia has decentralized their operations to open a Philippine office. Yahoo! General Manager for the Philippines Jojo Anonuevo is with Cris Concepcion, strategic consultant for Yahoo! Southeast Asia in a video interview with Inquirer reporter Erwin Oliva.

Yahoo! claims leadership in the Philippines on various online services like Flickr, YahooGroups, Yahoo! Answers and instant messenger.

This afternoon, I sat down with Dan Neary (Vice President for Emerging Markets) of eBay SouthEast Asia to talk about the recent developments of e-commerce in the country.

Since the official launch of eBay Philippines (eBay.ph) in November 2004 and the re-launch of a full site in November 2007, the online auction and listing service has grown to be one of the top destinations of Filipinos online. Dan Neary says “… we do not give out market specific figures but I can tell you we have about 1.6 Million unique visitors going to eBay.ph per month”. Since the November 2007 re-launch “eBay.ph has had over 36,000 new registered users”, adds Eunice Lim, PR Manager of eBay SEA based in Singapore. There’s an average of 18 pageviews per visitor, spending an about of 23 minutes on the site.

Pressed for numbers, Dan points me to publicly available figures (Alexa stats) comparing them to other Philippine-based auction sites like Auction.ph and Bidshot.com:

On the eBay.ph alone, top items being sold and bought includes clothing & accessories, jewelry & watches, toys and cellphones. Everyday, a Pinoy buys on eBay.ph an average of 158 toys, a watch every 15 minutes, and a cell phone every 20 minutes. According to a recent Nielsen survey, about 3,000 Filipinos are making a full-time living off (as primary and secondary source of income) of selling items on eBay.ph.

One of the top users they featured during a short video presentation was Gilbert Ledesma (eBay ID:brum2000) who makes his living off selling miniature jeepneys on eBay. Gilbert reveals that he’s making around $1,000 a month from this and has since expanded his listing to other toys and collectibles. Other top sellers include Ariel Roda (eBay ID: la perfumeria) who sells branded perfumes and Aldwin Pagdanganan who’s into Japanese collectibles and katana.

Asked whether they have plans of putting up a local office in the Philippines, Neary comments that they work on a centralized system but have actually been doing global customer support from the Philippines (outside Metro Manila) for some time now. Though they would not specify which BPO or location, my guess is that it could be one of the call centers in Cebu.

He added that the Philippines is an important market for eBay and with an estimated 21 million internet users in the country, they expect a grow rate of 21% in e-commerce every year between 2008 and 2010. In South East Asia alone, eBay Philippines is the most active site, followed by eBay Malaysia although the latter is higher in terms of total volumes. eBay Philippines has also recently announced partnership with Globe GCash to support mobile payments.

Filipino’s who have recently used the search engines to look for Philippine Buy and Sell sites could have easily bumped into Sulit.com.ph owing to its high rankings in the Search Engines. Which shouldn’t come as a surprise owing to the popularity of Sulit.com.ph. Because of its huge user base and the traffic generated from it, Sulit.com.ph received 10.4 million Pageviews and 1.7M visitors for the month of November alone. To add further to its accolades, Sulit.com.ph recently ran away with the People’s Choice Award for E-Commerce site in the recently concluded 10th Philippine Web Awards. Sulit.com.ph is definitely a rising star in the Philippine online classifieds scene. Whats remarkable still, is the fact that Sulit.com.ph has been around for only a year.

I got a chance recently to throw some questions at the team behind Sulit.com.ph, RJ David (developer) and his Girlfriend Arianne(Design and Testing), to get the story on how Sulit.com.ph came to be. Prior to interviewing RJ, I informed him that I have a similar Buy and Sell Site targeted at a different market, since in a way we might be competitors, he could opt out of the interview. Even with that card laid out RJ replied to me:

“No problem. I actually learned much of what to add to Sulit.com.ph by looking at similar systems. So it is not a big deal. I will be glad to share the experience to others.”

I first encountered RJ within the catacombs of the Philippine PHP User group forums. At that time Sulit.com.ph was still nonexistent. I could characterize RJ as a very amiable and helpful fellow in the forums. Someone who was eager to give Sage advice to the Noobs of PHP. I should know as I got some good advice from him when I was still starting out with PHP. I dropped out of hanging around PHPUGPH for a while, but the last thing I remembered was RJ promoting Sulit.com.ph in the Forums. Fast forward a year later and I see my wife trolling incessantly the forums of a site that looked very familiar. Sure enough it was Sulit.com.ph. I got surprised at the growth and advancement of Sulit.com.ph after just a year of existence.

To really get to understand the attraction that users get from Sulit.com.ph I had to take a step back and ask my wife, who was looking at Sulit.com.ph from a user’s perspective and not through a techie’s eye. She said that what she liked about Sulit.com.ph was:

1. The clean and simple interface
2. The great Javascript enhanced image enlarge on mouseover picture gallery of the products for Sale.
3. The large amount of posts in each category.

RJ David is young at 27 years old of age. He was a former Mechanical Engineer who left his field to become a web developer. He entered the IT industry in 2003 as a Software Test Engineer then moved on to be a PHP Architect / Senior Developer in 2005. By the end of 2005 he decided to go full time with freelancing. He said that the decision to leave the security of employment was brought about by the influence of the book “Rich Dad, Poor Dad” (by Robert Kiyosaki) on him.

Aside from IT projects, he also dabbled in other forms of entrepreneurship outside the IT field. But the lack of passion in those none IT ventures led him to drop them to concentrate on web based businesses. Prior to hitting the mark with Sulit.com.ph, he had four other businesses that didn’t quite make it.

With the advent of Web2.0 phenomenon, he was inspired by how the small websites/startups, run by a few founders, made it big in the industry. By May 2006 he decided to create his own online application. He realized that the capital needed to operate and maintain a website was way cheaper than other offline ventures.

During one brainstorming session with Arianne, they came up with an idea to create a classified ads website. They initially planned to operate it for a few months to collect data then analyze it afterwards to see which category would be the most popular so that they could target that niche afterwards. After 2 months of development (around August) Sulit.com.ph was born. Officially launched in September, RJ had to grapple with work responsibilities and Server issues during the launch.

Here are his answers to the questions I threw at him: [* Author's Notes]

1. What inspired Sulit.com.ph to be created despite the fact that it already looks like a crowded webmarket?

I initially didn’t have the perception that it was already a crowded web market since it was really meant to be an experiment to gather data. Early December 2006, my girlfriend and I came to realize that there would be a nice future with Sulit.com.ph but we have to compete with big players in the local market which have already existed for years and even international classified ads with local listings were making it big locally. And of course quite a number of small and new websites trying to grab a piece of the pie in the classifieds market. Yet, the story of Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist, really inspired me on how he created a service using a simple website for the community and ending up with the most successful and popular classified ads website worldwide. Ever since, I believed that if I can deliver a good service to the users through Sulit.com.ph, it is also possible to make it big someday.

2. How many people does it take to run Sulit.com.ph?

From September 2006 until July 2007, I was running Sulit.com.ph alone in my bedroom with the help of Arianne for a few hours at night answering forum posts, online marketing and other web design tasks after she was out of the office (she was working as project development lead in one of the banks in Makati). By August 2007, I requested her to resign from her job and help me manage Sulit.com.ph full time. Since then, I focused on System Administration, Maintenance and Development, Analytics, SEO and the business-side of Sulit.com.ph. Arianne take on the role of Web Design, Testing, Support, Marketing, Paper works and Organization.

3. Aside from the opportunity to network, what else do you think you are offering your users that makes it a cut above the rest?

1. More exposure of ads to people actually searching for related keywords -> with 10.4 million pageviews and 1.7 visitors last
   November 2007
2. Administrators listen and communicate with the members – Arianne and I are always visible in the forum.
3. Continuous improvement of the website giving more and more benefits to the members. Members see and feel the improvements.
   We also implement member suggestions when it is proven to be beneficial to the majority of the members.

4. Did you experience any start up bumps during Sulit.com.ph’s early days that almost made you want to quit and throw in the towel?

A number of times.

1. When Google penalize our website and removed us from the search engine result pages (SERPs) in April 2007. I painstakingly analyzed changes in the site from January to April and removed those which I think had an effect with the penalty. We were lucky to be back in the SERPs but I didn’t know what really caused it and those features removed never made it to Sulit.com.ph again.
2. I am a web developer and not a system administrator. With the growth came problems with server performance due to high traffic. I ended up learning how to optimize a server in 2 days without sleep but it was all worth it.
3. Yahoo! Mail bouncing all e-mails coming from our server and had more than 10K e-mails not sent to members. I had to learn how to “properly” setup an e-mail server and end up changing our e-mail policy and adding e-mail settings to profiles of our members.

5. What are the factors that you think helped Sulit.com.ph reach where it is today.

1. SEO
2. Service-oriented goal
3. Community-driven approach

6. What methods of promotion did you use to market Sulit.com.ph?

1. SEO, forums and directory listings
2. RSS
3. Recently, joining expos as media sponsor
4. Raffles

7. How do you envision Sulit.com.ph to be 5 years down the road?

Available in different countries

8. Any sister sites in the offing after the Success of Sulit.com.ph?

“Success” might still be a far-fetched word in my vocabulary. But I do have 2 other projects in mind which I hope to start by next year after I have completed all the major functionalities that I am planning to add to Sulit.com.ph.

Currently, I have another project to be released in Dec. 10, which is targeting local entrepreneurs called Bizyonaryo.com. This project will provide the offline marketing needs of entrepreneurs which is obviously missing with the online nature of Sulit.com.ph, and a lot more. This project is created in alliance with PowerShopper, Inc. which is a provider of a unique Free Door to Door Media Bag.

* For current entrepreneurs or aspiring entrepreneurs looking for an online and offline marketing medium, check out the Sulit.com.ph Team’s : Bizyonaryo. It is a site where entrepreneurs can look to create and save cash for their business.

9. What monetization channels do you use to finance Sulit.com.ph?

1. Adsense
2. Direct Ads (major change by April 2008)
3. Ex-deals with companies and individuals

*Ranked according to amount contributed.

10. What is the most active sector of Sulit.com.ph?

Buy and Sell followed by Real Estate.

11. Describe the average Sulit.com.ph user

Interests and professions are as broad as the categories in Sulit.com.ph. Regarding age, gender and location, I do collect the data but I still haven’t done any analytics but this will be available for the major change in Direct Advertising in Sulit.com.ph by April 2008.

12. Ycombinator VC, Paul Graham, believes that in order to succeed in an online venture, you must be a two man team. Case in point, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, Paul Allen and Bill Gates, etc. Do you believe in this theory?

Sulit.com.ph is founded and being operated by a 2-man team, Arianne and I. Although I believe it should be at least 2, and one should be a techie who knows the ins and outs of the application.

13. What Offer would it take to part with Sulit.com.ph or open it up to a partnership?

Until I complete the system with the major functionalities that I plan, I don’t think it will be open up for partnership. But if ever my plan to expand to different countries pushed-through, I will definitely be looking for someone with experience to run and build a working team around this worldwide project.

Thanks to the folks behind Sulit.com.ph, for agreeing to be interviewed. Good Luck to Sulit.com.ph, Bizyonaryo as well as your other future projects.

If need some guidance for testking 000-107 & 70-290 then get the latest testking 350-030 dumps compiled by our certified experts to help you pass ccna wireless exam in first attempt of pass4sure microsoft certification.

My fellow Pinoy Tech Blog contributor Karla Redor is featured in the Autodesk Manufacturing Community newsletter. She works with Autodesk Inventor and posts her tips and projects in her Inventor blog.

Congratulations Karla!

Inspiring story of our beloved Yuga Check it out –> The Blogging Gospel of Yuga

In part 1 of our SEO Companies in the Philippines series, the spotlight is on a link building-focused SEO company based in Cagayan de Oro City. In this installment, I interview Michael Turner, CEO of Harvest SEO. The inteview gives a glimpse of how the Florida-based company came to set up shop in the City of Golden Friendship.

How did Harvest SEO come to be? Can you give us a historical profile of the company and its founders?
About 3.5 years ago I was hired to webmaster a group of sites. I examined the competitive space for that industry and saw that it was wide open, but the amount of work required was more than I could do on my own. The owner of the sites had limited faith in the Internet and would not allocate enough funds for me to hire anyone, so I ended up hiring some people from The Philippines to do the work for me and just paid them out of my paycheck. That’s how it all started.

Actually, it started back in 1996, when I read an article in Wired Magazine (Mother Earth Mother Board by Neal Stephenson). To write the article he had traveled around the world to see some techie events that were well off the beaten path, and watched fiber optics cables being dragged ashore by scuba divers in The Philippines. Much of the cost of laying fiber optics is in burying it. The Philippines’ volcanic origin over a deep see floor makes it easy to bring fiber to many points in the islands, since not much of the cable needs to be buried.

This meant that the Philippines would quickly become one of the most wired nations on the planet, and that it would be prime location to roll out wireless services to millions of people. The wireless Philippines is not here yet, but it’s coming rapidly.

In addition, to me, it meant it was the dawning of a new age in which intellectual value can be delivered over the Internet, and that it could be of the same quality as that of American made intellectual value. By “intellectual value” I mean a lot of things, but most easily, I mean that traditionally countries have exported raw materials and finished good, by ship. Expensive stuff might go by plane, but most stuff is sent by cargo ship. In the digital age it is now possible to export services that are more abstract than oil and textiles. Accounting services started being outsourced some years back and a lot of programming services went to India. Call-centers are a good example of intellectual value that can be exported over the fiber.

So, for me, I was already seeded with this idea, but it wasn’t until several years later that I started webmastering and doing SEO.

The main thing I needed too was to build links and write content. The first person I hired was Marisyl “Syl” Castillon, a 25 year old grad student, who I met online, at www.filipinofriendfinder.com. She had asked me for a job. Most of the Filipinas I had made contact with by then had all asked for money. Syl was the first one to ask for a job.

So, I hired her and her first instructions were to find me a programmer and a writer. It took her a long time to find them, because we didn’t have an office or anything. They were Gus Rodano and Jeedo Aquino, writer and programmer, respectively. I had Syl and Gus working from net cafes, and fortunately, Jeedo had a PC at home.

Gus previously worked as a reporter for the local CdO paper there, the Sun Star. Jeedo was an instructor at Informatics Computer Institute. Both are still with us, and the four of us together are “the founders” of Harvest SEO.

Can you give us a rundown of the services being offered by HarvestSEO?
We started out mainly doing link building and creating pages for hundreds of keyterms. Our first clients were for link campaigns. We still do link campaigns for those same clients. For some reason they keep coming back. However, I really don’t recommend our link campaigns to new clients anymore, rather I recommend they hire a couple of dedicated linkers, who have been trained via our linking campaigns and understand the whole process. I believe a dedicated linker provides a much more natural link growth profile. I don’t mean to imply that our link campaigns don’t work, they do, very well, but I just think that dedicated linkers hired for a long period bring the best value to the client.

We are not a regular SEO company, and would never advertise something like “we submit your site to 301 search engines for $29 per month” and provide you monthly ranking reports. We are not looking for retail SEO clients. We cater to the needs of SEO companies that are thriving and who are interested in being competitively priced, while maintaining high quality services.

I would say we are SEO wholesalers. I prefer the client that says, “I need 2500 links across 3 domains and 90 different pages, here’s the breakdown with anchors, descriptions, and URLs”. That’s an order I can fill. While I have the SEO knowledge to prescribe plans for sites to rank, I try to steer clear of doing so completely. The main reasons for this is conflict of interest. As a wholesale provider, I don’t care what industry you are in, if you need links or content I want to be able to provide it to you. An analogy would be if I sold fuel to airlines or sold racing fuel at a race track. I am going to sell this fuel to your competitors, the same fuel.

There an idea that an SEO should only represent a single company in any particular industry because it could create a conflict of interest otherwise. If I took clients under my wing and prescribed a treatment for their site to get them to #1, then there would likely be a conflict of interest if I got a 2nd client in the same industry, competing for the same terms.

Our best service is the dedicated outsourcing, and we provide various clients with with writers, web designers, programmers, project managers, bloggers, linkers, editors, and we’ll be adding some graphic designers and editors soon.

The dedicated outsourcing is where we provide a client with 40 hours of productive output for each employee, 5 days per week, 8 hours per day. We do require our employees to work 6 days per week, but Saturdays are reserved for self-improvement, team building, leadership training, sport fests, classes in HTML, SEO, effective communications, and things like that.

While we hire the best people we find, we also prefer to hire from our existing pool of employees to higher rated positions, and thus we need our pool of employees to continue to improve their stills and qualifications.

What are the company’s main strengths as far as outsourced SEO goes?
We can pore on a bunch of links. It is pure delight to watch the changes in the SERPs from a robust link campaign, if that kind of thing turns you on.

Our main strength is our focus on quality. A lot of people try to automate tasks that shouldn’t be automated. We recognize that, and we are not afraid to throw brain power and man power at a project to make sure it is done right. We can do this because of the low labor rates in The Philippines. That’s why we’re here, to be able to do just that. We do the dirty work, the grunt work that nobody else wants to do.

Your company’s focus is on link building which is considered central to any successful SEO campaign. What sets HarvestSEO’s link building service apart?
The individual review of each and every site is what sets us apart. We don’t email spam for links.

I get the impression that not too many people in the Philippines are “into” SEO, in fact it’s only now that SEO is entering the mainstream. Did you have a hard time “transferring” knowledge to your people?

Yes, and no. I mean, of course, but it really wasn’t so bad.

In devising this plan to do SEO in The Philippines, I set out to inform just my core people of how to do things and then had them pass that knowledge on. I do spend a lot of time IM’ing staff.

What were the initial challenges encountered by you and the other founders?
The challenge is the same as it always has been. By providing a discounted service, by taking low margins on what we do, which is what makes us so attractive and brings us the work, is that it doesn’t allow for a lot of extra capital to expand. Managing growth still is our biggest challenge.

Do you think the Philippines has what it takes to compete globally in the SEO outsourcing realm?
Absolutely, and we intend to lead the way.

As far as SEO goes, what specific areas do you think Filipinos have a distinct advantage in?
Their distinct advantage is that they speak English, and the American version of English, not the Commonwealth or Queen’s English of India, Australia, and South Africa. In addition, I would say that Filipinos are very open minded to the Internet, and hungry for it. Plus, the country is wired to the teeth with fiber.