It’s the season for nostalgia. Marc’s post on the Philippine Internet’s birthday got me reminiscing.
Back in 1999, The Web Philippines Magazine ran a survey and published a list of the Internet’s 10 Most Influential Filipinos (The Web is no longer around – does anyone remember when there were a whole bunch of Internet magazines?) The criteria and results are still online.
To update the list: who are the most influential Filipinos today? The original list was drawn when the local Internet was 5 years old. (1999 was a year of much anniversary celebrating.) So, today’s list could be people who have been active in the past five years.
Who do you think are the most influential today?
17 comments
The persons behind Tri-Isys for bringing affordable, reliable, prepaid dialup access to the masses; Mr. Nicholson Co of cdrking for bringing down the cost of media needed to store our torrent and rapidshare downloads and for bringing his Divisoria-style (or Quiapo-style) business everywhere; a seasoned ex-PLDT man who practically designed most of the call centers here; Bayantel for unparalleled broadband service (PLDT and Globe still could not come up with a rebate policy); TipidPC and PinoyExchange for their staying power.
Can someone put names behind some of these entities?
Abe Olandres should be on that list
Father Abraham (Olandres) and Sassy Lawyer, IMNSHO, should be right up there.
People behind Tri-Isys: At the end of my Internet career (circa 2002), my company was talking to them. Forgot the names.
Ex-PLDT man: Intriguing! This guy must be rich. Thus, he’s anonymous (wait is that you, Anonymouz?)
BayanTel: I heard the rebate policy is for “competitive reasons.” (unbloggable)
TipidPC: Here’s an article. During my time onboard TipidPC, Alex Amadeo aka ReB seems to be “the leader.”
PinoyExchange: Mike and Nix Nolledo, Jude Turcuato, Mike Palacios…
Keep the suggestions coming!
How about the Editors in Chiefs of news sites?
@Miguel: Nope, never worked for PLDT and never handled Avaya (or Lucent or AT&T Definity). Although our sister company managed to put the hairbands on 85-90% of the call center agents.
If Abe is in the list, Federico Sevilla III should be much more so for administering the Linux mailing lists and techscene aggregate blogs which was started by Miguel Paraz and that means Mr. Paraz should also be included.
As for Bayantel, the chief executive running the show is not a Filipino, but a Nigerian expat.
OMG Nigerian expat is he the one behind all the spam from Nigeria? I kid, of course.
That is a lame jab at Mr. Fafunwa. Makes sense, do the Lopezes really know telecom? Even Smart has a number of expats onboard, they just don’t appear in public.
I hope someday I could get on that list.. *wondering*
Meanwhile, forums like Pex continues to dominate Pinoy web.
Forums probably still have more posts than blogs. But blog posts + comments may be more than forum posts. And, blogs have more readers due to the fact that an average search engine user can find them.
i guess it is time that we put ourselves, or basically us, as the most influential filipinos of the internet today. i remember the TIME’s issue of people of the year…it’s US as well. meaning YOU, ME, and everyone else who use the internet. (pero syempre dapat pinoy din) hehehe
ryan, put your jokes somewhere else please, you being racist? Ok Period.
Most influential Filipino in the Internet? Err the Disinisters? They still hold the very expensive .ph domain and will hold on to it to the death! hehe.
Tech blogs in general, yes. They get more eyeballs than forum. But we’re talking about Pinoy blogs vs Pinoy forums. I doubt that Pinoy blogs get as much traffic as Manilatonight or Pex.
HAHAHAHA! Wow, sensitive much? I did say that I kid, right?
I subscribe to the school of thought that says make fun of everyone, including yourself.
Look if it makes you feel any better the rest of the world thinks that Filipinos are monkeys that still live in the jungle, and if we get into a hot tub, we’ll turn the water brown. 😉
thats great. 🙂
I think most influential Filipino here is the owner of ABS-CBN,