Social Network Movie -- Luis Buenaventura (Part 2.5)

To read the previous part of the story, please check Part 1 and Part 2.

With Luis Buenaventura now having a new company brand, Syndeo Media, was he done building social network web apps?

SM Investments

Ohmy, did Luis went back to working boring static corporate websites? It looked not. SM Investment was just probably to pass his time, and that he mentioned that it would probably be his last corporate website.

Odysseylive.net 

After changing their company's name -- from PandoraSquared to Syndeo Media, changing brand names became a trend for Luis. Their recently launched (Sept. 2006) social network and music site, MobiusLive.net also underwent a name-lift to Odysseylive.net by Feb. 2007. 

I'm quoting Luis' comment to explain why MobiusLive.net became Odysseylive.net:

"I should clarify that MobiusLive was a project that we built for Digital Media Exchange, the company that owned Mobius Games, an MMORPG distributor. It wasn't a project that was owned (or for that matter, maintained) by PandoraSquared. 

The software itself was later sold by DME to Odyssey Music, and the whole thing was renamed "OdysseyLive." The website is still operational as I write this, and although I still see hints of the original work when I browse thru its pages, I no longer have visibility into either of the companies that were involved in its creation."

3eep

Luis Buenaventura's factory may have changed names but the social network DNA was quite intact, unwavering. The same time they launched Odysseylive.net, the evil genius and his development team with a population of 2.5 also released 3eep.

Since he had conquered the hackers via highfiber.org, the link-sharing via oks.ph, the gamers via gibbity.com, the film industry via filmcrowd.com, the filthy rich music scene via Mobiuslive.net/Oddysseylive.net, it's time he moved on to sports. Yes, sports! I cannot point out though which part of him is into sports.

The 3eep was a sports-based social networking app for Australia. Yes, Australia.  Pinoys are hooked to malls, not sports, so Luis Buenaventura had to target the Australians for his sports-oriented online community.

Moomai


Just a few months after releasing a sports-oriented social network app, Luis then again started talking about another social network site which he likened to Yahoo! Mash, which was named Moomai. This was the first in-house social network site released by Syndeo Media. But unlike his previous social network sites that were based on his mood and whims and likes, Moomai was where Luis showed his deeper philosophical side.

"But what makes it different, according to Luis, is the rating system based on an old sociological theory called the Looking Glass - that states our sense of self is a composite of what our friends’ opinions of us are, and that we constantly reorient our identity based on the feedback that we receive. 

"Moomai is simply a digitization of this phenomenon, wrapped in candy-colored interfaces and humorous prose."

via philippineinternetreview.blogspot.com

It was in Moomai where Luis redefined privacy to intimacy.

"The Intimacy idea allows you to define the degrees by which all of these random friends can actually involve themselves in your online life, so you could continue friending everyone you like, but they’d all still just be acquaintances."

via guttervomit.com

And, so a stuff of various artsy fartsy features, following are a few:

Moomai quilt

Mood timeline

Mood blaster

Compared to year 2007 and previous years, year 2006 was a lean period for Luis' social network factory with only MobiusLive.net as being produced (this is just based from the accounts on his blog). It can be that, Luis was adjusting with his new team and 'office' environment in 2006. But year 2007, he picked up again. I guess he with the Syndeo Media was able to adjust and had learned how to blend well and get the most out of each other.

So what year 2008 was like for Luis factory? Yes, this story is not yet done. I have already run out of words to storytell Luis social network footprints, but there are still more. And, I secretly pray that no more new from him before I'm done with this Luis Buenaventura's Chronicle of Networknia.

So before you go enjoy your Christmas and Holiday vacation, remember that Luis made some of his social network apps by skipping holidays.

Social Network Tetris (for those asking)

In the next part, final part, based on the previous parts, the trend is that Luis Buenaventura is still making social network apps. But we'll try to see a little bit of him being a social specie.


(Note: This is Part 2.5 because I no longer want have a Part 4. Let's leave the part 4 and 5 and to infinity and beyond to Mother Lily's Shake, Rattle, and Roll.)

Social Network Movie -- Luis Buenaventura (Part 2)

To read the previous part of the story, please check Part 1.


If in Part 1, Luis Buenaventura was weaving webs of social sites left and right hacked during holidays when everyone is getting cozy. At this part, we could see Luis got entangled more in the webs of building start-up companies than producing social networks. So you might see more company names than product names in this post. Just like the Part 1, all things written here are from my imagination and interpretation so please do not take them as facts.

PandoraSquared

With Luis' factory of social sites, he got the attention of a Web 2.0 company PandoraSquared -- think 37signals. Probably after a lot of wooing, PandoraSquared was able to convince Luis to be part of their team. Luis then became part of a Philippine revolution -- Web 2.0 revolution here in the Philippines which was PandoraSquared's goal.

Though, I could say that, with his social network factory, Luis already started one without consciously knowing it. Maybe Luis should get the Father of the Philippine's Web 2.0 revolution.

MobiousLive.net

Just like it's name, it's hard to guess what MobiusLive.net was. This product started as one big secret, and mixed with dramas down the road.

Unlike with his previous projects where Luis usually openly shared in his blog what he'd been working on even before the release, he did not share much information in his blog. This was a signal that MobiusLive.net was something really big to happen in the Philippine history. He was mostly secretive about this one except for a few bits of hints here and there.

But even before he was officially part of Pandora Squared, he already dropped a hint in his April 2006 post that the next industry he would conquer is music after highfiber (web programming), oKs.ph (digg-ish), gibbity (gaming), filmcrowd (movies).

Then, a month before they opened it to public, Luis posted another hint,

Work on our next major project has been slowly unwinding; I’m not sure exactly how much of it I can write about without breaking our pinky-swear NDAs so I’ll just say that we’re putting together a very big Filipino social network focusing on one of my favorite things (no, not poker).

It was by Semptember 2006 when they had finally shared it to public their top secret project -- a local / 3rd world equivalent of iTunes, MobiusLive.net. Leaping from Kevin Rose to Steve Jobs, Luis Buenaventura made it look like it's an easy task.

As described by him, "MobiusLive.net is a social network focused on local independent music."

MobiusLive.net offered Php 20 per music track. And as Luis style, he could always start big even at the start. They were already able to feature popular local bands -- Greyhoundz, Chicosci, Valley of Chrome, Queso, and Narda.

Syndeo Media

Just like in the movies, some drama had to happen. Just right after they made the first Filipino iTunes / social network for music made publicly available, they called it quits for their PandoraSquared company. But it looked like more of renaming their factory name to Syndeo Media, than quitting. With new name came new strategy:

syndeo::media exists to build its own, internally-spun web
products, but we’ve come to the conclusion that our current resources
will not be sufficient to properly support all our ideas. The strategy
now becomes fairly obvious: over the next few months, we continue
looking for client work and refining our process. Once the appropriate
resources present themselves, we can apply all our learnings to our own
brands.

And, a hint that they would welcome 3rd-party investment. With their reputation, it would not be hard. So was it money matters?

Lesson learned: With revolution comes drama (sweat, bloods, and tears?).

Watch out for the next part. Would he be back to building corporate websites, or be chased by investors?

Part 2.5 is now available here.

Social Network Movie -- Luis Buenaventura (Part 1)

While everybody is getting zombie chitchatting about their life and others lives on social sites; Luis Buenaventura has been busy building not only a social network site, but a factory to spin webs for his many social sites, which are to make the world a better place, or to simply satisfy his needs, or whims.

Behind those dark glasses are social sites hiding
(Image from guttervomit.org)

I read the whole of his blog, guttervomit.com, as part of my 'research' about him. And, I'm just simply amazed at the different social networking sites he's spitting left and right that I cannot help but post a blog about it. I can imagine that right at this moment, his mind, even asleep, is probably busy weaving ideas after ideas for his next web toy.

Following is a list of Luis Buenaventura's web products, which I harvested from his blog. So this might not be a complete compilation. These are just based on my interpretation, so do not take them all as facts. Let's just call this a fan's tribute.

Highfiber.org -- In 2001, before graduating from UP, Luis put up highfiber.org, which is a, lifted from their facebook page:

"... community website started by Luis Buenaventura as a way to learn web programming back in 2001. It became fairly popular amongst web-geeks, goth-chicks, attention-whores, and people looking for pr0n and wareZ for quite some time." 

So, as you see, Luis created highfiber.org to answer a need, which was to learn programming, which, of course, then created a web community and has help others too.

B&B Multimedia -- This is not a social site, but a company Luis Buenaventura created in 2005. He sold his iRiver H320 for Php10,000 to fund his B&B. Their team were mostly into setting up websites. But even being a newbie at that time, they were already able to bag big-named clients; just to name a few, they got Philippine Ad Congress, Ayala Land International, myHomeland, Red Ribbon, had a deal with a UK-based marketing firm, and others.And, to top it off, some of the websites they created were web award recipients.

So it looks like his iRiver was a lucky charm.

oKs.ph -- In between working for his B&B clients, Luis was still able to pull off his oKs.ph November, 2005. Probably to keep his self from getting bored creating stiff corporate websites where he could not implement his bleeding-edge technologies.

The oKs.ph was an experiment to test if Filipinos were ready for a user-generated web platform, which was quite popular at that time, ala Digg. Or, maybe it was also an experiment to create a Kevin Rose of the Philippines.

After oKs.ph, Luis created a mini-flood of Web 2.0 social collaborative sites. Year 2006 was probably the year that he moved from building boring corporate websites to social network sites. His frustration over Red Ribbon's disapproval of his drag-and-drop shopping cart feature had probably driven Luis to create his own web projects which he can shape according to his fancies and whims.

gibbity.com -- It was a people-powered game review site. Just 2 months after his oKs.ph, while people in this side of the world were enjoying the New Year celebration, Luis was hacking the night away for his next Web 2.0 collaborative site. He released it after 10 days to the public to get help in weeding out bugs. It then became the first Web 2.0 application developed in the Philippines, got featured in Lifehacker, and the rest is history.

filmcrowd.com -- As its name suggested, it's the equivalent of gibbity for film reviews. It was created the same year gibbity was created. But while gibbity was a New Year baby, filmcrowd was a Holy Week baby. (Lesson learned: And, you wonder why Luis has fame and fortune? It's simple -- skip holidays.)

Were these two review sites created as yet to satisfy another set of Luis' needs? Well, he seems to love games and movies based on his blogs. But he confessed in one of his blog posts that he got the idea of collaborative review sites from the CNET's Buzz Out Loud podcast where one of the hosts, Molly, mentioned:

"She said something to the effect of "the only honest review is the user review," which set off a light bulb in my head the instant I heard it."

That Molly's statement had not only set off a light bulb, but plenty of light bulbs in Luis' head that he was determined to be a social site breeder. From his post:

"Eventually, I hope to have a family of user-review sites that each focus on a different medium, ..."

(Lesson learned here is that it pays to listen to podcasts.) 

What's next?
(Luis Image from guttervomit.org)

Please watch out for the next part. Web geeks, web links, game reviews, movie reviews -- what were Luis next web toy / social site / whim?

Part 2 is now available here.

Jollibee Developing Mobile Website -- Leak?

I scrape this information from Yugatech's blog.

I think it's more of a promotional teaser than a leak. Though, I find the idea of ordering fastfood from your mobile phone not that exciting, but I'm still looking forward to as how it will fare once it will roll out to the public. It can be a barometer if the Philippine audience is ready to embrace this different form of mobile technology.

Following is the video of the supposedly leaked Jollibee mobile website:


Alpha Version - JollibeeDelivery mobile website. from manolo almagro on Vimeo.


If you look at the video, it's in Manolo Almagro's vimeo account. Manolo Almagro is a digital experience strategist, according to his Google profile. So he can be one of the people behind Jollibee's mobile delivery website.

Did Smart Bought Chikka to Create their AllTxtComboPlus Service?

alltxtcomboplus.com.ph/

chikka.com

I happen to came across with these 2 sites the last week, and I cannot help but think that the team working on these 2 websites are the same. The 2 websites are like twins -- look and feel. I did not know yet that Smart bought Chikka last year so I guess that's the reason why they look the same (yaah, I'm late). In the business/marketing world, they call it branding. =)

I was fresh out of college when I first used Chikka.com -- so that's like 7-9 years ago. The unlitxt services of Telcos did not exist yet that time so it was a budget saver. Anyway, I could still remember it was like Chikka and Globe back then. So interesting why it's Smart that finally bought them.

So it looks like that here in the Philippines, you need to exist for like 10 years to be invested by a TELCO. Then, after that the TELCOS will then let you create their different kind of unlimited text/call/internet services. Exciting??? Well, if you are bought at P750 million (figure Smart paid Chikka), why not!!! 

So I guess the best way to get TELCO to buy your application is that it must give them all kinds of unlimited services.