Ever since I started blogging in earnest, I’ve been hearing about certain notable personalities. Abe Olandres of Yugatech, of course, and Mark Macalua. And DigitalFilipino‘s Janette Toral, who was the one who inspired me. In Davao as well: Dennis Agulo of Cerveo Internet Solutions, and Ayeza of Bisaya Bloggers. But the Davao blogger and SEO specialist whom I’ve gotten to admire the most is Andrew dela Serna.
Andrew is known for Alleba.com, as well as for other passionately crafted blogs. What I found admirable in him is his drive to be of service to fellow bloggers. For one, he created a network of Davao blogs that now host a number of serious writers. The result is a set of remarkable weblogs: Alleba Politics, My Davao City, and Southisms.
And then recently, the 20-something Andrew built and launched Ratified.org. The name’s intriguingly interesting — I wonder if the upcoming Philippine elections had an influence on the choice. Whatever or wherever from the influence, Ratified.org certainly sounds apt. This online service, while not anymore unique, does offer bloggers and avid blog readers a convenient and powerful tool.
Basically, Ratified.org aims to rank Philippine blogs, making use of well-established metrics; namely, Technorati and Feedburner. While Ratified.org does not directly measure in any way the content itself, I believe Andrew’s unapologetic justification is acceptable. In fact, I think it’s feasible.
Andrew correctly explains that measuring the best-ness of blog content is next to impossible. But, the number of incoming links a blog has — which is what Technorati and Feedburner deal in — could be considered a useful gauge. Simply put, the rationale is: the more links a blog has, the more interesting its content must be.
(There is a presumption here, though, that bloggers — specifically, those who link to blogs — are intelligent and perhaps discerning. However, I don’t want to argue this either way because, much like content, this is difficult to judge.)
If you’re serious about promoting your blog(s), and if you’re set on earning mullah from blogging, get yourself Ratified. No, Andrew’s not gonna give you money. But once in the system, your blog’s health-at-a-glance will become plain to see. Plus, you get a snazzy Ratified.org badge for your sidebar. This badge displays an ordinal number that will hopefully decrement — it shows your blog’s rank among other blogs in the Philippine blogosphere.
For blog fans, Ratified.org offers an excellent search facility and a way to view which blogs currently rank highest per category (and overall). You can also subscribe directly to blog feeds using any of the popular blog readers made available on site (and via a cool interface, I might add).
For blogs to get Ratified, you’ll have to sign up for the Technorati and Feedburner services first. It’s going to take a little template-tweaking, but it’s all going to be worth the effort. These two in themselves are actually indispensible implements in the art of blogging.
Ratified.org’s overall design is très chic. I like it very much. Its user-friendliness could get a little upgrade, though. As I’m sure it will soon enough, knowing Andrew. But what’s best about Ratified.org is that it’s proudly Davao made!
Uy salamat sa mention ehhehe
Pero teka dapat nowadays whe you talk about davao bloggers, your name is included!
Cheers!
Heeey, thanks! Yes I'm proud to say it was made in Davao City. You don't hear/read that very often.
This one is off-topic. Blogs, I was wondering if we could create a sort of “directory of experts” for the Davao ICT industries: A directory of individuals that explicate his/her expertise, the professional endeavours that he/she has been involved with in the past, etc.
I don’t have everything figured out yet, but I believe that if such a directory existed, we’d be more effective in stepping up the Davao technopreneurship initiative.
Mark, like I’ve indicated in a previous post, we really should come up with this, which will form part of the comprehenive Davao I.T. skills survey.
Hmmm… Could the two of us come up with the appropriate survey instrument for this? Let’s discuss this further via email and/or YM, shall we?