December 2013 – Blogapalooza: dubbed the biggest business-to-blogger networking event in the country where business owners and online influencers alike huddle together to forge awesome partnerships, it was held again this year last November 16 at SMX Aura, Taguig and I was lucky enough to make the list of bloggers.
This was actually a first for me to go to this kind of event so I didn’t really know what to expect. The event started at 11am, in which the ribbon-cutting was held, followed by the vlogging panel by local YouTube celebrities Mikey Bustos and Bogart the Explorer. At around 1pm were the opening remarks from Francis Simisim and Anton Diaz of WhenInManila.com and OurAwesomePlanet.com, respectively.
Sadly, I wasn’t able to witness the previous segments mentioned due to work so I only arrived at the event at about 2:30pm. Luckily enough, I was still able to listen to the inspiring talk of Jason Cruz– the Director for Community Management at MRM Worldwide, about blogging and branding for both business owners and bloggers alike. After his segment was the FHM Hottie and Radio DJ Karen Bordador, who then discussed about how radio and blogging could work for each other. The Boys Night Out (Tony, Slick and Sam) followed with them imparting their knowledge and experience regarding Podcasts and New Media.
Jason Cruz on Branding and Blogging
Karen Bordador on Radio and Blogging
The Boys Night Out after their talk
I took a break on the program afterwards to roam the event hall to check the stalls. Well, I could summarize it with four F’s– fun, food, friends and freebies! Fun games were held for everyone in various booths like Grab Taxi‘s electrical wire loop game, Chooks-to-Go‘s own high-tech game using computer vision and gesture recognition with a camera just like the PlayStation Eye, and a dozen more!
The Boys playing the Chooks-to-Go game
Grab Taxi’s Wire Loop Game
There were a whole lot more people who graced the stage to contribute and share their knowledge and experience to the audience regarding online social media- to get the full list of sponsors, media partners, speakers, businesses, bloggers, schedule, etc., do visit Blogapalooza 2013’s Event Schedule for more information.
Vincent Golangco, Francis Simisim, Anton Diaz
During the event, there was this donation effort called the Piggybank Movement where everyone is encouraged to donate P100 to achieve a total of P50,000 to be given to the relief efforts going on now for the victims of Yolanda in the Visayas region. The organizers would then give an equal amount of money donated, therefore would have a total of P100,000 should we raise the initial desired amount. In the end, Blogapalooza’s Piggybank Movement was able to raise a total of P82,000 to be donated to the victims via World Vision!
8pm– break time and time for socialization. Having my camera with me, I took photos of the organizers, business owners, fellow bloggers and a couple of booths present in the event. Thanks to that, I was able to meet new acquaintances and friends alike, even if most were a fleeting moment of introductions and small talks. Everyone was nice and giddy– it made the event really warm and welcoming so it was overall a very good experience. A lot of additional knowledge gained too from our humble and wise presenters. It was great!
It’s always fun joining events by Blogapalooza, WhenInManila.com and OurAwesomePlanet.com! Want in on the fun too? Just go to https://blogapalooza.wheninmanila.com/ to check the latest happenings!
P.S. Looking for your picture I took? Photos from Blogapalooza 2013 can be viewed publicly at my FB here! Feel free to tag yourselves and grab them! ????
