The blog's design is simple and minimal, with an average of four entries posted per day. Aside from Olandres, PTB members include Germany-based blogger AnP, Migs Paraz, IT executives Marc Hil Macalua and J. Angelo Racoma, ICT consultant Edwin Soriano, Karla Redor, Clair Ching, freelance web designer Kates Gasis, graphic artist Jolo Santos, and aspiring photographer Rain Contreras.

Blog-O-Rama thanks the PTB founder for enlightening us about his latest project in the following email interview:

AJ: When did you first think of setting up Pinoy Tech Blog? How did the idea come to be?

AO : About two months ago, I contemplated about creating an experimental focus group blog on technology. There was a lot of good response from my readers so I opened up an invite and came up with a group of eleven tech bloggers. I realized that if a one blogger can draw the attention of a considerable number of followers and at the same time earn from it, imagine what you can do with eleven bloggers collaborating on a single project?

AJ : Did Pinoy.Tech.Blog get its inspiration from other tech sites? How do you plan to live up to your heading "The Philippines' Premier Technology Blog?" 

AO: Our model was Engadget, but I think everyone else knew it was going beyond the limits of what Engadget does. One could even make an easy comparison to it as roughly a local version of CNET News,since a good handful of the bloggers do work for the IT industry, and the latest news would alweays be within earshot.

It's still a continuing challenge that we're willing to take on. Besides, we're the first one to have something like this in the Filipino blogosphere.

AJ : What were your objectives in setting up the site?

AO : Think Global, Start Local. There are a lot of edge technologies around that needs to be pushed to the surfing public. We aim to educate and expose people to these technologies and issues and updated with what's happening in the local tech scene especially the ones that affect Filipinos. It's tech literacy thru blogging.

AJ: What's your target market?

AO : Based on how the blog has grown in the last month, and from reader feedback, we've addressed hardcore techies, to your simple tech-dabbler, and that,from our end, looks like a good market. We're like your neighborhood sari-sari store; we can't give you everything, but you'll most likely return to us because you only need to live with the essentials, and we can provide that.

AJ : How do you plan to earn from advertising?

AO : Advertising in blogs is just beginning to take off locally. But we're hoping that local companies get to realize that blog readers are a niche market--they're mostly (but not always) the upscale, learned individuals who have the disposable income worthy of target marketing.  In short, we're being read by those who can afford to spend. 

Our primary revenue source is Google AdSense supplemented by locally sponsored ads. We've already started getting placements ads which is a really good thing for a start-up blog. If Jason Calacanis of WeblogsInc can hope to earn $1M from AdSense a year, why can't we do the same for a tiny fraction of that?

AJ :  How were you able to gather the members together? What was your consideration for choosing the members? Do you plan to expand membership in the future?

AO: It was an open invite although the basic requirement was that one has to have a tech-related blog, has been blogging for the last six months and locally available (with exceptions). For those not running a tech blog, I asked them to come up with one or two sample posts for PTB.

Right now, we're limiting the group to the present pool of writers, but I do believe we may soon invite guest bloggers to write (not without the customary initiation rites, of course).  We might discuss that possibility during our next drinking,  er, meet-up session.

AJ : Who designed the blog? What CMS are you using?

AO : It's an out-of-the-box WordPress theme right now with some minor customizations. We're currently preparing for a major theme overhaul led by our resident CSS and grid fanatic designer Jolo Santos. So watch out for our site re-launch.

AJ :  What are your rules for posting the articles of your members? Does anybody edit the content?

AO : We're all equal in footing and do not have editorial process of any sort though it's a general premise that we help each other proof-read the entries for typos and the likes. I've stressed though that we make it a habit to do self-reviews first. We also have posting quotas each week so we can maintain a fresh blog serving everyday.

AJ : Most of the members have individual blogs/websites. How does  content between the individual blog and Pinoy.Tech.Blog differ?

AO: Clair is into Foss, Marc's talents are in SEO, Rain digs photography, Karla is the PlayStaion addict, Migz is the hard core techie, AnP is into digital lifestyle and VoIP, Jolo is all about web standards, Kates is the resident WP plugin programmer, Ka Edong is pushing for m-Commerce and eLearning, J Angelo is the techie economist and I just love...mocha frap. When you combine all that, you get  Pinoy.Tech.Blog. In our individual blogs, we're free to take on anything personal while in PTB we talk about our geekiness.

Majority of our entries in PTB are written to target locally relevant news and reviews about technology, may it be gadgets, services, careers and issues. We are more thorough in PTB and we try to make the topics locally relevant and easily digestible to the regular surfing Pinoy. In that sense, we're basically exerting a little bit more effort with PTB than our own individual blogs.

AJ :  Any interesting feedbacks from your readers?

AO: We're still recieving quite a number of applications to join our roster of bloggers. Maybe we'll open up memberships for contributors in the next couple of months. We've already been reviewed by Digital Tour a few weeks ago but the most exciting part is that we have a growing number of regular readers who continuously interact with us in the comments section.

AJ :  Where do you think is the Pinoy Tech scene heading? How do you propose to make Pinoys more tech-literate?

AO : Well, we could try and make people see that technology is something that we don't have to be afraid of in terms of experimenting with stuff. And that it doesn't always have to come at such a high price. Sometimes we think that being tech savvy is limited to having gadgets and stuff like that. Personally I think of being tech savvy in terms of one's enthusiasm for technology and how it could be used in one's life. The digital lifestyle if one might call it as such.

Mobile commerce is a good way to start. We have the technology and the numbers. What we need is for Filipinos to be familiar with it and use it. We still have a long long way to go but we hope that we can contribute in our own little way.

(For comments and inquiries, email annalyn.jusay@gmail.com)