“Thirty million Filipinos are on Facebook”, Yahoo Philippines Country Editor Erwin Oliva said in the recently concluded Innovation Speak (I-Speak) held at the Global City in Taguig.
According to Oliva, Filipino Facebook users represent 30 percent of the country’s population of 105, 720, 644.
He explained the implication of these numbers in terms of content in social media.
“Anne Curtis, for instance, has 4 million followers on Twitter”.
This, according to Oliva, points out how content can attract a “community” and how it also leads to conversations and feedback.
He also cited that disaster reporting and monitoring, traffic updates, crime watch, and other events are also shared in this medium, making it an additional distribution channel for news.
He also said that with the advent of social media, “news finds you”.
“Anyone can be a reporter”.
“News can be crowd-sourced”, he further said.
“You are media. You can tweet; publish a page; blog; upload videos and pictures”.
However, he also emphasized the downside of the freedom of individuals being content creators --- that news sourced from them needs vetting or validation.
Aside from Oliva, the other speakers in I-Speak included Alyansa ng mga Haligi ng Agham at Teknolohiya para sa Mamamayan Party List Representative Angelo B. Palmones, Department of Science and Technology (DOST)-Science and Technology Information Institute Director Raymund E. Liboro, former ASEAN Foundation Director Dr. Filemon Uriarte, Jr., Business Mirror Science Page Editor Lyn Resurreccion, PsiJourn President and DZRB Program Host Melly Tenorio, National Research Council of the Philippines President and National Scientist Lourdes J. Cruz, among others.
Participating in the event were media practitioners and groups, and representatives from the different agencies of the DOST, including PCAARRD.
Incidentally, I-Speak is one of the activities of the Innovation Congress or Icon. ICon is a joint activity of DOST and the Association of Vehicle Importers and Distributors.