Brief History

Once upon a time my best friend and I decided to create an event that would hopefully gather all bloggers, especially those we have never seen before, in one roof. When initially we planned to have it as the first ever Visayas Bloggers Summit, we couldn’t push through with it because VBS was to be held in Iloilo later this year.

Feeling ambitious I insisted that something must happen this year so Ahia Winst told me to form a team here and he’ll make it happen. And so I gathered 8 of the most influential Cebu Bloggers and formed the Cebu Blog Camp team which was  headed by me and Ahia Winst.

Thanks to our wonderful sponsors, the support of the team and volunteers, and of course our speakers and attendees, Cebu Blog Camp 2010 made history on May 22, 2010.

The Cebu Blog Camp is under the non-profit organization: Blog and Soul Movement Cebu Chapter.

Cebu Blog Camp 2010

The day before Winst had to arrive early so we could make all the necessary preparations for the actual day. The place was set up and I was already feeling very nervous trying to make sure everything was going to turn out okay.

On the big day itself I was very happy to see all the things set up and I especially was impressed with our wonderful photowall. (designed by our own Miong and Prince) Prince did some camwhoring shots, and so did Ahia Winst.

The Cebu Blog Camp started out with an activity where the different bloggers where grouped according to their colors and then they had a costume designing contest all out of newspapers. I couldn’t take much shots but those were some fashionable costumes. I remember seeing Mica in a lovely mickey mouse dress. There was even one from the Purple team: A Lady Gaga lookalike. The winners won some awesome prizes and the two models who won got Pinoy Blogger Shirts. Did I mention that the whole day was filled with cool freebies and prizes? (for those who did not go you must definitely sign up for next year!)

Then we had our first speaker: the Google Country Consultant Mrs. Aileen Apolo-de Jesus. She flew all the way from Manila along with her family to talk about Blogging with Blogger and AdSense. I unfortunately couldn’t stay to listen to this really really interesting topic from only Filipino who works for Google.  I had to rush to school to take an exam then rush back just in time for Micamyx to talk about Blogging 101.

I once heard Mica in my first time to go to iBlog, there I learned from her some basics in blogging. This time I was gonna expect the same thing but she surprised me when she decided to make it even more personal and interesting. She started the talk by talking to attendees and hearing their blogging story.

This of course made the attendees sort of loosen up so that they could feel free to interact. Then she started talking about the things to do when blogging. She also threw in some advice on how to meet other bloggers and go to blogging events. She also mentioned that she has been coming to Cebu often to meet her blogger friends in Cebu and included in her statement that she enjoys the company of Cebuanno bloggers. (dahil maraming gwapo daw) After her talk I believe Mica now has a growing fan club here in Cebu. (which I am also part of )

During the talk I decided to shoot some of the familiar faces around the hall, and some of these are even bloggers I only know online.

After which was my turn to talk. It was officially my first time to talk about Photoblogging in the public. I was really nervous when talking because I wasn’t sure what level of photography the people would want to know about. There wasn’t much time to go into detail so I just generalized everything.

Then we had a wonderful talk from the Influential Blogger herself: Mrs. Janette Toral (writer of Blogging from home) I was going around taking shots of people while listening to Tita Janette’s talk but I came to a halt when I had to listen very closely to her level of bloggers from that Tribe Book. She really opened our eyes when she mentioned about “Some bloggers remain stuck in the third level which is ‘I’m great’” and this is really happening around us.

We also had an interesting talk about Mobile Blogging which a lot of serious bloggers could learn about. Lunch break came and boy was I relieved that the food was more than enough for everyone.

Some people decided to go camwhoring during their free time:

We had the rest of the speakers such as Tonyo Cruz , who did a wonderful job talking about Citizen Journalism. We also had Ria Jose who talked about Blogging Communities (she had a very thought provoking talk which deserves a dedicated blogpost.) Who could forget the likes of Brad Geisser who talked about how to market your blog and also how to handle PR people. His talk was one of the most outstanding as many people repeatedly quoted him in Twitter and Plurk.

We also had the Business Guru of Cebu: Mr. Wilson Ng talk about Branding your Blogs, making a personal brand. Then there was Juned Sonido who talked about some serious issues in Blogging Ethics. Here’s another first as it was my first time to meet one of my blogging idols: Jayvee Fernandez. The guy amazed the campers with his awesome videos in diving and adventures. Basically Kuya Jayvee reminded everyone that Niche is good for earning money, but if you look deeper, blogging is an art and it’s all about expressing: YOU.

The last speaker was one that a good number of people have been waiting for.  Hans Koch talked about SEO and the fundamentals.

After all the speakers were done the fun was not yet over. We still had a box of goodies and 2 phones were to be raffled out by Nokia. Prince Ryan Gilig won the first N series phone and someone won the e75 (me jely!!!)  Who knows the name of the blogger who one? I still need to link him on this post.

Most of the bloggers were able to win shirts, comics, DVDs, CDs and other cool freebies.

Other Camwhoring Pics:

Hopefully next year we will be able to have even more fun!

Thanks once again to our wonderful sponsors: Smart and Nokia. I would also like to thank the CBC Team and Volunteers, speakers, and attendees!

See you all next year for the Cebu Blog Camp 2011!!

Other Related posts:

(please share your links here by commenting)

• Batang Yagit: Cebu Blog Camp 2010
• Cebu Blog Camp: Lecture on citizen journalism and new media
• Cebu Blog Camp 2010 Experience
• 1st Cebu Blog Camp 2010 : I was There!
• Cebu Blog Camp 2010 Collections
• Miss Wilhelmina: Cebu Blog Camp 2010
• Successful Cebu Blog Camp 2010
• Cebu Blog Camp 2010 – History Made
• Successful First Cebu Blog Camp
• First Cebu Blog Camp
• I came, I saw, I blogged

Related posts:

1. Cebu Bloggers Camp Out 2009: Everything under the Sun!.. and the Moon!
2. Philippine Blog Awards 2009
3. Manufacturing Technology Cebu 2010 expo
4. Cosplay in SM Cebu August 2010
5. World Bloggers Day 2011 in Cebu!