If you’re half way around the world and still awake, you can catch the 5th iBlog conference right now on live stream. Currently on its 5th year, iBlog is the longest running conference in the Philippines that brings the entire blogging community together. Morning sessions are usually dedicated to niche blogging topics such as blogging basics, photo blogging, video blogging, mobile blogs and SEO tips.

The afternoon session discusses more about the local blog industry including blog advertising, viral marketing campaigns, and the role of bloggers in the Philippine political scene preparing for the 2010 presidential elections.

Live stream link.

BlogTalkRadio is you chance to host your very own radio show, participate in, or just listen to one. The service’s been around for some time, and has attracted quite a few celebrities, both online and the more traditional kind. With that in mind, I got in touch with Community Manager Deborah Ng to hear what she had to say about BlogTalkRadio, podcasting, and other things. The interview was a treat to good to pass up. read more

You might not have noticed, but there is a silent war going on, and it is all about how you will engage with other people on websites. Facebook Connect has gotten a lot of press, and with Twitter’s new OAuth functionality, we’re looking at Twitter Connect too. On the sidelines we find OpenID, which is still too bulky but might just get there, and Google Friend Connect. The latter pops up here and there as a widget mostly, but so far without the thunder of its Facebook equivalent. Well, that’s not quite right, they don’t really do the same thing since GFC is more of a widgety thing that adds functionality, whereas FC is an actual login method, but nevertheless they are competing in the same space. read more

There is no doubt in the WordPress Community. The best Plugin competition has started: The Weblog Tools Collection WordPress Plugin Competition 2009 (3.0).

If you are new to the WordPress Community, you may not even know that you are probably using a WordPress Plugin generated during a past WTC WordPress Plugin Competition. There have been some incredible great and innovative – not to mention useful – WordPress Plugins such as: read more

WordPress 2.8 News: The final stages of development, testing, and patching is underway for the release of WordPress 2.8. The latest news on the next version of WordPress includes: read more

TechCrunch obviously wants to save money on “real” surveillance, so they’ll get the nerdosphere to do the job for them, courtesy of the CrunchCam. That’s the fancy word for a webcam setup at the TechCrunch office, streaming live nonstop using Ustream. That’s right, you can watch bloggers blog, for free! And you know what, they might even add a second camera with limited audio, oh the joy!

To be fair, they are doing something with this. Right now I’m seein a dog, a bunch of bloggers behind desks or running around, and a “Today’s Sponsor” whiteboard piece of art. And if you watch it on Ustream, you can tweet about it and end up in the social stream box. That’s always fun, isn’t it?

Hopefully not all bloggers will follow. The mere thought of being able to watch some unwashed guy still in his undies at 3PM scares me a little.

What do Jimmy Fallon, the New York Times, Twitter and Neil Pasricha (WHO?!) have in common? They will all be recipients of the coveted Webby Award in June.

We must tip our cap to Neil Pasricha, owner of 1000AwesomeThings.com. The everyman blogger has taken his Website, which is counting down one thousand “awesome” things, to the big show. read more

Remember that cushy blogging job advertised a few months ago – a six-month, live-in contract to promote the Great Barrier Reef?

A lucky Brit has scooped the job, picked from thousands of applications and a shortlist of 16 finalists.

Ben Southall described himself as “the adventurous, crazy, energetic one” and “practically a fish”, winning over the four-person selection panel in a selection of challenges on Hamilton Island. read more

Twitter has been using TinyURL for its own URL shortening needs. Up until now, that is. As several sites have noticed, Twitter has silently replaced TinyURL with bit.ly. TechCrunch doesn’t find that very surprising, naming Betaworks as common ground for both bit.ly and now Twitter-owned Summize.

Will Twitter buy bit.ly next? They should, the fact that they’ve been relying on external infrastructure for their URL shortening needs this long is surprising.

Actress Mia Farrow would like to draw attention to Darfur. She started her hunger strike 10 days ago and is regularly updating her blog and YouTube channel to keep all of us updated.

She urges everyone to call the White House at 202-456-1111 and remind President Barack Obama of his promise to help in ending the tragedy in Darfur..

“People want to go home. They want to go back to their villages to rebuild. They want peace and security. They haven’t had that for two long. We can all do something. We have a voice. if we don’t use it now then who are we?” Farrow said in a video post.

Magician David Blaine called on Farrow before she started with the hunger strike and gave tips on how to prepare and what to expect.

“He said after 6 days I wont feel hunger. He told me to drink 4 liters of water,” she said.