In the case of Aryty (pronounced "all-righty") powered by New York-based telecommunications company Gorilla Mobile, its newest service allows cell phone users to get pasa-load from their relatives or friends based in the US or Canada via their – believe it or not – Friendster page. Yeah, with a little help from Friendster.
A digression: this is a very timely service, indeed, considering how load is an essential currency in the life of a cell phone owner, (and transferring load is something the Good Samaritan would do if he lived during these times and lugged a Nokia or a Samsung or a Motorola unit with a camera, Bluetooth and all that jazz). Load makes the whole mobile world go round.
Aryty’s SMS-based overseas load service makes it possible to transfer load to any major carrier (Globe, Smart, Sun) in the Philippines through the normal channel.
"We have the mobile-to-mobile ability – so people here can text load requests to their friends or relatives in the US or Canada," says Gorilla Mobile CEO Nils Johnson. This service has been particularly helpful to overseas Filipino workers who want to send "load back home, so they can keep in touch with loved ones." He adds, "Sending ring tones is nice, but it doesn’t really help people. Load is truly beneficial."
The primary goal was to come up with an alternative method to sending money overseas. "And Aryty is something low-cost and moves at the speed of text messaging," he enthuses.
What Aryty is doing with Friendster is essentially creating a way for people to use their Friendster profiles to ask for load by simply posting it in their account, and for their counterparts abroad to respond to the request. Something very timely also considering how everyone and their mother have a Friendster page.
Aryty has created a free and customizable Friendster module called the Aryty A-List. What users in the Philippines need to do is create their own A-List boxes by typing in their names and cell phone numbers, writing a headline (like, uh, "Hello, hello"?), and choosing the available color schemes.
"We want to add more themes to provide Filipinos with a more local vibe. We are creating templates because we want people to have maximum control over their A-Lists. Even Francis Wong (Friendster controller) will say that Filipinos really push the envelope in terms of customizing your homepages. I’m sure someone will find a way to use or customize their A-List that we haven’t thought of."
Now with the Aryty service, those in the US can view the A-list of their friends or relatives and put mobile phone credit into their accounts.
"Just imagine if you have this A-List on your homepage, you’re shopping in Glorietta and your friend or relative can send credits to your phone via your Friendster – in an instant."
And what the staff of Aryty found out was that Filipinos abroad are using Friendster, one of the largest online social networks, to stay connected back home. "That’s why we created the A-List, so that people can make use of their virtual communities to send mobile phone credits."
"When Nils approached me about the project, it just seemed a natural fit," shares Wong.
"People are using Friendster to communicate and stay connected, and load is a means to extend the (communication and connection). It’s a real linkage, not just something virtual," adds Johnson.
How do Johnson and Wong keep up with youth culture?
"I actually am a Friendster power user (laughs)," answers Johnson, who is hip to urban street-wear and who collects sneakers ("I’m a pretty serious sneaker-head.").
"I have a lot of young friends and see what they’ve been up to. Friendster, with headquarters in San Francisco, is the pioneer of (online) social networking."
Wong says, "We get a lot of feedback from users through our customer service. Most of them are very young. They want to have this or that feature. They want to do this, they want to do that. That’s how we keep in touch with (youngsters)."
The Friendster controller says that what makes them different from other online social networks is that Friendster is "focused more on genuine relationships," rather than the random virtual ones. (Case in point: You could even befriend the Arctic Monkeys or even Dave Navarro in another online social network.)
Wong explains, "With our competitor you could add, say, 50,000 friends and get 90,000 testimonials without them knowing who you really are. This is what differentiates them from Friendster, which is all about friends (and acquaintances) users have in the real world."
Johnson sees the Aryty A-List service as the virtual world complementing the real world, which is the reverse of what is normally done.
He adds: "We at Gorilla Mobile want to come up with things that are a little more innovative. We want to work with the mobile carriers in the Philippines to develop more A-List products for the market."
Johnson concludes, "Talk about being innovative, I mentioned a while back how Filipinos push the envelope when it comes to their Friendster, wait till they find out they can use their pages to get load."
For more information, visit Aryty.com.ph.
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari will be screened on Aug. 10, to be scored by Lourd De Veyra and the Radioactive Sago Project. The Golem: How He Came Into The World will be screened on Aug. 17, to be scored by Drip. Tabu will be screened on Aug. 24, to be scored by Bo Razon. And Asphalt will be screened on Aug. 31, to be scored by Cynthia Alexander.
For more information, call 817-0978, 840-5723 to 24, telefax 817-0979, or visit www.goethe.de/manila.
The Third German Silent Film Festival is made possible by The Podium, SM Cinema, Carepak Moving & Storage, Smart Communications, and Rendez-Vous PRO Public Relations Outsource. The transport of the films was courtesy of Carepak Moving & Storage.
S.A.B.A.W. releases its first anthology album
"S.A.B.A.W. An anthology of Noise, Electronic and Experimental Music 2006" will be launched tomorrow, 9 p.m., at Future Prospects/Shop 62-63, Marikina Shoe Expo, Cubao, Quezon City.
Featured performers include experimental musicians/sound artists such as Elemento, Inconnu ictu, Nasal Police (Pow Martinez and Ria Muñoz), Arvie Bartolome, and Tengal.
According to the album liner notes, "The S.A.B.A.W. Anthology is the result of existing material collected from experimental musicians/sound artists who has been working in the Philippine underground scene for the last 20 years.
"The project – conceived with the intention of not just publishing but also promoting innovations and experiments in music – is an attempt to fill a gap made real by the lack of critical appreciation and inaccessibility of sound art and experimental music for the past two decades.
"The artists here represent but a cross- section of a much larger body of musicians and artists from all over the archipelago."
The album features Arvie Bartolome, Ascaris, Autoceremony, Blend:er, Blums Borres, Children of Cathode Ray, Conscript, EAT TAE, Elemento, Foodshelter&Clothing, Inconnu ictu, Insomnia, Nasal Police, Pow Martinez, Tengal and Teresa Barrozo.
Also to be launched tomorrow are albums "Head Ego" by Arvie Bartolome, "Drones for the Bored" by Tengal, and "ZPE (Zero-point energy)" by Elemento mastermind Lirio Salvador.
For album orders and reservations, questions and feedback contact Tengal 0920-6045559 or e-mail tengald@gmail.com.