Filipina Sylvia Ratonel is a "Singapore Idol Season 3" Sensation

Euro-Filipina Sylvia Ratonel, who works as a secretary in Singapore, joined Singapore Idol on its third season and is currently enjoying her place in the show's Top 12 roster of other talented singing hopefuls.

In the first weekly performance, where the Top 13 had to sing chart toppers, Sylvia performed Alicia Keys's "Fallin' (watch her performs below).



Because of her impressive performance, Sylvia survived the first elimination.

In the Top 12 performance, the contestants had to sing songs from the year they were born. Sylvia chose to sing Guns 'N Roses' "Sweet Child of Mine" (watch below).



The 21-year-old's version of the song did not exactly impress the Singapore Idol judges (Ken Lim, Florence Liam, and Dick Dee), but they unanimously commented that Sylvia's energetic nature would get her further in the competition. That said, voting came into place and thankfully, Sylvia's version did not have her end up in the bottom three.

Watch below Sylvia Ratonel's other Singapore Idol performance:



Videos courtesy of 6yb5w8 via youtube

Indie Films "Independencia" and "Imburnal" Win Awards in 2009 Bangkok International Film Festival

Two Pinoy independent (indie) films emerged victorious in the just concluded Bangkok International Film Festival 2009.

The black-and-white film Independencia bagged two prizes while Imburnal was given a Special Mention in the filmfest that took place in Thailand from September 24-30.

Independencia was the Grand Prize winner in the Southeast Asian Category and the recipient of the NETPAC (Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema) Jury Prize Award. The period film set during the American colonization of the Philippines stars Sid Lucero, Tetchie Agbayani, and Alessandra de Rossi.

The jury awarded Independencia the Grand Prize in the Southeast Asian category "for its strong cinematic expression. The film is visually adventurous with humor, expressing historical aspects while also very friendly to the audience."

The NETPAC Award was given to Independencia "for its cinematic creation exploring the history of the Philippines and the history of Philippine Cinema within the limited space and with a few characters."

Meanwhile, the 2008 Cinema One entry Imburnal (which shared the award with Malaysian James Lee's Call If You Need Me) was given a Special Mention honor "for putting together a very risky concept with complicated sociopolitical background, and for the director's courage and bravery."


Another Filipino indie film, Aurora, also competed in this year's edition of the Bangkok IFF.

The jury of the Southeast Asian Category was composed of Vincenzo Bugno, Royston Tan, and Tul Waitoonkiat.

Brillante Mendoza served as a jury member in the main competition of the Bangkok IFF and his obra Kinatay was screened in the non-competition section.

The Piolo Pascual-starrer Manila was also be screened in the Southeast Asian Panorama section. It was recently announced that the film, co-directed by Adolf and Raya, would compete in a separate film festival that will take place in Warsaw, Poland.

Valerie Concepcion Covers FHM Philippines October 2009 Issue

Single mom-host Valerie Concepcion is on the cover of FHM Philippines October 2009 issue.


Get your own copy of FHM Philippines October 2009 issue to know why hot momma Valerie Concepcion makes FHM proud with her sizzling comeback shoot.

Bea Alonzo Covers Cosmopolitan Philippines October 2009 Issue

Bea Alonzo - The local showbiz’s resident "good girl" turns bold and brazen is the cover girl of Cossmopolitan Magazine October 2009 issue.

Other featured articles in the 150th issue of Cosmopolitan Philippines include "Fave Quotes on Breakups, Love, Women, Power and Life from the Past 150 Issues", "Cosmo-Chick Celes-And Their Love For Your Fave Mag", "Get a Date, Keep a BF", "The New Luxury: Posh Pieces Below P600", "What Rich Girls Know", "Travel for Every Budget", "Are Recession and Office OT Hurting Your Relationship?", "Complete Your Climax: Fantasy Cards (Cut and Play)", "Aljur Abrenica: He’ll Get You ‘StarStruck,’ Smitten and Super Kilig", and "Special Sealed Edition: Everything Your Gay BFF Needs to Tell You About Gay Guys Yourself and Your New Boy Toy".

Cosmopolitan October 2009 issue is mow available wherever magazines are sold nationwide.

Post Tweets Directly from Facebook with Social Twitter

Social Revitalizer is the latest company to offer a tool to bring together Facebook and Twitter — Social Twitter, a Facebook application that lets users of both social networks to post Tweets directly from their Facebook page.

Using Social Twitter to update your Twitter feed from your Facebook page is pretty straightforward. You need to add the app, then give it your Twitter handle and password. In the app, there’s a 140-character counter and tabs to post or clear your entry. You can also create a profile box on your wall or Boxes tab which shows your Twitter avatar, name and latest Tweet on your home page.

Social Twitter offers users a way to selectively post their Facebook status updates to their Twitter feeds, sort of like Facebook’s new in-house app for posting from pages to Twitter. Facebook, however, doesn’t currently let you selectively post status updates from your personal profile to Twitter (something MySpace has notably recently turned on). Most of Twitter-Facebook applications already available, including Twitter’s own Facebook app, third-party apps like TweetFace, Selective Twitter Status and desktop app Tweetdeck, are built around Twitter, then let you selectively post tweets into Facebook.

Social Twitter is also a little different in that it also allows users to create a Twitter tab on their Facebook pages where they can access their Twitter account and track all of their own Tweets.

Social Revitalizer offers a range of other Facebook applications and services for individuals and businesses, and it seems that it has done a good job of addressing some of the concerns that arose with similar programs. The convenience of posting directly to Twitter while seeing your feed from Facebook is a nice touch, but it could be even better if there was the ability to view the feed of those your following, or at least those that are also using Facebook or the service. This is still a rather new application, so it will be interesting to see how it develops as more people beginning using and commenting on the app.

The Facebook Global Monitor – October 2009 Edition is Now Available

Today, Inside Facebook has released the October 2009 edition of the Facebook Global Monitor, tracking Facebook’s growth in detail around the world. The Facebook Global Monitor tracks Facebook’s international metrics for marketers, developers, and analysts to spot trends and opportunities. A few highlights from the report’s findings:

- Facebook’s growth in Asia continued to grow by leaps and bounds in September…

- Facebook is also experiencing an increase in growth in Eastern Europe…

- Facebook also hit milestones in Austria, Germany, Indonesia, Mexico, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia in the last month…

The Facebook Global Monitor is a premium service and newsletter produced by Inside
Facebook that provides vital data and insight to media industry executives, global marketing and communications firms, analysts, and developers for whom Facebook’s rapid international expansion poses significant opportunities or threats.

For those interested in learning more, click the purchase link above. The price is $99 per issue, or $395 for a six month subscription. Future monthly updates will be delivered directly to your inbox. As always, please make suggestions if you’d like to see more attention paid to any topic. (Custom reports are also available.) You can reach us at mail AT insidefacebook DOT com with questions at any time.

Each month, the Facebook Global Monitor provides the latest comprehensive data on the expansion of Facebook’s audience in nearly 100 global markets. In addition, the Monitor provides alerts on breakout and cooling markets, as well as our latest in-house projections on Facebook’s growth in each country 30 days, 90 days, and 12 months into the future.

See the full table of contents of the first newsletter below. All reports are based on primary research by Inside Facebook using data from Facebook, and each section is designed to elucidate key actionable trends.

We believe big opportunities exist for developers and marketers to reach and engage the Facebook audience in these rapidly emerging and expanding markets. Cheers to continued growth in 2009!

The Top 25 Facebook Games for October 2009

Wow. There’s really no other words to describe what an interesting month it has been for games on the Facebook Platform. From uncanny growth to an invasion of international game developers, all sorts of precedents are being set.
Last month, records were set by the astounding growth of Zynga’s FarmVille. However, those records have been broken again this month, and more new faces are appearing on the list — and most of them from other parts of the world. Meanwhile, older games are beginning to drop off, which begs the question: are social gamers flocking to higher quality apps?


source: insidefacebook.com