Viral Ideas: Do Filipinos Love the Philippines?

[Janette Toral]

My column topic today is all about Jaeyoun Kim's essay about the Philippines. It was written back in September 2003 and still circulating the Internet today in various blogs, forums, and even featured by columnists of various publications (Manila Times, Inquirer, Malaya, Manila Bulletin, Manila Standard 1 and 2).

In my initial scanning of search results, for last Tuesday's Viral Ideas weekly webinar (8 to 9 pm), here are the Google search results:

• 2003 - 2 search results
• 2004 - 4 search results
• 2005 - 48 search results
• 2006 - 66 search results
• 2007 - 222 search results
• 2008 - 417 search results
• 2009 - 658 search results (as of October 27, 2009)

Note that I wasn't able to fully screen the list of results from 2005 onwards so there should be some irrelevant results. The earlier years also may not be entirely accurate as there are sites then (including various Yahoo Groups) that may have published but not necessarily captured by Google Search. I will be doing a more in-depth research about it measuring the responses it got online.

If there is one thing for sure, this essay piece propagated through e-mail and for as long as it will remain relevant, it will stay on and constantly referred to in the next 5 to 10 years.

If viral idea topics also interest you, I hope you tune in to our Viral Ideas weekly webinar every Tuesday from 8 pm to 9 pm.