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The Year That Was 2007

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I finished off the year 2007 mostly away from home this time. It was difficult not being on the Internet for a while, since I could not recall any day of the past year when I wasn't. This separation anxiety made me reflect a bit about how much I have accomplished and if I'm ready to take on the challenge of doing more in 2008. I think the major obstacle that I face which I also faced last year was my lack of focus. I tried too hard in everything. Blogging, programming, graphic design, community management, SEO, even baking. You name it, I've done it all. Ok, maybe except e-commerce, which I'm taking up very soon. But the thing is with me is I'm always up for learning new things at the expense of not concentrating on the stuff that I'm good at. So, I'm making 2008 the year where I'm putting all my chops into one or two projects, and build on those. I have a few small "partnership" sites in development that I'm equally excited about as well. Here's my recap of the year that was 2007: 1. Created Ratified.org, a site that ranks the top blogs of the Philippines. Also created Ratified.org Australia (with Janette), that does the same for Australian blogs. Might work on an API. 2. Launched my Daily Top 10 Posts Wordpress plugin. 3. Released my very first Wordpress theme. 4. Before the PageRank crusades, one of my sites snagged a PR7, something you'll never see in Philippine sites nowadays. It's now down to 6. T_T 5. My site Dotastrategy.com achieved three milestones: it hit 100,000 members, reached 3,000 members online at the same time (totally crashed us though) and pulled an all-time high of 20,000 uniques in one day. 6. Successfully organized the Davao Blog Party and the Mindanao Bloggers Summit together with Blogie, Maria, Jun, Migs, Marc, Kim, Pete, Winston and Gwing. We recently embarked on the Davao Food Trip. You'll definitely see more of us this year. 7. Made a LOT of blogger friends. 8. Two new media companies have invited me to join them. I have not joined them yet, but that is something right? :p 9. Got a major deal with a fastfood chain to provide chocolate cakes for them. Hope it continues. 10. Got hired for a cool job last July. 11. Launched BlogComics.net with Karlo Licudine. 12. I'm featured as a Gadgets Developer on Google. It's related to #1 and I'll post more on this soon. What a crazy year. 2008 will be crazier, I promise.

14 archived comments

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  • Jaypee

    Oh wow! You know what Andrew? I'm currently polishing my year ender post and call it coincidence or what but it's almost exactly the same as yours, especially the title. Hehe Happy New Year! More power and God bless! :D

  • Jehzeel Laurente

    grabeng achievements to.. kelan kaya ko kaya maaabot at matutularan ang galing at husay ng batikang mandirigmang si andrew dela serna :D

  • Jehzeel Laurente

    btw, you didn't included na.. "I BOUGHT MY OWN ASUS EEE PC!!!" heheheh.. la lang.. yiheeeeeeeeeeee!

  • hoop

    Congrats Andrew on your Great Year! :D

  • Baklang AJ

    Hey Andrew! Happy 2008!

  • noemi

    ratified.org is awesome. I also enjoyed meeting up with you. Hope you can visit Manila more often if it involves one of your projects. I think it's hard to focus too many projects. This year, it will just be two projects for me. Anyway, Happy New Year Andrew!

  • Winston

    next year...launched an amazing WP Plugin with Winston. wahahahahaha

  • Andrew

    @Jaypee: Hahaha. We were probably writing our articles at the same time. But I published mine a few minutes earlier. Happy New Year too! @Jehz: Batikang mandirigma?! I don't consider buying an Asus eee an accomplishment. It's an expense and I partly blame you for it! Hehehe @Marc: Thanks. Same to you and your family. @AJ: Thanks AJ! :) @Noemi: Happy New Year Noemi! Thanks for your kind words and support. :) @Winston: That would be cool wouldn't it?

  • ericzoo

    As the "hip" young crowd would say.... "ASTEEEG!!" or "LUPEET" Heres to a laser focused 2008!

  • Aileen Apolo

    Congrats Andrew! Cool, hip job huh, ang saya saya naman =)

  • Mikko

    Woah, congrats kuya Andrew. PR7 is such a great achievement, pero masama ang google kaya binaba ka to 6.

  • benj

    Congrats Kuya Andrew.

  • mikeboy

    hey andrew, it's mike from the US! Happy New year Dude! are you still playing badminton . . . i'm just running now back here. you've been doing well with your projects . . . that's awesome. I lost my phone and SIM card with my phone number including your doctor cousin's number. is there any way to contact her by email or text. tell her that mike said hi! take care. mike

  • mikeboy

    hey andrew, how's the eee pc? i'm considering buying one or maybe waiting for another revision. is it as durable as they say it is? is the 800x600 screen doable?