**CONTEST OFFICIALLY CLOSED AS OF 12/30/10**

UPDATE: Added more cash prizes and a new sponsor.

Today is the first day of December and that “officially” marks the start of the Christmas season. Since Christmas is the season of giving and sharing, what could be a better way to thank my readers and share my blessings with others than to have another Christmas Giveaway, right?

I’ve had two previous big giveaways here on JaypeeOnline – the $1,000+ Christmas Giveaway in 2008 and the $1,500 Thanksgiving Giveaway last year. For this year’s Christmas Giveaway, I’ll be giving away $3,500+ worth of prizes – premium WordPress themes, premium WordPress plugin, web hosting, domains, cash and many more. Of course, all of this won’t be possible without the support and generosity of my sponsors.

PRIZES AT STAKE:
1st Prize
1-year Publisher Plan from Scribe SEO ($324)
1 Pro-Plus package from StudioPress ($249.95)
1 Developer Theme Package from WooThemes ($150)
1 Premium Theme from WPZOOM ($69)
1-year Freedom-CDN Plan from WP Webhost ($120)
1-year Pro Account from Wibiya Web Toolbar ($118.80)
1-year Starter Plan from Reinvigorate ($100)
1-year subscription to Website Monitoring from website-monitoring.com ($59)
1-year subscription to Privacy Pro from Privacy Pro ($35.95)
1-year domain (.com/.net/.org/.info) courtesy of Jehzeel Laurente ($11.99)
$20 cash via PayPal courtesy of DiTesco

2nd Prize
1-Year Publisher Plan from Scribe SEO ($324)
1 Genesis/Child theme package from StudioPress ($79.95)
1 Premium Theme from WPZOOM ($69)
1 Club Membership from Elegant Themes ($39)
1-year Advanced Hosting Plan from Hostentic ($116)
1-year Pro Account from Wibiya Web Toolbar ($118.80)
1-year Starter Plan from Reinvigorate ($100)
1-year subscription to Privacy Pro from Privacy Pro ($35.95)
1-year domain (.com/.net/.org/.info) courtesy of Jehzeel Laurente ($11.99)
$10 cash via PayPal courtesy of MukhangPera.com

3rd Prize
1-Year Publisher Plan from Scribe SEO ($324)
1 Genesis/Child theme package from StudioPress ($79.95)
1 Premium Theme from WPZOOM ($69)
1 Annual Access Membership from Flexi Themes ($49.95)
1-year Freedom Plan from WP Webhost ($80)
1-year Pro Account from Wibiya Web Toolbar ($118.80)
1-year Starter Plan from Reinvigorate ($100)
1-year subscription to Privacy Pro from Privacy Pro ($35.95)
1-year domain (.com/.net/.org/.info) courtesy of Jehzeel Laurente ($11.99)
$10 cash via PayPal courtesy of MukhangPera.com

4th Prize
1 Genesis/Child theme package from StudioPress ($79.95)
1 Premium Theme from WPZOOM ($69)
1 Basic Theme Package from WP Now ($49)
1-year Freedom Plan from WP Webhost ($80)
1-year subscription to Privacy Pro from Privacy Pro ($35.95)
1-year domains (.com/.net/.org/.info) courtesy of Jehzeel Laurente ($11.99)
$10 cash via PayPal courtesy of MukhangPera.com

Consolation Prizes
1 Premium Theme from WPZOOM ($69)
1-year subscription to Privacy Pro from Privacy Pro ($35.95)
6 – 1-year domains (.com/.net/.org/.info) courtesy of Jehzeel Laurente ($11.99)

I’m also giving away 5 Globe Tattoo USB dongles courtesy of Abe Olandres of YugaTech ($20/each) to all contestants from the Philippines.

As a BONUS, I’ll be giving away a 15% rebate for website-monitoring.com to all contestants and 2 Golden Tickets to VaultPress. Please let me know via the comment section if you’re interested.

CONTEST MECHANICS:
1. Subscribe to JaypeeOnline’s RSS feed via email. (required)

Don’t forget to validate your email subscription (After submitting your email address, FeedBurner will send you an email with a link on it to verify your subscription). If you’re already an email subscriber, please proceed to step #2.

2. Blog about this contest. (required)

Make a blog post about this contest in not less than 100 words. (Please don’t copy & paste this post). Don’t forget to include a link/trackback to this contest, prizes at stake and the list of sponsors (just the text links, no need to include the banners). If you want, you can use the Christmas Giveaway graphic in your blog post, do that by saving the image and uploading it to your own web server. (No hotlinking please)

3. Leave a comment. (required)

After you have subscribed to the RSS feed via email and published your blog post, please leave a comment on this post using the same email address you used to subscribe and include the URL to your blog post. In case you decide to avail of the bonus points, make sure to include your Twitter username and/or Facebook account name.

*I require this step so it would be easier for me to validate and keep track of each contestant’s entries.

Total = 7 pts

BONUS POINTS:
You can avail of these bonus points to get more chances of winning.

1. Follow me on Twitter and Retweet this post – 2 pts (If you’re already following me, all you need to do is retweet this post)
2. Share this post on Facebook – 1 pt
3. Join JaypeeOnline’s Facebook Fan Page – 1 pt
4. Follow JaypeeOnline on NetworkedBlogs (via Facebook) – 1 pt

Total = 5 pts

Total maximum entry points = 12 pts

CONTEST RULES:
1. Contestants are required to do all three steps under CONTEST MECHANICS.
2. No multiple entries. 1 person = 1 entry (1 person can get as much as 12 points)
3. Prizes not claimed within 30 days will be forfeited and be given to a new winner.
4. Prizes can not be converted to cash.

OUR GENEROUS SPONSORS:
Scribe SEO

StudioPress

WooThemes

WP Zoom

Elegant Themes

FlexiThemes

WP Now

WP WebHost

Hostentic Web Hosting

Wibiya Web Toolbar

Reinvigorate

Privacy Pro

Website Monitoring

Jehzeel Laurente

Abe Olandres

DiTesco

Mukhang Pera

VaultPress

Contest starts as soon as this post is published and ends on December 30, 2010. All entries should be in by midnight (US Eastern Time). Each point is equivalent to one entry that will be put into the list of entries (more points, more entries). Winners will be chosen using Random.org’s List Randomizer and will be announced the following day, December 31st.

Please make sure to check back on this post every now and then for any changes or updates.

What are you waiting for? Join now! You could be the winner of any one of these awesome prizes. Remember, the more points you have, the more your chances of winning! If you have any questions regarding the contest, feel free to contact me.

If you or your company would like to be sponsor and provide some prizes for this Christmas Giveaway, please send me a message via the Contact page.

Om Malik, the founder of Giga Omni Media, Inc. and executive editor for the technology blog GigaOM published an article yesterday revealing to his readers that he recently had a heart attack.

I had a heart attack on Dec. 28. I was able to walk into the hospital for treatment that night and have been recovering here ever since. With the support of my family and my team, I am on the road to a full recovery. I am going to be OK.

It’s good to know that Om Malik is doing okay and is recovering well. The recent heart attack had something to do with his lifestyle and diet. Why? Because he admits to smoking, drinking coffee, alcohol and eating fatty foods. He could’ve avoided it if he was more careful with his diet but everything happens for a reason. Although he learned his lesson late, better late than never right? Who knows, if this didn’t happen maybe he wouldn’t have realized that his health was important and that he should be careful with what he eats and drinks.

We can learn something from his experience and this is a good a reminder for us bloggers that our health is important. This is especially true for those who have blogging as a profession, for probloggers like Darren Rowse, John Chow, my kababayans Abe Olandres and J. Angelo Racoma just to name a few. If they get sick, they can’t blog and if they can’t blog, there’d be no content in their blog. No content, nothing for the readers to read, no site traffic, no income. You don’t want that to happen, right guys? As the saying goes, “Health is wealth” and I say “Stay healthy, stay wealthy”. Hehe

To Om Malik, hope you have a speedy recovery and God bless!

Note:
If you want to send your get well messages to Om Malik, you can do that by leaving a comment in this post.

Are you cautious with your diet and lifestyle? What measures are you taking to keep yourself healthy? Please share your thoughts, experiences and comments. We’d love to hear them.

Prizes at stake:

• Creative 2.1 Subwoofer System
• Php2,000 Gift Certificate on any Nokia Stores*
• Shell-Ferrari Model Cars
• Apacer USB 2.0 Drive
• 20 pcs. Auction.PH T-Shirts
• 2 accounts for 1-year Free 1GB Hosting and Domain

How can you join? It’s easy. Just follow these instructions:

• For the Auction.PH T-Shirt, just leave a comment with your gender and shirt size. 10 for males and 10 for females.
• For all the rest of the prizes, just mention/trackback this contest/giveaway in your blog with a link to the sponsors (Auction.PH and plogHost).

You can win more prizes by commenting or blogging about the contest. Winners will be raffled and announced on Monday, January 7, 2008. For more details, check out Abe’s post. What are you waiting for? There’s nothing to lose. Who knows, you might be the lucky winner of any of these prizes!

For Filipino owned blogs, among those that were penalized in the initial update were Yugatech, Retzwerx, Jozzua and Codamon just to mention a few. The reason? Most if not all, were brought about by paid or sponsored text link ads that didn’t use the nofollow attribute.

In the recent Google PageRank update, my blog JaypeeOnline dropped from a PR5 to a PR4. I thought that Google was done updating pageranks but apparently I was wrong because I received a comment yesterday from one of my regular readers, FruityOaty informing me that my blog just dropped to a PR3! I was surprised and disappointed but I couldn’t do anything. The only reason I can think of for my blog to get penalized was having sitewide TLA ads on my sidebar. The thing is I even removed the ads even before the initial update and I had all my featured links use the nofollow attribute. I guess it was too late. Anyways, I’ll try to file for a reinclusion at Google Webmaster Tools and hope they accept it.

I agree with the comment left by Markku on PinoyMoneyTalk’s post about the recent Google update.

The need for traditional traffic building is here again, emphasizing that content is still king.

Content is still king. This is a good reminder for established bloggers and a lesson for those who are starting. Fortunately for me, my blog traffic hasn’t been affected by the loss or drop in pagerank.

Btw, PinoyMoneyTalk has a list of several notable Filipino sites and blogs that were affected by the recent Google Pagerank update.

What do you think about the recent Google PageRank updates? Do you think Google will update PageRanks Did your blog lose or gained pagerank during the recent updates? Share your thoughts!

This is my entry for this month’s group writing project by ProBlogger. This project is open to all bloggers and if you wanna join, the rules for participating are very simple. You must stick to the topic of “Top 5″. You can write about anything under the sun, like your Top 5 TV shows, video games, celebrities, etc. The post can be in the form of a random rant, a list, pictures, video or even a podcast. This is not a contest but there will be a prize and aside from the prize there are other benefits from joining this project like finding new interesting blogs, more site traffic and lots of link love.

For my entry, I decided to make a list of the Top 5 Filipino Bloggers. I didn’t use Technorati rankings, Google Pageranks or any formula to come up with this list. I just went through the list of all Filipino and Filipina bloggers that I know of and chose the ones who I think have made a great impact and contribution in their own field. You can agree or disagree with me and I might have missed other excellent bloggers but nevertheless these bloggers, in my own opinion, are the ones I can consider as the Top 5 Filipino bloggers. Here’s my list in no particular order.

Bryan Veloso – Avalonstar

Christine – Happy Slip Productions

Abe Olandres – Yugatech

Derek Punsalan – 5ThirtyOne

Manuel L. Quezon III – Manuel L. Quezon III

Feel free to leave a comment and share who you think deserves to be on this list as a Top Filipino Blogger. I was tempted to make it a Top 10 list but then it won’t be matching the theme of this project.

For more info about the group writing project, visit ProBlogger.