For the 8 million Filipinos who work abroad, texting is the primary way they keep in touch with family at home. Text messages are also a political tool and played an important roll in overthrowing President Joseph Estrada in 2001 by making people aware of rallies.

Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT), the country’s largest telecoms group, said text messages on its network reached a daily average of 700-750 million last year. Competitor Globe Telecom told Reuters about 300-400 million messages were sent daily on its network last year.

PLDT and Globe have more than 50 million subscribers and the country’s mobile penetration rate is about 60 percent, compared to 35 percent in Indonesia, 75 percent in Thailand and 84 percent in Malaysia.

Industry executives believe that up to 80 percent penetration is possible over the next two years as an improved economy allows more people to buy mobiles.

In 2006, 500 million text messages were sent daily and 250 million in 2005, the National Telecommunications Commission said.

The wide spread use of text messaging is due in part to its affordability. Credit can be purchased for one peso (2.5 U.S. cents) and mobile users can transfer credits to another phone.

Yahoo Pinoy Connect (yes, the name is pretty easy to guess based on the previous paragraph) has actually been around for a while, but its new incarnation should offer a number of improvements.  Hence the use of “mabuhay” (a friendly form of greeting) – fresh introductions are necessary.

“The new Pinoy Connect website, besides engendering Internet education and awareness, now provides a platform for the online Filipino community,” reports Lawrence Casiraya for Inquirer.net.  It also features “a collection of relevant social and user-generated content and localized social Internet tools, including localized versions of Yahoo! Answers (social search), Yahoo! Groups (online communities), and Flickr (photo sharing).”

In case you’re questioning this move – I know the Philippines aren’t a big topic of discussion in Lexington, Kentucky, at least – Casiraya notes, “Yahoo runs around 20 similar country-specific sites including neighboring countries Singapore, Malaysia and Vietnam.”

On the less-formal Inquirer.net blog, he adds, “What’s next, Yahoo! Kazakhstan?”  Yet the Pinoy Connect development also comes just weeks after Yahoo’s Flickr added support for seven new languages.  And who knows – if Yahoo Pinoy Connect is successful, perhaps the Philippines will come up more frequently in the U.S.

Hat tip to Loren Baker.

Newsbot also gives users the ability to search for news topics or browse headlines from all over the globe. The regions that MSN has added to Newsbot actually become beta sites tailored to the area that the user chooses. This includes the language of the region selected.

According to ResourceShelf, the regions MSN has added are:

-Belgium
-Ireland
-Switzerland (French)
-US (Spanish)
-Indonesia
-Philippines

These additions increase Newsbot’s coverage to 15 regions. There has been no word on when MSN expects to make the launch of its news service official.

Chris Richardson is a search engine writer and editor for WebProNews. Visit WebProNews for the latest search news.