As a reader, you have either subscribed to this website a long time ago or just recently and still don’t know a lot about its background and what it went through that lead to where it is now. Personally, I’ve been a part of this site for a couple of years already and haven’t known all the things listed here until only recently.
For this article, we break away from the usual news and reviews of gadgets and focus on the site itself as we’re also nearing our anniversary. Here are some quick facts about YugaTech.
Table of Contents
1. The meaning of “Yuga” in YugaTech
A lot of people have been asking where the site got its name and what it means. It actually came from Iloilo where the founder, Abe Olandres, is from. It is commonly used in conversations which is an expression of disbelief or surprise. Like exclaiming, “really?” or, “wow!”
Snapshot from February 2006: Moved to WordPress while created scripts and plugins.
Interestingly, the old site had a sub-title in addition to YugaTech saying, “Ambot ah” meaning “ewan ko” or “I don’t know”. For a short while, the site was also called “redshift” — a shift to the color red after trying to teach himself web design for years (red was his most hated color so he thought that in order to be truly creative, he needed to *like* the color red).
2. YugaTech ran on its own CMS
Called YugaBlog, our site originally ran on its own CMS (content management system) which is a self-made blogging platform before it made its transition to WordPress in 2005.
From April 2004: This site runs on its own CMS program built by Yuga from scratch (after reading 500 pages of the PHP manual).
3. YugaTech was first hosted in HyperMart
hypermart.net is a small business web hosting and is where YugaTech was born. Today, the first thing that will enter your mind when someone says HyperMart is a grocery store and not a service for hosting sites.
Snapshot from November 2001: The site on hypermart.net and inspired by AnandTech.
Imagine if we still stuck by it. We imagine a lot of moms out there will be going to our site mistakingly looking for prices of fresh cabbages.
4. YugaTech is one of the longest-running blogs in the Philippines
YugaTech has been around for 15 years (since 2001 with HyperMart, yugatech.com was registered October 2002) — making it one of the longest-running blogs in the Philippines. The founder practically started the blogging industry in the country before others followed suit. Today, it’s the number one blog site in PH in terms of page views and still continues to deliver fresh, relevant content to its thousands of followers.
5. YugaTech started out as a travel photography blog
The founder/EIC started out (and still is) a camera buff with a passion for sharing his shots to the readers while giving some tips and reviews along the way.
Snapshot from December 2009: Our biggest giveaway! We had over 300 winners that Christmas.
This is why there used to be an Animal Kingdom category (I know, weird right?) on our articles and I personally have been wondering what it was for since this is a tech website, until he mentioned it in passing during one of our meetings.
6. YugaTech, for years, has been a one-man team
Since its establishment, the website was run solely by Abe until 2012 where he added two new contributors. One of them is present until today and is now the Managing Editor of the site. From one person, the team has now gotten bigger to 6 full-time members plus 5 regular contributors.
7. YugaTech was inspired by Anandtech
anandtech.com is an online computer hardware magazine founded by Anand Lal Shimpi. This inspiration came after watching him do a TV interview at 19 years old about his passion for computers. His site is a source for hardware reviews for components and later on expanded to mobile devices — pretty much like what you see on YugaTech today with reviews for computers, smartphones, tablets, and more.
Those sum up some of the interesting facts about our website. We hope you enjoyed knowing these little things about us and just for fun, can we get a shout out from our readers as to how far back have you been following our page? The older, the better!
Been reading yugatech for a couple of years now way back 2007 i believe. Whenever i have to buy an electonic item, i consulted yugatech first. They are informative but just like others have observed, some of the articles cane from other sources, e.g. zdnet…. any way its a good website….kudos….
so, how much this site earned every month on ads? im just curious.
Pang local news lang naman relevant sa yuga, aside from that, wala na. Any tech news sa Anandtech, Guru3D, Hardware Canucks, Tom’s Hardware, Youtube subs (NCIX Tech Tips, Scattervolt, randomfrankp)
Yup, more proof-reading please. I’ve been a long time sort of reader. I mostly get my tech news from other sites, but I have to say for more local tech news, this site is at the top of my list.
It’s just sad that writers here don’t spend much effort in coming up with a better angle on the content. Reviews of products are pretty much shallow, and sometimes, posts are just pretty much pointless or not thought of very well (that article about regulating the internet! *cringe*).
I guess it is up to the Yugatech team to step up their game. It is just not enough that its claim to fame is being the longest running blog or whatnot. I hope this blog becomes a source of not just fresh information, but also well-thought of articles/content.
At may pinakagwapong writer. You know who :)
ano na nangyari sa grabeh.com/forum niya?
Dapat may yotatech din LOL.
Ilonggo knows haha
wow congrats yuga! i never thought that this yuga is the yuga which i say all the time! haha im an ilonggo too and never thought that this is the origin. i’ve been following this site since 2006. was just pissed off about all the pop-up ads lately. i wish you good luck and please….please…stay away from pop-up ads! haha
Yes you said it.Should be fact#9. Yugatech prides itself in plastering the whole (in mobile) damn page wih an ad.
Padagdag na rin
8. Most articles are just copy-and-paste from various website.
I agree. And they don’t really edit their articles. Wrong grammar, wrong information, and irrelevant articles like this one.
Wag naman po ganyan kuya XD
Looks like this article was relevant enough for some to comment about it.
Keep up the blog, Yugatech peeps, though I agree on the need to proofread your articles.
Mema-post ang mga writer wannabe. Wahahaha! Laughtrip sila
I don’t know about you but I prefer reading most of my tech news here at yuga. Sure they may be as what you say copy paste from other various websites but that’s if you have the time to go to those other websites or know of those other websites. Maybe you might say I’m not broadening my options for tech sites but I just don’t have the time (or maybe patience) for it. Call it as you see fit but there’s still something you find in this site that’s keeping you coming back here and your comment just proves that.