Worker Bees Blog

Got the nicest email yesterday. From someone leading a class on leadership for high school students, who came upon an old post of mine and wanted to use it as a lesson in communications.

The post: A Little Story About Communication

I'll be honest, I was surprised. It's an old post, and not one that pop into my head when thinking of past posts that might be lesson-worthy.

But I'm tickled nonetheless.

We launched a new Twitter account at BlogHer, @BlogHerDeals.

This prompted a little soul-searching about whether the use of Twitter as a marketing tool is a natural fit. Or whether some tools of the human variety are ruining Twitter with their marketing.

Weigh in and you be the judge.

Labels: bloghercon, marketing, Twitter

I was reading a standard post about Twitter, and how he uses it, from Guy Kawasaki.

Wasn't really learning anything new or being too surprised when I read this somewhat hilarious Q from his FAQs about Twitter, about his use of ghost-twitterers:

Question: Why do some people attack you so much for this?

Answer: Most are angry, little “SEO experts” who cannot generate content, so they try to generate controversy in order to drive traffic to their blogs or get other angry, little people to follow them.

Oh so sad for those very reputable SEO folks I know, including the folks at Beyond Ink that BlogHer actually hired when we were transitioning from our old .org domain to .com.

But oh so reminds of some of the stuff that happens, say every July when "BlogHer" is a trending topic :)

Labels: bloghercon, guy kawasaki, Twitter

Lisa, Jory and I often say that we created the "best jobs we've ever had" when we co-founded BlogHer.

So, here's a little insight into one reason I say that:

Lately I've been having a lot of fun with BlogHer's own house ads that we run on BlogHer.com and the network. We like to feature hot editorial and our contributing editors, among other community-related stuff.

One of the earliest editorial ads we did was set to feature some posts that were written on the site about marketing to women, and how companies fall back on stereotypes. When talking abut the visuals to go with the copy featuring the editors' work, one of my colleagues proposed putting the copy against a sparkly pink background, but wondered if that would be too negative.

I thought: Hey why not just go all the way with that? So I literally said:

"As for a visual: We can use their [the editors] headshots, but superimpose them onto cartoon figures as follows:

Suzane riding a unicorn
Virginia in a Disney-like princess outfit

All against a pink background with butterflies and rainbows?

I think that would be hilarious."

And I did think that would be hilarious :)

And it came out looking like this:



Which I thought was actually hilarious. I laughed every time I saw it. I exchanged tweets with folks who loved it too. Fun for all!

And then this blogger was actually motivated to write some serous commentary based on seeing the ad:

"While doing my usual rounds of the food blogs, I came across a banner that intrigued me: it was from BlogHer, asking us (you?) if marketing to women is all about stereotypes. I couldn't quite remember the content of the articles I read from that link, but one writer was lamenting about a sparkly pink candy "just for the ladies" (I can't remember if this is the article I read about the controversial candy bar called "The Finger") while another one, about a "misguided laptops-for-women site." I found myself agreeing with the content of the articles, and of course I am for gender-neutral advertising, for the most part. But don't think men have been dealt a better hand.

Just watching a local cable network here, "Maxx" (probably your equivalent would be SpikeTV, Americans), where I get my daily dose of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, all the ads are geared towards men. The tagline is "get away with it." Away with what? Oh, watching extreme sports, bikini-clad computer-generated anime females that I hope are meant to be older than 21, references to wanking, beer, infidelity, pugilism, poker, and yes, we prefer women to be dumb (and biting their nails for some reason). Why is The Daily Show and The Colbert Report (among other comedy shows) here? Because laughter apparently requires testicles."

And he goes on to outline traditional feminine programming a la the Lifetime Network or Hallmark Channel...good stuff.

I had to agree I had never thought of it that way. And it was excellent food for thought...no pun intended simply because that incisive commentary was on a food blog :)

But you know what: That's why I love my job.

I'm just sayin'

Had a great time this past Wednesday being interviewed by life coach and BlogHer CE on personal finance, business and career, Paula Gregorowicz.

The link to her post publishing the interview is here.

I'm not sure I completely lived up to Paula's vision of being comfortable in one's own skin and how that leads to fulfillment and success. I think I made a different point...that one can be comfortable in one's own skin in parts. And that can be enough. I am highly comfortable about some things, and that serves me well...and it can serve you well too, even if you're a mass of discomfort about other things! Leverage your strengths, baby, that's what it's all about.

When I think of some of the great achievers, I'm not thinking of people who breeze through life without insecurity, or even people who seem that comfortable in their own skin. But they are driven, and who knows? Maybe our discomforts and insecurities are part of what drive us?

What does being comfortable in your own skin...or not being that comfortable...mean to you and achieving your goals?

Labels: interview, Paula Gregorowicz, podcast

Catching up on my blog reading after a week in NYC, I came across this piece on Mashable: Will Pay Per Tweet Ruin Twitter?.

As per usual, the post itself only generated a part of my response below, with the lengthy comment thread providing most of the fodder. I started to leave a comment, but you may already know my personal rule: If I start to leave a comment, and it exceeds three paragraphs? It deserves to be a blog post instead.

And here we go, first with some background:

Once upon a time, a long time ago, there was a company called Pay Per Post that paid bloggers a nominal fee to write posts for PPP customers, including specified links etc. PPP came under fire for a variety of policy issues, including the fact that they didn't require disclosure that the posts in question were paid for, and for the fact that sometimes bloggers didn't get samples of products they were paid to write about...so these truly seemed to be regurgitation of company talking points, not authentic reviews or opinions.

Now, it was bad enough when some bloggers and blog readers got their knickers in a twist about it...that created repeated brouhahas and blog swarms. But then Google got wind of it, and decided to strip page rank from blogs who in engaged in PPP. So what? I mean Google ain't the law, right? They're not even the only search engine. They aren't the boss of you, me or any other blogger. All true, but, you know, bloggers can rationalize losing readers who don't like what they blog about, but having Google impact their blog's rank (and therefore search presence and, let's face it, credibility, was another matter altogether.

So, the market having spoken, Pay Per Post changed their name (to Izea) and changed some of their policies. Hey, its a nascent market, a nascent industry, so I guess kudos to them for adapting. Now, to my knowledge, whatever else they may do and whatever you may think, they require disclosure, and they use the no-follow tag to appease Google.

End of story? Not on your life. Apparently now, Izea has introduced a pay-per-tweet service, and it's deja vu all over again. PS: Here on in I will call it PPT. Because I'm lazy like that.

So, telling that the fable above and offering my kudos to Izea's adaptability is not to say that:

a. I agree with such programs or policies
b. That I would participate in them
c. That that's the way BlogHer would ever do things. (Full disclosure: We do things differently. If you want to see how we do things and why, read this post. We like our way of doing things just fine, think we've cracked the code, and it happens to not be like Izea's particular approach.)

But some things just make me go hmmm. Once again, as my partner Jory pointed out in one of her columns for Jack Myers, people are abandoning analysis and nuance in favor of sweeping condemnation and a weird need to control others instead of controlling themselves.

And I found a surprising impulse with me. Me, the bleeding heart who thinks a lot about right and wrong and what should be done about it. I found my inner capitalist, and she was saying: "Let the reader decide. Let the market decide."

Another thing I'm not saying: I'm not saying that people aren't completely entitled to express their outrage or disappointment over this new program. Totally your right, free country, blah-di-blah-di-blah. And i completely support your right to vote with your feet, your wallet, your eyeballs. In fact, once you've publicly denounced something, aren't you kind of obligated to do so? :)

But, barring fraud or some other criminality, my inner capitalist is saying: "Let people and companies try as many new things in this space as they like."

Because the real, true beauty of my online experience? I control it. I'm tired of complaints about "the noise". Turn down the noise, people, the controls are in your hands!! it's called "unfollow" or "unsubscribe" or filtering, and I recommend using it liberally.

Mashable's Adam Ostrow actually makes the same argument, so I agree with 90% of his post. But my jaw dropped a bit at this sweeping generalization:

"Personally, I think any review – on a blog or on Twitter – is immediately de-valued if the author is being paid to write it, because the objectivity is lost."

And this whole post started because I wanted to respond to the following comment thread about that statement:

Lisawriter:
Hmm, if you argue that all critics who are paid can't be objective, you could say the same thing about Roger Ebert, book reviewers and other pros. It depends on the critic's experience.

Adam Ostrow:
eh, but Roger Ebert *needs* the content in order to review it, and people want his reviews of this weekend's new movies. Reviews of random products by random people for pay is quite a bit different imo.

Kage:
I agree. It's Roger Eberts job, he loves movies and people want his reviews. He's not just a guy reviewing anything just to make some money.

See, I agree with Lisawriter that it is a pretty sweeping statement to say:
"Personally, I think any review – on a blog or on Twitter – is immediately de-valued if the author is being paid to write it, because the objectivity is lost."

Any review? Really?

Well, no, later both Adam and commenter Kage make it clear that some paid reviews are OK, like Roger Ebert's, for what seem to me to be totally specious reasons. Getting paid is OK if "people want the reviews"? Or if someone "loves" what they review?

Couldn't that apply to bloggers and Twitterers too?

Well, clearly it could, so does Adam simply have a problem with the medium of blogs and Twitter? It is not the skill, desire or market for the reviewer's output that matters, but where he or she publishes that matters? Or are we to think that no one of professional caliber writes online?

And I don't think he means that either.

Nope, what we're all saying is that quality content is desirable and inauthentic shilling is not. In any form, on any channel.

And if you're among the population who agree with that definition of what matters?

Then use the controls at your command to fix it. Make 'em pay!

When I see a comment like this:

Jillian C. York:
"Twitter lost its "purity" when Oprah showed up and the unwashed masses followed suit, with absurd daily memes and obnoxious bios."

I want to ask her: Have you heard of unfollowing??

Because Jillian is not complaining about fraud or hate speech. This isn't a debate like the one about whether Facebook should really allow hate groups, but not breastfeeders.

No, she's complaining about, shudder, memes and the unwashed masses, the horror, the horror.

Hey, I tend to agree more with this commenter:

Emily:
"I think you're right that as long as it is disclosed via the #spon hastag, there's really no harm to me as a Twitter user. I wouldn't tweet about a product I didn't like just to get paid, but if a company was offering to pay me to tweet about something I actually use, I'd probably do it. It's like we're all celebrities who can get endorsement deals. Some will be shady, but some will be genuinely interesting and fun. What is killing Twitter for me is all the Social Media "Coaches" and SEO "Experts." Too much meta-Twitter for me."

If it's not memes, it's meta-Twittering that'll get ya!

Now, I don't want to get frivolous or disingenuous about it. Take this comment:

Dave Taylor Yesterday 10:07 PM
"This is really easy, gang: if you don't want to follow someone who sends out sponsored messages, then unfollow them when you see a #spon tweet.

On the other hand, when I post a "Check out my new blog post: http://www.tiny.url/" isn't that an advert? When I get tweets from people saying "Listening to XX speak about YY. Boring #conf" isn't that advertising with a direct, user feedback spin?"

As you can guess, I'm with Dave on the first paragraph...all the way. Unfollow anyone who you feel is spamming you via Twitter.

And the lovely and talented Gwen Bell, with whom I shared a rare vegan meal in Vegas, seems to be with Dave on the second paragraph too, at least according to her post: Newsflash: We're all shilling.

But while I actually agree that people who constantly tweet their latest blog posts are annoying, and while I may personally think the phrase "Please Retweet" should be stricken from the lexicon, I don't actually equate exchanging linky love with exchanging contracts and cash. I just don't. I don't think we're all shilling all the time, either.

There are some services/companies out there that require a tweet or retweet in order to enter a contest. I see the dozens of tweets go by, and it bugs me. I don't think it's a best practice to ask your customers to spam their followers for you in order to win something.

On the other hand, I often tweet something BlogHer is up to from the @BlogHer account and see bunches of people retweet it, unprompted.

Part of me thinks "I hope no one thinks we told people they should tweet that!"
Part of me thinks, "Wow, so cool that they think that's tweet-worthy".
All of me thinks that it was those twitterers choice to retweet it, and their readers can choose to like it or lump it...to keep following or hit Unfollow in frustration.

Here's an example: I have twice tweeted from my personal Twitter account, unprompted, about a BlogHer sponsor/advertiser. Once about Kozy Shack introducing soy pudding, once about discovering that Clorox Green Works considers "not testing on animals" to be one of the core principles a "natural" product should follow.

Well, most people who follow me know I am one of BlogHer's few, proud, token vegans. I don't blog/tweet much about politics anymore, but I still try to represent the vegan view when I can. I also subscribe strongly to the "vote with your wallet" theory...rewarding and punishing company policies by buying or not buying whenever I can. I was genuinely excited when I saw both of those things from a sponsor. In each case I disclosed they were a BlogHer sponsor. In each case I wasn't paid to do so, nor was it part of some deal with them that I would do so.

Some might argue I shouldn't have tweeted anyway, because BlogHer collects money from these sponsors, and I am paid by BlogHer. But then I suppose a newspaper shouldn't review a movie who's production company advertises in their paper either, right?

The big issues, IMHO, are:

1. Disclosure. Meaning: You better haz it.

2. Context. Meaning: Is it at all authentic that the person would tweet about something? Is it at all relevant? To the writer? To their readers? I'm about to unfollow a tweeter who mostly tweets self-promotional stuff about her online business, not because her tweets aren't relevant to her and what she does, not because I don't think she sincerely is passionate about her business. But because it turns out not to be that relevant to me.

3. The church/state issue: You have to make a call on where you stand on the separation of church (editorial) and state (advertising/sponsorship). Do you think it's important to have actual physical demarcation between those two kinds of content you write/publish/support? If you do, better do it consistently, because you're setting expectations. (And might I add, it's those reader expectations that the FTC seems most concerned about.)

Here in the social media space, we all get to decide.

We get to decide what kind of publisher we want to be.
We get to decide which partners are the right partners, whose policies you can live with.
We get to decide who is worth keeping in our blog reader, in our twitter feed.

Will PPT Ruin Twitter?

Not my Twitter.

This Tuesday I'm speaking for the eWomen Network's San Mateo County chapter.

The topic?

Oh, come on now!

Here's the description:

Raise your Voice while Raising your Ability to Connect, Share & Promote yourself through Blogging
Blogging has moved beyond a niche techie tool to a mainstream form of communications for American women. In fact, over half of American women online participate in the blogosphere weekly. What are they doing? They're transforming their own lives, and some of them are changing the world. Blogging can help women raise their voice, raise their profile and raise their expectations. This presentation will explore why and how women are using blogs today and provide specific steps to getting started in the blogging world!

At this powerful event you'll learn:

Why you should care about what's going on in the blogosphere and how to capture your audience

The basic components of a blog, and exactly how much or how little technical know-how you need to succeed

Learn some of the most effective uses of blogging as a professional tool

I think it only costs $35 and includes dinner, so if you're interested, I hope you'll come.

They are VERY into networking at these things. Perfect if you're a closet introvert like me who might otherwise stand in the corner.

Come on, you know you want to. (And if you're one of the many Silicon Valley-ites impacted by this recession? You might need to too!)

Will I see you there?

Labels: eWomen Network, speaking

It's Internet Week in NYC, and I'm there. Completely coincidentally, and without much chance to participate!

OK, the one thing I'll be doing is speaking again at MediaBistro Circus. Really looking forward to talking about new media business models. Couldn't be a more urgent topic for the media industry right now, could there?

I'm not so much looking forward to following the Cirque du Soleil!! Yup, MediaBistro has lined up an act from the Cirque to perform for attendees. And due to their performance schedule, they've got to be slotted in right before the closing panel.

Normally, it would be awesome to close out a conference. But somehow, I'm not thinking coming between the Cirque and the cosing reception is the plum spot...can you say hard act to follow and being a barrier between attendees and their cocktails! Good luck to us, that's all I have to say :)

The rest of the week BlogHer's sales team has my time almost completely booked. I'll be out and about presenting our 2009 Women and Social Media Study in some detail.

I'll also try to fit in meeting up with a few folks to catch up, both industry and friends from my former life living in NY.

Thinking catching a Broadway show might not be in my future this week, which is a real shame, considering the Tony Awards are a week from today.

Boy, how my trips to NYC have changed...from the theatre to the Internet. What a long,strange trip it's been!

Labels: blogher, bloghercon, Internet Week, MediaBistro Circus

I read Leena Rao's post on TechCrunch about Six small conferences about Twitter, first with some amazement, and then with a feeling of familiarity.

Amazement because: I too find it ironic to have so much content swirling around about an application built (and widely adopted) based on the concept of brevity

Familiarity because: Wouldn't you just know that every speaker Leena calls out in her post is a man? Surely, that can't be, I thought. And it wasn't when I actually went to each site and review their speaker pages and did the math. But the ratio wasn't great. Less than 30% women across all six conferences...and that was mostly on the backs of one or two of the events that had pretty good ratios.

My experience of twitter is so different than that ratio reflects. Much as my experience of the blogosphere was so different than such things as speaker rosters and "top blogger" lists reflected 4 years ago when we started BlogHer.

My twittersphere is dominated by women. The power players in my twittersphere are women.

And dare I say that the people actually creating interesting *content* in my twittersphere are women. Having robust debates. Sharing wry observations. Egging their followers on to action.

I follow all the same "big guns" as anyone else, and what I often get from them are a bunch of links. At best, signpost links to interesting stuff other people are doing or talking about. That's a time-honored social media segment...the signpost blogger, the signpost twitterer. Robert Scoble. Guy Kawasaki. but often, just self-promotional links. Certainly we post a lot of links in Twitter via our @BlogHer account. We also do a lot of direct customer support via that account.

I just hope that while all these conferences are talking about Twitter, the potential traffic driver and marketing tool, they also give it its due as a community-builder, as a relationship-enhancer, as a conversation-driver, as a social-change-agent, as a window-to-my-most-ephemeral-but-therefore-most-uniquely-me-thoughtsand as a lot of other hyphenates that aren't really about how many followers you have or how many referrers you get.

In my corner of the twittersphere, enriched by the heavy adoption of women bloggers (some stats on that cross-usage are in our 2009 Women and Social Media Study, in case you have not checked it out yet) Twitter is all of that. And I think it's noteworthy. Conversation-worthy. Perhaps even conference-session-worthy.

But I'm still amazed that it's six-conferences-worthy. Call me old-skool, we're sticking with a couple of sessions on Twitter and similar apps at BlogHer, not even an entire track!

Practically Luddites!

Labels: blogher '09, bloghercon, conferences, Twitter, women speakers

Last year BlogHer was honored to win the Anita Borg Social Impact Award, and then I was honored to be invited to participate on the Nominating Committee for this year's Women of Vision Awards. (I know, that's a lot of being honored.) What does a nominating committee do? Well, they try to find excellent people to nominate or try to get colleagues to nominate excellent people they know. I worked with colleagues to nominate three different women, and I knocked it out of the park as a firs-timer on the committee, because on of my nominees, Mitchell Baker from Mozilla, won the Leadership Award.

The banquet event honoring the winners, including Mitchell, was inspiring...inspiring to be among so many great women geeks, and inspiring to hear some of them share their experiences and their expertise.

My two personal faves (and I admit to being biased re: the latter) were Cisco CTO Padmasree Warrior and Mitchell.

Warrior (and what a great name, right?) sounded like someone who just gets it, from business skills, to career management, to people management, to Twitter, for that matter!

Mitchell brought something a little new to the table...not just being more webby than the average ABI Woman of Vision, but being a proponent of open source and the open Internet. A lot of the folks there were from academia, where such openness is really foreign to them.

Met other fascinating women there too, including re-meeting Sydnie Kohara from the local CBS affiliate and Drue Kataoka from ValleyZen (intriguing concept) who also wrote about the evening and posted many shots here.

Here are my two, far less well-done photos!

Labels: Anita Borg Institute, mitchelle baker, padmasree warrior

Tomorrow I'm headed to a function honoring the winner of the inaugural Symons Innovator Award, presented by the National Center for Women and Information Technology (NCWiT).

NCWIT created the Symons Innovator Award, named in memory of Jeanette Symons, to highlight women’s accomplishments in innovation by recognizing one outstanding woman IT entrepreneur each year. This year’s award recipient is Anousheh Ansari: the first woman private explorer in space, the title sponsor of the Ansari X Prize, and founder of Prodea Systems and Telecom Technologies, Inc.

You can read more about NCWIT, the Award, Ms. Ansari and Jeanette Symons, for whom the award is named, in the NCWIT press release.

Last week I went to the Women of Vision Awards Banquet, put on by the Anita Borg Institute. I still need to write that up and post some pictures.

But let's just say that there's nothing like reading about these award winners and what they've accomplished to both inspire you...nad light a fire under your butt to accomplish more with your life!

Labels: Anita Borg Institute, Anousheh Ansari, NCWIT, Symons Innovator Award

OK, so I haven't quite turned my Smart People Talking about Important Things™ idea into a series yet, but here's video #2.

I attended a lovely book launch party for Tara Hunt and her newly-published tome, The Whuffie Factor, yesterday evening.

Before cutting to the very creatively decorated cake (picture at the end for my foodie friends) Tara spoke a bit about whuffie and answered a couple of questions from the friends gathered there.

She very kindly cited BlogHer as an example of one of her key steps to building whuffie (Step #3, Embrace the Chaos!) and I also learned yesterday that she quotes me in the book! I'm quite proud and flattered.

It was great to see Eugene Kim and Adina Levin, both of whom I haven't seen in ages. And great to meet Nilofer Merchant, the hostess, and a prominent leader in the Valley.

And it was great to hear Tara talk about whuffie for about 10 minutes:



Oh, and as promised, the awesome cake:

All day long I have been meaning to come over here and post a link to a post I'm very proud of. Every now and then Lisa, Jory and I collaborate to put a stake in the ground via a post on BlogHer.

With all of the many conversations buzzing about bloggers, the FTC, advertising, editorial, the decline of traditional media and more, we decided to make our position crystal clear. We wanted to revisit how we set up the standards and guidelines by which we run BlogHer and the BlogHer Publishing Network. We wanted to remember why we chose to do things that way. And in doing so, I feel like we reinforced our commitment to those policies.

The post is: The elephant in the room: How BlogHer is cracking the code on editorial content and paid advertising.

And I hope you'll read it...and the ensuing comments.

Labels: blogher, bloghercon, editorial standards

Labels: blogher, bloghercon, Ruby on Rails, sexism, women in tech

A couple of weeks ago Lucy Sanders, CEO and Co-Founder of the National Center for Women & Information Technology and NCWIT founding board member Larry Nelson interviewed me about social media, BlogHer and entrepreneurship. it will eventually be on the NCWIT site as part of their series on Entrepreneurial "Heroes", but for now it's posted on the W3W3 network. [Blog post] [MP3]

Labels: blogher, bloghercon, NCWIT

This morning BlogHer released our second annual Women and Social Media Study, this year working again with Compass Partners and also with iVillage, to take a more granular look at how women are using social media tools...including blogs, message boards and forums, social network sites like Facebook and MySpace and status updating tools like Twitter.

Labels: blogher, bloghercon, compass partners, ivillage, market stats, social media, surveys, Women 2.0

This morning I participated in a fun project Marketing Diva Toby Bloomberg is wrangling: A Twitter book. She is interviewing various social media types about various aspects of the social media space, and asking them to provide their responses in the form of a series of tweets. We interviewees are numbering our tweets and including the hash tag #smgps, and from that she is pulling together the content.

I already shared my own rant about the short-sightedness the traditioanl media has been showing of late. But far be it from me to not share the love with some other fine rants on the same topic:

Erick Schonfeld of Tech Crunch wrote this right-to-the-point post: That Whining Sound You Hear Is The Death Wheeze Of Newspapers.

Favorite excerpt:

The worst part about their whining is that it is completely hypocritical. While newspaper chiefs are complaining in public about Google, their editorial departments are sprouting blogs and their technology departments are using every SEO trick in the book to make sure their articles show up in Google searches and Google News.

Erick also points us to another awesome post from Danny Sullivan of Search Engineland: Google's Love For Newspapers & How Little They Appreciate It.

Favorite excerpt:

Perhaps all the papers should get together like Anthony Moor of the Dallas Morning News suggests in the same article:

"I wish newspapers could act together to negotiate better terms with companies like Google. Better yet, what would happen if we all turned our sites off to search engines for a week? By creating scarcity, we might finally get fair value for the work we do."

Please do this, Anthony. Please get all your newspaper colleagues to agree to a national "Just say no to Google" week. I beg you, please do it. Then I can see if these things I think will happen do happen:

Papers go "oh shit," we really get a lot of traffic from Google for free, and we actually do earn something off those page views

Papers go "oh shit," turns out people can find news from other sources

Papers go "oh shit," being out of Google didn't magically solve all our other problems overnight, but now we have no one else to blame.

Labels: Associated Press, Google, Search Engine Land, TechCrunch, Wall Street Journal

Have to stop and applaud Stacey Higginbotham's post for GigaOm entitled Let’s Stop Confusing Moms With Technology-Fearing Simpletons.

Arguments in the comments aside on whether this is referring to gender, generation or time impoverishment, I hear this facile question along the lines of "is it simple enough that your mom could use it?" all the time. I, most of the time, shout out from my seat "Or your dad?" Most people ignore the crazy lady when she dares to speak from the audience like that.

I think it's a combination of gender and age stereotyping, personally. When someone says this, they're typically thinking about their mom, not the fact that they themselves or their peers could be moms.

But even this kind of age stereotyping needs to stop. While premier elderblogger Ronni Bennett might be surprised that numbers of boomer and older blog readers and writers aren't even higher, both the latest Pew report and BlogHer's own benchmark study from last year indicate that the over-45 crowd is adopting new communications and media technology very nicely, thank you.

So, yes, let's put this old saw to rest.

If you mean that your hardware, software or online app has handled accessibility issues well, so your friends with visual impairments or less-than nimble hands or other similar physical challenges can use it with no problem...just say so.

If you mean that you have created a tool that doesn't require intimate knowledge of HTML, CSS, PHP or other languages or technologies that people of all ages know nothing about...just say so.

If you mean that your tool or product has measurable value for someone whose life and livelihood does not require them to be online or even on a computer all day...just say so.

Just don't talk about my momma!

Labels: age, elderbloggers, Gender diversity, GigaOM, Pew Internet and American Life, Ronni Bennett, Stacey Higginbotham, technology, user interface

...or do they believe that old saw that "any press is good press", even press that makes you look hopelessly out of touch?

The latest in kerfuffle comes as various honchos from a couple of mainstream media sources say they are "mad as hell and aren't going to take it anymore" that news "aggregator sites" are linking to them without compensating them.

Those aggregator sites include Google News and TechMeme.

Now, both Google and Techmeme are capable of defending themselves:

Gabe Rivera quite rightly states:

"All successful Web publishers want their content quoted and linked," Rivera wrote in an e-mail to CNET News. "The benefits are clear. Some prefer that the quotes remain short...these are precisely the kind that Google and Techmeme use. So for AP and News Corp. to discourage quoting is a clue that they don't really get the Web and are in danger of shooting themselves in the foot."

Of course key phrase is "successful Web publishers". Do some of these complainers qualify?

Meanwhile Google takes a legalistic approach in their blog:

In the U.S., the doctrine of fair use enshrined in the US Copyright Act allows us to show snippets and links. The fair use doctrine protects transformative uses of content, such as indexing to make it easier to find [pdf]. Even though the Copyright Act does not grant a copyright owner a veto over such uses, it is our policy to allow any rightsholder, in this case newspaper or wire service, to remove their content from our index -- all they have to do is ask us or implement simple technical standards such as robots.txt or metatags.

Not to mention that they can track exactly how many millions of clicks per month they send to newspaper and other contact sites.

What really bugs me about the out-of-touch statements from the folks at AP and WSJ is that they purport to understand the motivations of the user, whether casual reader or blogger. But I've seen no data (unlike Google and its billion clicks to content sites a month).

The WSJ's Robert Thomson states:

"Google encourages promiscuity -- and shamelessly so -- and therefore a significant proportion of their users don't necessarily associate that content with the creator."

Where is your data Mr Thomson?

Because this promiscuous user is actually quite well aware of where I click and who is responsible for the content. And I would probably never read your content if I wasn't directed to it by Google or Techmeme or other blogs, etc. How's that surviving via subscriptions thing going? Not so good, right...because you can't get enough people to subscribe to pay your bills. Do you think if you remove your content from these so-called aggregator sites all those people who click to you via those sites will magically realize they can't live without you and subscribe? Or pay for your site's content?

Think. Again.

And ask the NY Times how NY Times Select went for them.

You can complain about how we've been "socialised" -- wrongly you believe -- that content should be free, or you can fix your model without penalizing sites that are more likely helping you than hurting you.

Meanwhile, this is what the chairman of the AP thinks about me, the blogger:

"We can no longer stand by and watch others walk off with our work under misguided legal theories. We are mad as hell, and we are not going to take it any more."

"Misguided legal theories". Would that be fair use to which he is referring?

Of course, this isn't the first time the AP has talked big about cracking down about linking and excerpting. The same thing went on last June...targeting bloggers, not "aggregators". You can read how well that went on this BlogHer post by Kim Pearson. I love this part of her smart report:

One of the ironies of this entire dispute is that AP is a cooperative that pools and shares content by members, in addition to the content it generates for its subscribers. In other words, even though it was created when the telegraph was the high-tech means of news distribution, it functions in ways that are analogous to sites such as Drudge Retort and even group blog sites such as BlogHer. Not only that, but in the 19th century, the AP fought it's own version of the net neutrality battle -- it had to fight Western Union for the right to have its own telegraph wires. Now, as AP sees its business model threatened by the rise of social media, it is flailing to find ways of ensuring its survival.

Back then a lot of bloggers, including me, said Well, I guess I won't be linking to AP stories at all anymore. Who wants to have to keep track of exactly how many words are OK if even 40 words is considered too much? Who wants to give them link love if they don't appreciate the love?

Mainstream media folks don't seem to get one very important thing: Bloggers don't hate you, we love you. We are very well aware that you are wonderful information resources for us. We also enjoy having your reports act as catalyst for our personal commentary. We link link link to you like nobody's business. You think we don't realize that, of course we do.

Take away your traffic from Google and blogs...what would you be left with? I'm sorry if you aren't monetizing that traffic, but that isn't actually my fault as a blogger, nor as a reader.

And you cannot stem the flood of people abandoning paper for bits, if that's your hope. Now that your user is online...and believe me, we are...it's your job to figure out how to run your business in this new reality.

You simply aren't going to be able to turn back that clock.

So, you got your PR. You probably got your bump in traffic.

Now, what are you going to do with it?

Labels: Associated Press, blogher, bloghercon, CNET, Wall Street Journal

In recently listing a string of conferences where I'm speaking, I forgot to mention one that I'm attending even though I'm not speaking. OK, OK, I am an advisory fellow to the Society for New Communications Research (and a Founding Fellow, thank you very much) but Jen McClure and crew know how to put on a good (and by that I mean productive) event.

And thus ends the longest introductory sentence to a blog post that I have ever written.

So, any of you planning to join me at:

The 5th Annual New Communications Forum
April 27th - 29th, 2009
Marriott Hotel
4th & Mission
San Francisco, CA
http://www.newcommforum.com/2009/

If you are, register now with the discount code SNCRFRIEND to save $100.

That means you can participate in the entire 3-day conference for only $695 or go for one day for only $395.

NewComm Forum, like BlogHer, is celebrating its fifth anniversary, and in case you've never heard me mention it before: The very first NCF is where I met my BlogHer co-founder Jory Des Jardins for the very first time! Obviously a great networking event ;)

The point is to bring together thought leaders and decision makers to discuss the impact of social media and emerging communication tools, technologies, and models on PR and corporate communications, marketing and advertising, media and journalism, business, culture and society. The Forum provides an in-depth exploration of the future of communications. In its five year history, it has come to be known as one of the world’s leading conferences focusing on the latest trends in new emerging media and communications platforms.

Like BlogHer Business, New Comm Forum focuses pretty closely on real-world, practical information, including case studies, not just pie-in-the-sky.

So, will I see you there?

Labels: blogher, blogherbiz, New Comm Forum, SNCR

Just a reminder that I think there is still time to register for the third annual Invent Your Future, a conference focused on women and leadership, taking place this week in Santa Clara, CA.