Deb's SM Survey:

I’ve been reading Daily Kos for years, and though I rarely comment or post anything of my own, the site is a favorite of mine because of the quantity – and often quality – of content relevant to me both about politics and about the world. There have been some excellent user-created diaries about the floods in Iowa this week, for example, providing a compelling mix of personal stories, coverage of the extent of the problem and links to donate for help.

But any site with Daily Kos’ size and with the ability for anyone to post comes the occasional excuse for those tasteless or cruel to show themselves. The death of Meet the Press host Tim Russert on Friday became one of those occasions. I avoided, and am not going to rehash, the offenses of some and the responses of those who took offense. But it did make me think about community.

There’s the common perception that people will say things via cover of internet anonymity that they’d never say in person, and I’m sure that’s true, but it’s an overstated excuse. When any community reaches a certain size, there are going to be people who stir up trouble or say things they shouldn’t.

(more…)

I’m going out of town for a few days, but I’ll throw out links to a couple of interesting articles I’ve read to keep you busy while I’m away.

First, a student’s Facebook group to track progress on a civil unions bill in Illinois has become an effective tool for activism. The group now has 9,000 members. Like many of these online activism efforts, it wasn’t started by anyone formally affiliated with any organization. Which makes these efforts both more amazing and, possibly, more ephemeral. Without the collected wisdom of an organization behind it, will these spontaneous efforts eventually reach a limit to their effectiveness? We’ve barely begun to harness the power of the web for activism, but many people much smarter than I, like Clay Shirky, have begun exploring this question already.

Second, via Slog, comes an item about a new web 2.0 initiative for writers. Authonomy (now in private beta), run by Harper Collins, allows aspiring authors to post excerpts of their work for voting and commenting by the community. I may have to give this site a try. They can’t be more critical than some members of writing groups I’ve been in (yes, it was constructive criticism). You can read more at the Authonomy blog.

Lisa Stone, co-founder and CEO of BlogHer spoke last night as part of the Berkman Center’s Berkman@10 event series.

BlogHer has grown from a 2005 grassroots conference with 300 attendees to an online network of women bloggers that gets 8 million unique visitors a month. They have 22 full-time employees, plan 8 conferences this year and run an ad network that shares revenue with participating members. Their growth has been facilitated by venture capital from Venrock.

Stone began her talk by emphasizing the power of women as consumers (they control the overwhelming majority of the household budget) and as users of social media, including social networks and text messages. Women use blogging not just to express themselves, but also to take action, responding to a wide spectrum of issues. Stone was especially excited to see so many bloggers who don’t normally write about political issues becoming engaged and excited by the current election season.

After surveying BlogHer members on how the Presidential candidates’ campaigns had (or had not) reached out to women, she provided four conclusions that are equally valuable for advertisers:

1. Reach out to established women’s networks, don’t start your own and force us to come to you.
2. Don’t market to women, talk with women.
3. Don’t use stereotypes to break women down into simplistic or offensive groups (soccer moms, sexy singles, etc.). We’re more complicated that that.
4. Health care is the new number one “women’s issue” – although women are concerned about all issues, including the Iraq war, the economy, etc.

Stone spoke about their advertising program, noting that about 40% of advertisers want to develop a customized program (like giving away free samples). The companies approaching BlogHer are much more savvy about online marketing than they were in the past and want to engage in an authentic interaction with the BlogHer members.

One of the 2008 BlogHer conferences will be in Boston in October, and I’m looking forward to it even more after this introduction to the BlogHer network. Will I see you there? (And yes, men are welcome!)

Couldn’t resist the title. This is a week in review, since I’ve somehow become busier than I intended.

Too busy to keep an eye on Twitter properly, but I did make it out to the local Boston “Tweetup” Tuesday night. Close to thirty people in the social media scene were hanging out, from videoblogger Steve Garfield to presentations consultant Laura Fitton to multi-talented musician and artist Matt Searls. I bowed out early – I was useless once the Super Tuesday results started coming in and went home to read the blogs like a good political junkie.

Twitter and Google Maps had teamed up for a Super Tuesday results map that popped up tweets about voting or the election as they came in. In addition to the map, I had my regular Twitter feed open, Daily Kos in another tab and flipped between various other blogs and boston.com for a mix of local and national results. I loved the sense of community, knowing I was watching and speculating with so many others about the path our country will take. What did I do for election coverage before the internet? I guess there’s that rectangular box called a television.

(more…)