My Love Hate Relationship with BlogHer

Or, Blog Naked.

According to my user profile, I have been a member of BlogHer for 2 years and 20 weeks. I have also apparently posted 5 times there in the last year. I have cross-links to and friendships with many BlogHer members, including one of the founders. I have supported several of their initiatives, including their maternal health campaign.

Here’s the thing. BlogHer was conceived back in 2005 with a “mission to create opportunities for women who blog to pursue exposure, education, community and economic empowerment.” The idea was to be one vast commons for women who write blogs: we could find one another; we could learn from one another’s writing styles; we could share information that perhaps the male half of the blogosphere didn’t care about; we could join together on issues of mutual importance.

They got big, and they got important. Conference keynoters are women you have heard of. The conferences themselves are among the biggest blogging conferences anywhere, with meetings both in major American cities and Second Life* — both versions of the current conference are sold out. They are considered by some to be THE most influential womens voice in blogging today. They are a Fast 50 contender over at Fast Company. C|Net just can’t shut up about them.

Unfortunately, vast swaths of BlogHer have become everything I dislike about many womens magazines. Horoscopes (even if I believed in Astrology, the idea that any one reading can be applied to one out of every 12 people is ludicrous). Fashion. Mommyblogging. The only thing missing is 83 cover stories about sex and “pleasing your man”.

Just a couple of days ago, they announced a huge, huge, partnership with iVillage. Huge, as in it includes $5,000,000.00 in venture capital. Oh wait, once you add in existing investors, it’s somewhat more than that. Good for you, ladies. That’s awesome! No really, I’m happy for you.

But here’s my problem. Many people see this as acknowledging the economic power of women. I see it as condescending to women. Do you think iVillage wants our voices, or our wallets? When C|Net (yes, C|Net again) points out that “On the tech conference circuit, Yahoo, Microsoft and Google are the typical deep-pocketed sponsors. But when the tech is geared toward women, the pockets are those of Chevrolet, Macy’s, and K-Y Jelly,” I wonder why Yahoo and Google don’t think it is worth talking to us! Lots of food there, and plenty of other “communities.” As I look through the official list of sponsors, I notice the “tech” company that gave the most money is Nintendo! Microsoft actually is there, along with HP and Intuit, at one of the lower levels.

Sorry, I don’t think I want to attend a conference sponsored by K-Y Jelly. Unless, of course, it’s clothing optional. Ok, not even then, but it would be a more interesting and appropriate event for K-Y to sponsor.

No “in closing” today. I hope nobody is dissapointed.

* I actually suggested running the parallel online conference in IRC or even AIM. My rationale was that being text formats, they had very low system requirements, low bandwidth requirements, and had free downloadable clients. But glitzy and fun won out over cheap and easily accessible. Maybe I should have mentioned it was easier to hide what you were doing from your boss?

2 thoughts on “My Love Hate Relationship with BlogHer”

  1. As a new blogger, I was excited to get a chance to attend the BlogHer conference.

    In my post conference post, (How) Can you make money blogging?, I pointed out a method that I did NOT find highlighted at the conference:

    “5. Build up your personal brand in your professional area of expertise. Soon to be former Forrester Analyst and Groundswell author Charlene Li, who focuses on online and social media, maintains several blogs. I don’t know Charlene personally (although I did attend a session she led at Intuit), but her professional blog is the type that I see often in the Valley, and most of the business/technology blogs I read are written by men. In contrast, most of the blogs I read that are written by women are “mommy blogs.” Both are valid, but I would argue that unless you want to be an entrepreneur (see examples 1-4 above) building your personal brand is more likely to result in more income for you as you become recognized as a thought leader in your area of expertise.”

    I wish there had been more about “professional” blogging, and apparently it was part of a session on Friday that I missed in which Charlene Li talked about “figuring out out to merge her personal and professional blogging identities to feel like one whole person.”

    That is exactly the issue I am having – I want to write about the convergence of these aspects of my life. I still believe “the personal is political” and women writing about things that matter to them – even fashion and motherhood – is important.

    I don’t want to hide those things, but I agree that I wish tech and media business like Google, Facebook, Yahoo, could also see me as a potential target and want to be at these types of conferences for me too.

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