Blogher

A month of anniversaries

2007-01-31T17:34:16-06:00

The thought of our past years in me doth breed
Perpetual benedictions.

-William Wordsworth, Intimations of Immortality

Two years ago

Wow. Two years ago we launched this pingVision site. Actually, as I write this, it was about two years and nineteen or so hours ago. I had been working with Drupal for several months at that point, helping people when I could and eventually parlaying that activity into some freelance work.

pingVision was the beginning of a formalization of that -- a shingle for a business partnership with my friend and colleague, Katherine Lawrence, as we contemplated a business plan incorporating Drupal web development, DVD authoring and other interactive media notions not yet ready for public discussion, into a coherent plan for world domination ... or at least a means to make a decent living.

Happy birthday, pingVision!

A year ago last week

We forged pingVision into a limited liability company a year ago last Wednesday. Alas, we had no birthday cake on hand -- too busy -- so we at the office just enjoyed memories of the seven-layer fudge cake we had for Drupal's fifth birthday the previous week.

Since that time a year ago, we've become a company of over ten people, which just boggles my mind. I had never dreamed of that a year ago. I'm humbled and thrilled, especially when I consider the caliber of people we have in our pingVision family.

Happy birthday, pingVision, LLC!

A year ago

A year ago, BlogHer launched. Time has flown by since then, and yet it seems like developing the BlogHer site happened a lifetime ago. Back then, I was the sole designer and the sole developer we had pingVision, and the experience drove home to me the importance of building a team. I really enjoy collaboration more than just sitting alone in front of the computer until the wee hours. And yet, while it was very hard to build that site pro bono while trying to find and complete paying client work, it was a project I delighted in working on. Today the BlogHer community is a wild success because of the energetic and insightful work of its founders and the bevy of outstanding Contributing Editors (of which [full disclosure] I am one, though I make no claim at being "outstanding").

Happy birthday, Blogher!

BlogHerAds

2006-09-14T22:19:44-05:00

Three days ago, BlogHer launched BlogHerAds, a central application and information center for the new and rapidly growing BlogHer Advertising Network.

The code base is Drupal 4.7, utilizing dozens of custom profile fields to collect key network applicant blog data. Greg Knaddison coded up a nifty user profile status mail module to ease site administrative workflow. Laura Scott created the design, which is an orange-inspired twist on her design for the BlogHer site.

BlogHerAds

2006-09-14T22:19:44-05:00

In September 2006, BlogHer launched BlogHerAds, a central application and information center for the new and rapidly growing BlogHer Advertising Network.

The code base is Drupal 4.7, utilizing dozens of custom profile fields to collect key network applicant blog data.
Greg coded up a nifty user profile status mail module to ease site administrative workflow. Laura created the design, which is an orange-inspired twist on her design for the BlogHer site.

Not live-blogging at BlogHer

2006-07-28T14:29:57-05:00

I sat in on the so you have this crazy idea session, where community sites were the topic. The room divided up into working groups -- legal issues, maintaining and sustaining and growing a community, starting a community, and technology to use. I sat in on the first two groups. Very interesting.

At the end, reps for each group presented their findings. The tech group listed Drupal as one of the top tools to use for a robust community site (along with Plone) -- which, I suppose, is an obvious result, especially as the BlogHer site is powered by Drupal, but it was nice to hear, especially since I wasn't there to evangelize it.

Right now I'm typing this while a very interesting discussion is happening. More not-live blogging later....

BlogHer site scaling as the Conference approaches

2006-07-19T13:48:42-05:00

The buzz on BlogHer is booming. I think we got the main BlogHer site moved to a scalable multi-server setup just in the nick of time. Kudos to our hosting partners on the BlogHer website project, Firebright, for their hard work! The new setup is humming!

Via BlogHer Contributing Editor Jeneane Sessum, I've learned that also speaking of (not at, unfortunately) BlogHer is Shelley Powers, who's back blogging on three blogs (so far). (Her old flagship, Burningbird.com, now seems to showcase some of her beautiful photography.) Shelley has noticed the incredible growing sponsor list on BlogHer's home page. The sidebar full of sponsor logos indeed has shot roots down deep 'below the fold' of the pages. (In fact, the sheer weight of the logo images was becoming a server load issue on the former hosting configuration -- a 'good problem to have,' to be sure, but still something that kept the server working harder than anticipated.)

When we got involved with BlogHer's site development, BlogHer's web presence was basically a Typepad blog used to disseminate info about the BlogHer Conference '05. The new site, powered by Drupal (with some customizations), has become an incredibly robust community. And not only that, but now it's the center of a new ad network that is poised to grow rapidly.

Shelley states:

I had originally thought of Blogher as a loosely organized non-profit formed from consensus. It wasn’t until I read the Bostom.com article and saw the list of sponsors that I realized that Blogher is actually a prime example of what it takes to be a succcessful Web 2.0 company.

Company co-founders, Jory Des Jardins, Elisa Camahort, and Lisa Stone have taken a grass roots effort and turned it into a professionally run media company, with it’s own ad network, and featured in Media Daily, as well as various other ad and media related publications.The three are now in great demand as speakers on the issue of women in weblogging, but it won’t be long before they’ll be in demand as speakers for their success as Web 2.0 company founders.

and adds, at the end:

Congratulations to Blogher, the company and good luck with the conference next week. I have a feeling it will be the ‘it’ conference of the year.

I have a feeling it won't be just the conference that will comprise the all-things-BlogHer-that-are-'it' category.

Related: Boston.com article on BlogHer

BlogHer '06 Conference icon

2006-06-07T18:08:44-05:00

This is the taxonomy image we created for the BlogHer '06 Conference, doing a little conferencing riff on the BlogHer hermoticon.

BlogHer '06 Conference Icon

2006-06-07T18:08:44-05:00

This is the taxonomy image we created for the BlogHer '06 Conference, doing a little conferencing riff on the BlogHer hermoticon.

BlogHer

2006-03-25T00:58:15-06:00

This is the 2006 BlogHer website. At the time of this screenshot (and this writing), the site is still in beta -- i.e., public but still undergoing further development and design work.

The BlogHer website itself serves as a clearinghouse of information for the 2006 BlogHer Conference itself, but it's also a vibrant online builder of community for women with its multiple daily front-page blogs about what women (and men, too) are writing about on blogs covering all kinds of topics.

The BlogHer Blogroll is the third main component -- categorized blogs whose listings are submitted by any and all who register on the site. We did some custom coding to get all those blogrolls to list the appropriate categories while paginating gracefully and linking directly to the linked sites while still tracking click-throughs. We also have forums set up, and a few other things planned.

We're proud to be sponsors of the 2006 BlogHer Conference.

BlogHer (beta)

2006-03-25T00:58:15-06:00

This is the 2006 BlogHer website. At the time of this screenshot (and this writing), the site is still in beta -- i.e., public but still undergoing further development and design work.

We're proud to be sponsors of this year's BlogHer Conference.

More on the BlogHer site to come once it's launched and I write a little development case study. -Laura

BlogHer on the cover of the Austin Chronicle

2006-03-04T20:30:51-06:00

At the risk of seeming like every post of late here is about the BlogHer site, I just thought this was worth mentioning....

Never mind the cheesy sci-fi poster imagery for a moment (more on that below), it's some pretty good ink, getting on the cover of Texas capital's paper. The Austin Chronicle article opens with the topic that BlogHer founders Lisa, Elisa and Jory are addressing in sessions at SXSW:

SXSW Interactive is evolving. Alongside the exhibitions of better-faster-more emergent technologies, from BattleDecks and DOM scripting to Darknets, with a nod to all the dollars appertaining, panelists are keeping it real about what brings us online in the first place: ourselves.

But which selves do we place online? That's the question before the three co-founders of BlogHer. Last year, Lisa Stone, Elisa Camahort, and Jory Des Jardins created BlogHer.org, a cluster site in which women (and some men) write about everything from technology to travel to religion and race, food, shopping, and current events in order to "create opportunities for women bloggers to pursue exposure, education, and community." All three intermittently describe themselves as "evangelists" for personal voices, for the transmission and sharing of ideas about women's lives, and for the craft of blogging itself.

Marrit Ingman's article gets into some of the ways blogging can affect one's personal and/or professional life -- as well as how women bloggers are treated differently from men bloggers.

Camahort and Des Jardins also theorize that the consequences for getting personal might be different for women and men if they reveal details of their romantic and family lives in a business setting. When a blogger like Technorati darling Robert Scoble mentions his spouse or child, his credibility is unaffected, they suggest, and possibly even enhanced.

"Women who write about family are 'mommybloggers,' while men who write about family are 'personal bloggers,' incorporating personal elements into their blogs," Des Jardins says. "It's so easy to call someone a 'mommyblogger,' to say that they write 'just' about family."

"As though so much of our great literature and art isn't about family relationships," Camahort points out. "When Arthur Miller wrote All My Sons, nobody said, 'Oh, he's just a 'daddy playwright.' Nobody calls him a 'male playwright.' I think that's why women are rightfully apprehensive."

Interesting stuff worth a look.

It's just too bad the whole thing is branded with the cheesy drawing of a half-naked vixen, with a title that evokes the plethora of science fiction flicks featuring evil ambitious women who enslave men while striving to rise above their station and dominate the universe. I know it's all in fun, and captures some of the cut-loose and let-loose spirit, but the imagery carries a rather unfortunate overtone of using sex appeal to subjugate men.

But hey, it's Austin, city of cheese. We can laugh, since it's all done with a wink. Who knows? I think I'm probably older than most bloghers, and might be one of only a handful of people who remember those movies from Saturday afternoon television (sans Mystery Science Theatre commentary). In this modern day, I think more people have seen the posters than the pulpy adventures themselves, and I don't think anyone would seriously believe that BlogHer is a throwback to bad 1950s B movies -- though I'm sure some folks would love the idea.