lipstick geek

Change of pace

Pamela Poole — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 10:34:00 +0000

For a few years now I’ve been contributing to a couple of major US tech blogs, writing about startups, apps, platforms, trends, the ways the Web influences our lives… Whatever tripped my trigger.

It’s been a blast, and I’ll keep doing it because it’s a passion. But writing for these blogs is preaching to the choir.

I’ve decided it’s time to pay some attention to the flock. Despite everything I said (see my last few posts), I’ve gone ahead and started writing for HuffPo. It’s for a good cause (or at least that’s my rationalization). There’s a new channel — Huff/Post 50 — for Baby Boomers (which in the US means people born between 1946 and 1964), and I want to evangelize to this demographic on the joys of the Internet.

They need it. It will help make the second half of their lives more fulfilling and less lonely. It’s a resource for enrichment and expression and connection unlike anything any generation of seniors has ever had. And most of them don’t know how lucky they are. Yet.

A number of events big and small influenced my decision. My mother (71) buying an iPad and returning it because she couldn’t figure it out, then buying a Galaxy and returning it because she couldn’t figure it out, then deciding to try an iPad again, but to wait till I can show her how to use it. The fact that I got sick and have had to slow down a bit for the last year. A tweet I saw (just to name a few):

You should be able to buy a kit to build yourself an inner world to counteract the loneliness and isolation of old age.

As I said in my article The Web is a Room With a View, the Web is bursting with such kits. And blank canvases, and blank pages, and curio cabinets, as well as other people and other people’s gardens to pick flowers from. This is what I want them to know.

You can follow Huff/Post 50 on Twitter or subscribe to that channel by RSS. You can find all of my posts here and you can also subscribe to just my posts by RSS. They are published in HuffPo’s 50 and Tech channels.

Slaves to content

Pamela Poole — Sat, 20 Aug 2011 08:18:46 +0000

I’ve been yakking (here and here) about how bloggers are frequently offered “exposure” instead of money for their work. What “exposure” really means, of course, is “We could help you become famous.” Hard for the average human to resist. Very hard. But exposure doesn’t buy the groceries (at least not in the immediate). So we need to figure out a way to get cash into bloggers’ pockets, especially if the sites they’re blogging for can’t or won’t pay them.

Another part of the equation is the readers, who are very free with their likes (easy to be generous when it costs you nothing), but likes don’t pay the rent any more than exposure does.

Speaking of readers, permit me to draw your attention to Flattr, which I affectionately refer to as “likes with balls.” It’s a revolutionary idea, though most people don’t seem to have grasped that just yet. (Or maybe they have, and they’re just selfish and lazy. Or maybe they’ve lost their jobs and homes and are living in their vans and eating uncooked Top Ramens every day. I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.)

Read the rest of If content is king, why are content creators slaves? on frogblog.

More on blogsploitation

Pamela Poole — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 16:41:27 +0000

In a discussion I had with a writer friend the other day on the topic of blogsploitation, I tried to pin down for her why some people (like me) have a problem with being asked to blog for free and maybe why others don’t, and why many websites don’t seem to think there’s anything wrong with not paying their bloggers.

I think part of the problem is the concept of “blogger.” The general consensus (among the kind of people who think Amazon and Facebook are the Internet) seems to be that bloggers are ordinary people — pilots, housewives, nurses, mechanics — who just decided to start writing about whatever popped into their heads. People tend to place blogging in the hobby rather than the profession category, and they write off bloggers and blogs as amateurish and not to be taken seriously. I think traditional media and big online media capitalize on this perception to keep bloggers in a journalistic underclass.

Read the rest of Why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free? on frogblog.

What blog owners can learn from startups

Pamela Poole — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 13:46:32 +0000

I’ve spent the last few years immersed in and blogging about the Internet startup scene, and there is one thing everybody in that world knows: you may have an idea for a startup, but without a developer your idea is worth jack shit. And if you can’t pay your developer, you damn well better offer him equity.

So you have an idea for a group blog! Good for you. Who’s going to fill its pages? Writers. It’s the writers who are going to furnish the erudition and gravitas, or humor and hipness, or sexiness, or snarkiness, or whatever magic ingredients you need. And if you’re serious and have a clear vision for your blog, you’ll choose your writers carefully. (A startup founder doesn’t want just any hack building his/her platform.)

But if you let anyone who’ll work for free fill your blog with his blather, you’re screwing yourself right off the bat. You’ll get crap writing and a crap audience and crap advertisers (if any). Eventually, your dream of creating something special will die because your blog won’t be in the least bit exceptional because your content isn’t because your writers aren’t.

Read the rest of Give me equity or give me a break on frogblog.

Why I’m an Internet evangelist

Pamela Poole — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 14:23:27 +0000

Hello, my name is Pamela, and I’m an Instagramoholic. I think. If the fact that what bothered me most about being sick in bed for one whole day yesterday was that I couldn’t take any pictures to put on Instagram means I am, well, there you have it. I was back on my feet today and did two…

Instagram appeals to the idealistic part of me, that withered little corner of my soul that is some days barely clinging to life… Here’s why:

…Instagram is much more than a toy. There are two things about it that really make my heart swell. First, seeing pictures taken by people all over the world, being privy to moments friends and semi-friends and total strangers find exceptional enough to record and share, really makes you hyper aware of the beating heart of humanity on this planet. The other six-plus billion souls cease to be an abstraction when you see that somebody is living a moment in a dusty street in a Korean village or on a beach at sunset while you sleep or wash dishes. It’s exhilarating, extraordinarily moving and, on some level, reassuring. When the “other” becomes real, we’re less likely to destroy him.

Read the rest of this post on frogblog.

Online calling cards

Pamela Poole — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 11:43:52 +0000

I actually own a sterling silver calling card tray, an essential Victorian accessory. It belonged to my great-grandmother, who was born in 1894. The whole time I was growing up, it sat on a table in our entryway, despite the fact that calling cards were by then already a thing of the distant past.

We do love our business cards, though. We’re still passing them out at even the most high-tech conferences. They’re little bits of art, tiny extensions of ourselves, especially if you’re lucky enough to not be a cog in the works of some giant corporation.

When I get home from a conference and sift through the stacks of them I’ve collected, I feel the way I did after my elementary school Valentine’s Day card exchanges.

Now there are a couple of platforms you can use to create something resembling an online business card. I doubt they’ll replace the paper versions any time soon, but they can be fun and practical. Read about them in my post About.me and Flavors.me: Online Calling Cards on GigaOm Collaboration.

A HUGE little startup

Pamela Poole — Thu, 30 Dec 2010 16:31:47 +0000

Well, there was no contest this year for which startup totally stole my heart at LeWeb. It was TinyPay.me, which first launched early this year with a simple little tool for selling stuff online. Since then, they’ve turned that little gem into what could be a real game changer for long-tail e-commerce. I hope so anyway, for their sake and that of millions of niche entrepreneurs (like me).

Right now (by invitation), any site owner can use TinyPay.me to create a branded C2C marketplace on which the site owner and visitors can sell products. Essentially, TinyPay.me is a build-your-own Etsy.

That’s exciting, but even more exciting is that early next year, it will be possible for site owners to use filters and tags to curate merchandise that is for sale on all of TinyPay.me, thus increasing their offering to their audiences with minimal effort. With this innovative distribution model, TinyPay.me will enable entrepreneurs to act as clearinghouses for products that appeal to their particular audiences. This platform may just be what long tail e-commerce has been waiting for.

Read the rest of my post (and get an invite, if there are any left) on ReadWriteWeb: TinyPay.me: The E-commerce Long Tail is Still Twitching.

French is so sexy

Pamela Poole — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 11:31:25 +0000

Doesn’t just about everybody think French is sexy? I do. But you knew that.

You can read about the sexy French startup scene and find a list of some young startups that have impressed me in the article I wrote for ReadWriteWeb, “Never Mind the Valley: Here’s Paris,” which was recently translated into French for RWW France (who added some nice pictures too, I was happy to see).

You should also check out this post by Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry on Business Insider, and be sure to click through (Check it out!) to see a nice little slideshow focusing on some French startups that have made the big time.

Why don’t dainty Apple toys scare the boys?

Pamela Poole — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 06:50:03 +0000

There’s a refinement to Apple products that jumps the gender gap (and creates a healthy aftermarket for butch iPhone cases for those who aren’t real comfy with their feminine side, or “How to make your Apple product look more like a Hummer”).

Getting the girls on board is no small feat for tech companies (laptop bag manufacturers haven’t figured it out yet). What GameBoy would have given to have girls go for GameGirls the way they have for Apple stuff!

In couples, women make most of the purchasing decisions. And for a long time now, single girls have been buying their own diamonds, if you get my drift. Apple, with its aesthetically delectible toys, has managed to achieve the Woman Acceptance Factor, starting very young, without alienating the boys.

Read the rest on frogblog: Watching a digital native bloom.

I’ve lost that lovin’ feelin’

Pamela Poole — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:33:39 +0000

OK, I just flipped real quick through the last, I dunno, 90 or so posts on Mashable, which I picked because it’s more or less representative of most of the blogs that cover what’s new and exciting on the Web, and because it was sitting there, in my Reader, kind of in the middle, with 245 posts unread, begging for attention. It could have happened to anybody.

I’m just an Internet entrepreneur/evangelist having a little crisis of faith. But I can’t possibly be the only one who’s noticed that the Emperor has no clothes…

QR Codes Help Consumers Shop for Wine. Point your gadget at the wine bottle. Watch a video about the wine. Move on to next bottle of wine. And the next. Vacillate. Get annoyed. Ask the guy what goes good with seafood.

HOW TO: Get Started with HTML5 Boilerplate. Now HTML5 is exciting, no question. (Go and enter your zip code in the interactive film The Wilderness Downtown. Arcade Fire soundtrack. Pure awesome.)

Google Responds to Steve Jobs’s Android Activation Jab. Bitch fight.

A Facebook-Based Online Store Just for Students. A “genius idea” with “lifestyle brands” targeting college kids. Nausea.

Pay for Starbucks Coffee with Your BlackBerry. Starbucks and Blackberry sitting in a tree, S-U-C-K-I-N-G.

Twitter Launches Official iPad App. Duh.

Facebook Places Gets a Romantic Twist with MeetMoi Integration. Don’t just go to a bar and pick up a girl. Find all the girls in bars nearby through Facebook and simultaneously flirt with them all online first. Pick the one who seems drunkest and then go nail her. Don’t have to buy her as many drinks or wait as long that way. Dontcha love location apps?

HOW TO: Follow the US Open with Social Media. Watching tennis on Twitter. Happy happy joy joy.

Apple Introduces “Ping” Music Social Network and iTunes 10. Was interested for 30 seconds. Utterly lame, unless you’re about nothing but buying stuff on iTunes. Ping Is the Last Nail in the Coffin for MySpace. Nope. Because MySpace at least has… Hit it boys! Personality (walk) Personality (talk) Personality (charm) Personality (love) Personality…

FCC Questions Key Aspects of Google and Verizon’s Net Neutrality Proposal. Important. So is generally keeping an eye on the one site to rule them all one site to find them one site to bring them all and in the darkness bind them. Google to Power AOL Search for the Next 5 Years. See?

To Unfriend or Not to Unfriend: That Is the Facebook Question. Are we still talking about this?

Justin.tv’s Android App Lets You Broadcast Live Video Anytime, Anywhere. Great. More naked weirdos live.

Old Digg Crushes New Digg in Reader Vote. New version of Digg. Users like the old version better. Duh.

Windows Phone 7 Ready for Release. Microsoft sells phones too? Must be crap.

Filmmaker Raises More than $34,000 for Pirate Bay Documentary. Could be interes…zzzzzzzzzzzz

Target to Sell Facebook Credits as Gift Cards in Stores. Fall of Western Civilization. (Boycott Target, they donated $150K to a far-right gubernatorial candidate, superbly executed flashmob in protest (video).)

4 Tips for Writing SEO-Friendly Blog Posts. Are we still talking about this?

FashionStake “allows consumers to help fund and shape designers’ collections before they’re produced.” Yeah, we know what happens when the fat part of the bell curve gets involved.

Crowdsourced literary magazine. See above. Watch literature become pulp overnight. Without adding water!

Gowalla Feature Defines Place Popularity by Experience, Not Checkins. “This ice cream made me come” might get my attention. Otherwise, spare me. (Please God, no more location crap.)

Sexual Assault Case Against WikiLeaks Founder Reopened. So what’s new about either yet another twisted fuck or yet another CIA plot?

Madden NFL Makes Its Debut on Facebook. It’s not a game, it’s an experience. And it leverages.

Facebook’s Latest Patent Targets Search Behaviors. Are we still surprised?

Digg Crowns Former Amazon Exec New CEO. More Internet executive incest. Inbreeding is bad.

Meet the First Plant That Requires Facebook Fans to Survive. Now that’s cute! Almost tempted to reopen my Facebook account just to friend this tamagotchi.

Real-Time Analytics Provider Chartbeat Raises $3M from All-Star Investors. $3M for fucking stats. Ppfffthh.

Japanese Resort Caters to Men with Virtual Girlfriends. It’s people like you who make everybody think we’re all freaks.

10 Useful iPhone Shortcuts, Tips and Tricks. List Post. Check your brain at the door.

Announcing the UN Week Digital Media Lounge. The UN getting all digital. Almost compensates for the losers with the hologirlfriends. And there are thought leaders in there somewhere.

Twitter Temporarily Turns Off “Who to Follow”. OH NOOOOOOOO! What will become of us???

5 Fun FarmVille Accessories. Fall of Western Civilization.

HOW TO: Incorporate Your Startup at the Right Time. There are already 2 million articles about this (no, really), but thanks on behalf of the millions who are too lazy to Google when to incorporate startup.

Somebrand’s LCD TV goes 3D. Somebrand gets a tablet of their own. New Apple TV does more stuff. Apple makes your iPhone work like your Xbox. Somebrand’s making fancy new earbuds. Someapp updates business data in real time. Somebrand puts out a scratchproof/shockproof Android phone. Somebrand improves its e-reader touch screen. Somebrand cuts prices on its low-end e-readers…

If you can still get excited about all this, they’re hiring at Mashable: We’re Hiring! 50+ Job Vacancies in Social Media, Web Design, and More. Go ahead. Make my day.