The River

In case you’re wondering.

With action in Canada around Bisphenol A, the last few days have been hopping with online activity among parents — parents worried about the safety of plastics their kids are using; parents looking for information and products that will help them avoid this threat to their children’s health. From what I’ve been observing, most of the discussions are taking place on sites like Z Recommends — a “mom and pop”-type blog, not affiliated with any major media company — where the information in the comments are as valuable as the posts themselves.

This is the phenomenon documented in a BabyCenter/Keller Fay study released today, which finds that pregnant women and new moms engage in 1/3 more word-of-mouth conversations than other women, and 2/3 of those conversations involve product recommendations. Though the study found that most of the conversations happened in person, the Internet was the #1 driver of word-of-mouth among media.

Stuff like this is one reason I’m so jazzed to work with the highly-influential authors in our BabyCenter Parenting Federation (which FM runs in partnership with BabyCenter). Well, there’s that and the fact that I’m both pregnant and a new mom myself, so I personally love immersing myself in this world. Luckily for me (and marketers), the folks in this world are making tons of buying decisions (and having lively conversations about these decisions) every day.

After all these years, I’m finally getting the chance to re-visit one of my favorite towns — where I did my undergraduate degree — and I’m thrilled to be attending SXSW Interactive for the first time. Yippee! So, if you’ll be there, too, let me know.

Oh, it’s not a pretty transition (yet), but I’ve made the switch over to Wordpress as a blogging platform.

So, if I don’t get inspired to blog here at BlogHer, I probably never will. Hmm…

What’s amazing to me — and, I suppose this reflects what BlogHer was supposed to be about, in the first place — is how broad and diverse the blogging world is. And this is largely just the female side. So heartening, really. And it’s so pleasant, and unusual, to be in such a huge group in which the standard introductory line is “what do you blog about?” This when the typical blog-related conversation with a “normal” person begins with “you know what a blog is, right?”

It’s obvious it’s my first BlogHer, isn’t it?

Just squared away the last loose ends in my travel arrangements. I’m thrilled to be going to Chicago at the end of the month for the BlogHer Conference. In true mommyblogging fashion, I’m taking along my kid, who will be availing himself of the reasonably-priced childcare opportunities (bless the organizers for arranging this!). One of my objectives will be to meet up with any of our FM authors that will be in attendance, but I’m also just keeping the eyes and ears open to what’s going on in the blogosphere as a whole.

Anyway, all this to say that if you’ll be there, too, drop me a line!

I had the privilege of attending the Inaugural Meeting of the Proceedings of the Athanasius Kircher Society last night in Manhattan. (Sue me, my family now leads a bi-coastal lifestyle.)

What a fantastic opportunity to see the community (aka society) that’s sprung up around this incredible blog in the flesh. Myself and a colleague from FM (Bill Brazell) manned the guest list, helping check people in, and, as attendees queued up, their enthusiasm was palpable.

No one knew quite what to expect, but it didn’t look like anyone was disappointed by the show. I mean, how often do you get a chance to meet the man upon which the “Rainman” character was based? And how often do you get to hear from the pioneering test pilot who helped develop the scientific principles behind NASA’s space walk gear? Interesting, and eclectic stuff. I was really happy to contribute, even a little bit, and it was fantastic to meet the Society’s founders in person. More to come, I’m sure.

[note: check out the coverage on Make]

Great news for community-oriented publishers from the California Supreme Court yesterday. In case you missed it, the court held that a Web site’s operator shouldn’t be held responsible for libelous content written by others that appears on that site. This just protects the status quo, of course, but should have bloggers and other custodians of free-wheeling discussion sites breathing a sigh of relief. (The Merc has a copy of the decision (PDF) online.)

Heard a really interesting story on NPR the other day about the roles blogs are playing in a protest at Gallaudet University, a liberal arts school for the deaf in Washington D.C. No doubt the growth of blogging in the deaf community has also helped the controversy reach many more ears through the mainstream media. (Protestors are speaking out against a new president set to take office in January.)

Some of my earliest experiences online, well, on BBSs, anyway, were courtesy of two blind co-workers of mine at Taping for the Blind in Houston. It might seem counter-intutive that a computer screen was liberating for these sight-impaired folks, but the digital format made for easy amplification and translation via text-to-speech technology. Yes, I know there are still many battles to be fought for accessiblity online, but it’s certainly better now than it used to be in those days (early ’90s).

The Emoboys. The Lonelygirls. The Proudparents. The Oldsters. Yes, they are the YouTubers, captured poignantly (and appropriately) in a video posted by Pete Blackshaw over at cgm. As he says, it’s great stuff for cultural anthropologists. And aren’t we all playing that role, to one extent or another, these days, as new media consumption patterns and cultural behaviors erupt right and left? Worth watching.