Have You Heard Of BlogHer?

I don't think I respond to things the way most people do. Sometimes, I feel bad because of how I respond, because I wonder if I am fair, or just whiny. For the record, I'm not whiny, though I am a critic. I, like most, have an opinion about everything, and I tend to share it.

I don't praise everything, either. I tend to point out the flaws in things. I don't do this because I'm a Negative Nancy (sorry if anyone named Nancy reads this, it's nothing personal.) I just feel that everyone points out what's good. Look at competition shows: what good is telling people on American Idol they are all talented, or bakers on TLC (don't get me started...) that they're all talented. Of course they are. That's like telling someone on Jeopardy that they are all intelligent. The rounds and rounds of testing they need to pass to get on Jeopardy proves that. Only one person can win.

So I point out what is wrong with things, because I think people tend to overlook them. Not that flaws are bad, mind you. I like flaws, they add character. But sometimes, these grievances need to be aired.

BlogHer is a blogging network of sorts. Basically, it's a collection of blogs that they think women would be interested in. I don't like this. I don't like a men's version either. They are stilted. I'm willing to bet I like more websites on the BlogHer network than the College Humor or Asylum network of sites.

Apparently, men like the following things:

- Women. Lots of them. The less clothing, the better. Some sites offer scantily clad one, others offer naked ones, while others offer celebrities.

- Vehicles. The more horsepower, the better.

- Tools, clothing, video games, movies, music, et cetera.

I don't agree with this. I don't care about looking at things like AskMen or Maxim and seeing women in them. And anytime I click a link to one of those websites that does interest me, I'm inundated with women everywhere, and Krissy facetiously asks me why I'm looking at sexy ladies. But I'm not; she's my sexy lady, so I look at her.

Then there's cars. I don't really care about cars. I have one, it gets me from A to B. I don't need a cat that costs a million dollars, or goes 200 MPH. I don't need to tow a house through the Grand Canyon. I just don't. I have an interest in tools, but I'll get what works and what's needed, it's not an obsession. The rest are really applicable to anyone. In fact, it all is.

Women like movies. Women like music. They even, gasp, play video games. Not just wussy ones, either. They play things like Halo and Call of Duty. True story.

It is in this vein that I disagree with BlogHer. Here is their information page for bloggers and what it says:

• over 90 days old
• open to comments
• that are updated weekly (preferably twice a week, or more)
• free of any advertorial or sponsored posts, and compensated product reviews
• that are not password-protected
• without profanity in the title and/or URL
• that don’t publish adult content
• that don’t belong to another ad network, requiring “above the fold” placement
• hosted by a service that allows advertising (some do not)
• not hosted by a service that places graphic banners at the top of the page
• written by women, or with a demonstrated female audience
• that adhere to our Editorial Guidelines

First, I must add that they randomly made some words bigger than others. Much bigger. This hurts my eyes, and is obnoxious. This is not dynamic, it is stupid. Reading is not a roller coaster ride, it doesn't need to be more exciting. They are guidelines, treat them as such.

They want blogs that have been around for a bit, I understand, they want people to be able to comment, fair enough. They want people who actually blog, and that people can actually see. This all makes sense.

But here's what I don't get. adult content, profanity, and written by women for women. I'm sure there are women that like adult content. They are alienating a large group of women with this. Adult content is exceedingly vague, too. Does this mean no penis? No vaginas? Women love vaginas though, they are beautiful, like childbirth. What about breasts, is that "adult content?" Is a woman grabbing her breasts adult, but checking for breast cancer okay? If so, what is the difference, a woman is touching herself either way.

Profanity. Women curse. Yes, we curse too much as a whole, but profanity hardly should be censored. Women, or anyone else for that matter, do not need to be shielded from language, coarse or otherwise. Fuck isn't going to hurt anybody. Shit, either, unless someone flings poo and it gets into your eyes. But not the word; it's just letters. Maybe copulate and excrement are more suitable. But we all know they just mean fuck and shit. Even women; especially women.

The big one: written by women for a demonstrated female audience. I don't qualify, I'm not a woman. Apparently, men do qualify, though, because David Lebovitz is a member. They just appear to emphasize  women writers, literally, "women" and "female audience" are several sizes larger. I get wanting female writers, though. Women are interested in other women, and simultaneously hate every single one of them. But how does one demonstrate a female audience?

Does blogging about food do it? What about politics, does that do it? Does one need to post about feminist ideas, or emasculate men? Can you write about sex without breaking the earlier rules about adult content? Jezebel certainly doesn't apply, because their writers use profanities and talk about all kinds of adult content, yet they are a blog about and for women. In fact, Krissy makes fun of me when I read it. Blogging for a female audience seems awfully vague about a very specific idea.

Then there are the editorial rules, most of which are fair, and the heart of why I started this post. Their editorial guidelines stipulate:

We define unacceptable content as anything included or linked that:

Contains editorial content that has been commissioned and paid for by a third party, and/or contains paid advertising links and/or spam. 

except, they actually encourage it through their reviewer program. Let me explain. BlogHer has advertisers. These advertisers give BlogHer money and products for their bloggers to review and give away. This clearly violates the whole "no sponsored posts" rule, and is, frankly, disappointing.

Here's an example: Right now, BlackBerry is a sponsor, so if you head here you get a page of BlackBerry ads. Also on that page are links to blogs, like this one, which are really just advertorials. Maybe that's not fair, or being too fair. Advertorials are written by the ad agency to look like editorials, and we recognize them as such. No, these paid reviews are more like payola in the music industry.

I clicked one of the BlackBerry posts which led me to a site about baking. What does a baking blog need to review a cell phone for? Computer magazines don't review chocolate. Of course, this isn't really a review either, it just praises the phone.

Uh, I couldn’t be more wrong. This new BlackBerry Style phone is rocked. It features a full QWERTY keyboard and it’s one of two BlackBerry(s) to run on the BlackBerry’s latest OS 6, the best part—it is the only one to sport a 5 megapixel camera. How’s that for being dead wrong? I’m a BlackBerry user and always have been. I love its functionality for work and for play—most importantly, it’s a hardy phone. No cracked glass screen when I drop it. Yes, I know there are sleeves to prevent that, but I firmly believe a phone should be able to withstand a drop without going bust. I’m also a working mom who needs functionality and form to work hand in hand.

Okay, so first impressions are that...it's one of two BlackBerrys with the new OS? That excites her? oh, and a full QWERTY keyboard, because that's unique. It also has a 5 megapixel camera, because when it comes to cameras, megapixels is all that matters.

Here are the things that I look for when I’m phone shopping:
Size
Yes, size does matter. I love that the BlackBerry Style is even smaller than my work issued BlackBerry Bold. That means I can easily slide it in my back pocket for convenience and since it’s a flip phone I don’t have to worry about any accidental butt dials!

Okay, it's smaller. This is a plus? It's smaller, has a full QWERTY keyboard and a 5 megapixel camera?  Anyway, the real benefit here is that the camera is smaller than her old BlackBerry, so she can place it in her back pocket no problem. I can thus only reach one conclusion. Her old BlackBerry must look like this:

Zack Morris, you have a phone call.

The best thing about flip phones? You can totally put them in your back pocket, sit on them all day and not dial old ex-boyfriends with your ass. You might have a nasty case of hemorrhoids, though, so I don't think the back pocket is the ideal place to put a phone. Just sayin'

Camera
Camera. Lights. Action. Go. Okay, so my son doesn’t get this kind of preamble, usually it’s me just shoving my phone’s camera in his face to capture a moment. I don’t carry a point and shoot everywhere but I do carry my phone everywhere. Having said that, I’m loving the 5 megapixel with flash. That’s right five-five megapixels on a phone!

Lights! Camera! Action! Wait, this camera does video? Oh, no, it doesn't. Now I'm confused. Okay, so maybe she confused video and still photography, no biggy. She does have an amazing camera in her phone though. I mean, it's five megapixels! That is unheard of in a phone. Wait, didn't the Nokia N95 have a 5 megapixel camera? When did that come out again? Oh yeah, that's right, 2007. 

Speed
This BlackBerry-baby is fast. For a working mom, time is a commodity—so yeah, I need speed. The load time for switching between web based applications is nil and the search time on the web browser moves at the rate in which I can inhale a cupcake—Ahem, that pretty much means a little under a nano second.

It's fast. Blazing! But the Torch (AT&T) is faster. And then there's the iPhone and many Android based phones with a processor nearly double this ones speed. And the BlackBerry app platform is hardly robust compared to that of Apple or Google. This sounds like total pandering, and I don't like it.

Needless to say, I love this BlackBerry Style phone, so I’m excited that in conjunction with Blogher, BlackBerry is offering this phone with Sprint’s network to (2) lucky winners.

Great! except, they are only giving you the phone, you're on your own for service. And it only works on Sprint. How much does this phone retail for? $399. Yikes! This must be a pretty good prize, no? What's that? You're telling me this phone is only $20 when you sign up for a contract with Sprint?

You can enter thusly:

• Leave a comment letting me know the most important feature you look for when shopping for a mobile phone.
• Tweet about this promotion and leave the URL to that tweet in a comment on this post. 
• Blog about this promotion and leave the URL to that post in a comment on this post.
• For those with no Twitter or blog, read the official rules for alternate form of entry.

Commenting is easy, although clearly this is so BlackBerry knows what people want. That's fine, we all want better phones. Maybe they can give us a phone that the wireless providers can't cripple with their own software? Android is supposed to be open, and it is, but AT&T and Verizon cripple them with their own, closed software. We shouldn't be at the mercy of the providers.

Tweet! That way, #BlackBerry #Style can be trending on #Twitter and people will  be #curious about this #Payola! As they say, any news is good news.

You could also blog about it. I wonder if this counts? Does a blog criticizing the company, the product, and the network count? After all, there was not one flaw reported in that entire "review" Maybe she could have mentioned how the app market is poor compared to competitors. Or that the browser is slower than Apple or Android. How web pages look tiny on the itty-bitty screen? The incessant scrolling and zooming you need to do to read the pages could have been pointed out.

FYI: I just checked, it actually does do video. How could she leave this out?


Here's a real review on the camera courtesy of PCMag:

The Style's 5-megapixel camera could be better. Its awkwardly placed, so it's easy to cover it with your thumb. The continuous autofocus can make for some blurry pictures if you don't wait a second or so for it to lock in. And images are a little bit dark, and show slightly too much color noise. It's not hideous by any means, but there's better out there. The video mode takes 640 by 480 videos at 20 frames per second with a slight pulsing effect; that's behind the 30fps we see on top-of-the-line Android and Apple phones.

 So the camera is actually just okay, and can be kind of annoying.

Anyway, I'm done. I just wanted to dissect BlogHer and their advertorial/Payola system, because this kind of stuff really bothers me. I don't like pandering to companies, and how mommy blogs were kind of founded on it. I'd hate for someone to have read a less then genuine review on a blog only to buy that product and be disappointed.