BlogHer Con -

This is the start of Blogher live blogging.  I've got my coffee, the room is packed and a video Sheryl Crow is playing on the big screen. Now it's Tina Turner, 63 and looking  great.

A long jam-packed day means an early start.  Attention to detail highlights:

• good breakfast, lots of fruit,  small sized muffins, bagels already.
• wireless throughout the lobby and the entire tech center provided by Google
• good looking and skinny folders with all the information we need and no more
• lots of small tables for small groups to talk
• the variety of women from around the country is astounding - a punk rocker next to a middle-aged marketing professional behind a fashion model behind a mommy blogger, in front of the techie, with a lawyer on the side.
• Best tote bags ever from Google
• power strips everywhere

The four co-mothers of the conference, Lisa Stone, Elisa Camahort, Jory des Jardins and Katrin Verclas.  Congrats to all of them for all their good, hard work in record time.

Lisa Stone begins
Taking women blogging to a whole new level, pushing way past where are the women bloggers. 
We know 43-56% of all bloggers are women
At the closing session, we'll create the mother of all to-do lists
Three questions we'll be asking

• what have you learned
• what will you do with this information
• what would you tell other women not here

She thanks all the women who came and showed up. She  thanks the sponsors.

Elisa Camahort, reports on the survey.  Jory on the guidelines.
________________________________________
Next up
Halley Suitt and Charlene Li debate "Playing by the Rules"

Lisa Stone say  women bloggers are not showing up in the search results.  They're not on the top 100 bloggers on the Technorati lsit.

Charlene Li, from Forrester.  There is a game out there, characterized by the 80/20 rule.  Some of us want to be on the A list, others blog for their own personal satisfaction.  You have to play by the rules .

Haley: Wasn't blogging begun so as not to play by the rules.  Weren't the personal stories told by Jeff Jarvis and others influential in changing even the New York Times to

Charlene Li 's rules
1. Be good at networking

We're not as good at networking as the men are.

• Tell people what you can give.
• Ask people for what you need.

Haley says ask for links.  ASK.  Women don't ask.  ASK again.  ASK the third time.
2. Be relevant
3. Be unique

Will men only link to other men?  Do you have to write about politics?  Who cares about the Technorati 100? Don't we have all have our own A list?

Audience says it's key words and search and you can always find the blogs who write on the subject.

Another says traffic is not an end in itself, your goal is.  Think about what you want to achieve, traffic is just the means to get there.

Dina another become credible in what you care about.  She gives her example of a citizens group in Texas fighting an attempt by local phone companies to ban broadband.

A female tech CEO says its your own sphere of influence that counts.  Let's come up with a new metric that measures female bloggers - a new code.

Another Everyday Goddess:  let's have more versions of the lists.

Another: join up in networks for woman bloggers

Complaints about Technorati's reliability in posting all the posts tagged Blogher.

Mary Hodder who once worked at Technorati, is working on a community algorhythm that looks at more than inbound links. 

Miriam, who speaks five languages, can write in only one - even though she writes primarily about Africa and Asia and people of color.

Mena Trott, President of Six Apart

Live Journal 72% women and under 21
Typepad about 50/50 women, men.

She says she, Meg (founder of Blogger), Katherine of Flick'r are often dismissed, sometimes by other women

Mark:  Empower yourselves, all these companies have open APIs, create your own BlogHer 100.

Amber, a teen blogger says send postcards, offline means work too.

Summary
Halley.  Blog-whoring  - isn't that a female derogatory term.  Let's not use it.
Charlene,  Ask for links when it's relevant
Halley.  Push the medium.  Start your own companies. 

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