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As we celebrate the fifth year of BlogHer.com and start cruising toward BlogHer '10, we thought it would be a nice time to do a bit of looking back through the rear-view mirror. We haven't stolen Marty McFly's DeLorean, but we are going back through the site archives and pulling up some posts that struck a chord with us. Stick your feet up on the dashboard, roll down the window and let's take a drive through 2009.
I remember well joining BlogHer back in 2006, shortly after the site launched. I was here because a friend told me I should be and while I like the writing, I found I wasn't really quite sure what I was supposed to do. I was a little intimidated, to be honest. I keep plugging away, and now BlogHer is my Internet home. But I've been there, we all have, so I can't even begin to tell you how much I loved Wilma Ham's post about her early days on BlogHer.
Dear BlogHer, I have two voices itching to let you know how it has been for me getting to know you.
Ego: Yeah, I start; it is about time to have my say about your BlogHer site and what you do to innocent egos. I tell you, you had me cringe with private and public mistakes many a time in those early days and to be honest sometimes your site still does trip me up after 2 years and 5 weeks!
Heart: Don't worry BlogHer, ego bruising is not such a bad thing, you know.
If I say, "All the single ladies!" I probably don't have to say much else, do I? Except maybe if you liked it you should have put a ring on it. Years from now, you will mention 2009 and I will think of that song, the same way that Nirvana will take me back to the house parties of my youth. The only thing catchier and more fun than Beyonce's hit song were the video parodies, lovingly compiled for us by Megan Smith.
I plowed through hundreds, if not thousands of "Single Ladies" video parodies and came up with a unique cross-section of talented and er, sort of talented individuals who with a video camera and a dream decided they too could be Beyonce. If just for three minutes.
I know we all think that we know exactly what we'd do if we won the lottery, right? Well, one BlogHer got a unique chance to see what happens when a family member wins tens of millions of dollars. It's been years since Denise's sister won the lottery, and she shared what she's learned being the big sister of a lottery winner.
My answer to the "What would you do if you won the lottery?" question has changed quite a bit because I've watched my sister make choices that I both agree completely with and disagree completely with. I've seen her change and I've seen how she has stayed the same.
Sometimes the stuff that sticks with us is part of a discussion in one of the BlogHer groups. Marie's post cracked our hearts a little as she wrote about the thing no one wants to talk about -- the death of a child.
Only those who have been to the Valley can comprehend all that you are thinking, feeling, physically suffering through.
Even so, each journey through death is singular and solitary. One of the first questions after a while that you will ask is, who am I? Who you once were is gone. Who you are now unknown. Who you will be in the moments, hours, days and years ahead are yet to unfold, so very distant in some future you can not and will not realize yet.
Even before the FTC announced changes to its guidelines on product reviews, blogger compensation was a hot topic. How should bloggers get compensated for the promotional work they do? BlogHer co-founder Jory Des Jardins weighed in on blogger compensation, asserting that the keys to success are context and disclosure.
We don't believe that the discussion is being framed properly for organizations to come to their own best conclusions. It's time to look at the finer distinctions between compensated programs that have emerged as social media enters awkward adolescence. To us, the question is not whether anyone should ever compensate bloggers, it's under what circumstances should you compensate them? And if you
