faboo mama

Last week, Microsoft opened up Windows Live, their answer to “social media”.  Right off the bat, you can see why it’s a massive fail. Once you remember your Hotmail account from the mid-90s, use your Xbox or Zune login, you can see how the UI is very user-unfriendly.  Importing feeds from other services is the only thing that’s quick and easy.  However, if you want to add friends, you’re stuck with contacting them via Hotmail accounts that have long been deactivated or given over to spam.  You can also add people via LinkedIn or Facebook, but that’s only provided those resources work.  When I tested them last week, neither of them would invite contacts.  This is fine with me as I don’t want my contacts from either site on this one.

Windows Live Home

This is your Home page.  From here you can see what your friends are doing.  What you can not do is actually interact with your friends on this page. So say I wanted to comment on Thomas’ photo, I can either click the Flickr link, hunt for the photo and make a comment or I can go to Thomas’s page, make a comment there and hopes he sees it.

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Image via CrunchBase

Can you say stupid with a slice of WTF?

Last night, my Twitter started going off with angry tweets regarding an ad on the Motrin website.  I can’t show you the ad because it’s been pulled.  Let me describe it:

It was a way too long video with a voiceover of some whiny mom complaining about something.  The words she was saying were being tossed acrossed the screen in what was probably some misdirected attempt at hipness.  After I woke from a nap, the woman was still droning on and she started talking about how she uses a carrier (which somehow is painful)  to make her look like an “official mommy”.

Let the shitstorm begin.

All day long, as I checked into various social media sites, women with too much time on their hands were writing overwrought posts talking about the ad was ‘insulting’.  To whom, was unclear.  Some moms were offended by it because they were adoptive parents.  Some because their kids were older.  Some because they never use(d) a carrier with their babies.  Others because they know that if worn right a carrier isn’t painful at all. But they were insulted and seeking vengeance.

Insulted.

Mommy bloggers you won the internets today.  Your prize?

Later this afternoon, childless people, men and those who have lives walked into this dust up trying to figure out the problem with the ad.  Most of them realized quickly that the ad wasn’t anything to get upset about and moved on with their lives.  Sadly, the mommy bloggers didn’t. They were making videos y’all.  Videos.

THUD.

A few hours ago, the Motrin website went down.  Crazed mommy bloggers cyber-high-fived one another.  That’ll show Motrin.  Mess with us and our faux outrage.

Well, Motrin finally responded and was a lot nicer than I would have been if I were doing the PR for the company:

We certainly did not mean to offend moms through our advertising. Instead, we had intended to demonstrate genuine sympathy and appreciation for all that parents do for their babies. We believe deeply that moms know best and we sincerely apologize for disappointing you. Please know that we take your feedback seriously and will take swift action with regard to this ad. We are in process of removing it from our website. It will take longer, unfortunately, for it to be removed from magazine print as it is currently on newstands and in distribution.

-Kathy

Kathy Widmer
VP of Marketing - Pain, Pediatrics, GI, Specialty
McNeil Consumer Healthcare

So now there’s even more vindication, but even worse, the masturbatory “See what Social Media can do?” posts are going up.  It’s like a Daisy chain gone bad.  And this is why I don’t call myself a mommy blogger.  This is why I try to stay away from mom blogs.  This is why some people shouldn’t be allowed to use a fucking computer.

I will say that I am extremely jealous at the swift and angry reaction of these women.  Just think of what they could do if they organized to help the poverty-stricken or cure real injustices in the world.  I wish everything in my life was so perfect that I would have the luxury to get all agitated over a damn ad.

Dan Patterson recently said something like, “In 2004 it was ‘the blogs’, now they’re old hat. 2008 is all about social media.”  I would probably agree, but what makes it frustrating is that despite the huge number of people I’m following on twitter who are working and/or attending #DNC08, there isn’t one solid list of where you can find people. So, I’m going to attempt to make that list.

Over at the DNCs website, there was an article from Dec. 2007 that gave us this video:

If you look other posts you’ll see the DNC has a Facebook and MySpace page. They also have a Twitter account, but seem to miss the point. Here’s how they tell you to follow them on Twitter:

To join the DNCC Twitter group, text JOIN to 40404. Follow the instructions and then text FOLLOW DEMCONVENTION to 40404.

Huh?

Anyway…please note the following:

LinkTV has Dear American Voter where you can make video comments on what you see on the Convention floor.

Seesmic: a public account was created so that you can post your thoughts of the DNCC whether you’re there live or watching at home.

Here’s a list of people who’ll be at the #DNC08 and where you can find them:

• BigTentDenver Twitter,
• DemConvention Room on FriendFeed
• Gina from WhatAboutOurDaughters.com can be followed on Twitter.
• Jack & Jill Politics is sending Baratunde and Cheryl, you can follow their JJP@DNC08 page/
• Baratunde Thurston of Jack & Jill Politics: Twitter,
• Cheryl Contee of Jack & Jill Politics: Twitter,
• Dan Patterson of CreepySleepy: Twitter, Qik, Flickr,
• Bryan Buchanan of PDA and BlueDynamic: Twitter,
• Julia Rosen of Calitics: Twitter,
• LinkTVs Dear American Voter:
• Photographer Mona: Twitter, Flickr,
• Mat Luschek of Door From Hell Media, Twitter, Qik, Phreadz
• Phillip Anderson of The Albany Project: Twitter (nudge him, he hasn’t updated in a month!)
• Michael Bassik of techpresident.com:
• Huffington Post: Twitter,
• John Odum of Green Mountain Daily:
• Pam’s House Blend is sending Pam Spaulding (Twitter, FriendFeed) and Radical Russ

Please come back to visit at I still have people to add, but I do have to get out of here and get some work done today.

Social Friend of the Day on 12seconds.tv

I’ve discovered a whole new world on the internet through this whole social media thing. Even though there is a large amount of wankerism there, I’ve discovered people via social media sites that I would have never have learned about before. Tech people for example. I’m not interested in the tech world online, despite my love of gadgets and technology. Why? So much dick-swinging and not enough meat. Like the liberal blogosphere, there’s a lot of internal drama that everyone gets wrapped up in, but doesn’t ever come close to affecting the other 5 billion people in the world. So, I’d search out gadgets, but ignore names. As I’ve learned over the past few days, I was right to do so. You think Matt Stoller is an insufferable buffoon? Some of these tech guys make Stoller look humble.

Naturally, there’s the B-Z list bloggers who hate the A-list bloggers and all that crap and like so many in the liberal blogosphere, they suck at the writing and analyzing but prevail at the link-making. Every once in awhile, you find gems like Eric Rice, Wayne Sutton and Louis Gray. I’ve “met” these 3 guys in the last month and they all seem to be doing their own thing, having fun, utilizing the tools available without feeling the need to crap on everyone else.

Which brings me to FriendFeed. I “met” Eric Rice via Seesmic. When I found out about FriendFeed, I found him there and subscribed to him. That was when I learned that he was much more than just a tech-geek and fellow Metblogger. FriendFeed has a feature that I found annoying at first; it’ll list random items from friend of friends. It was that feature that I learned of Louis Gray. He was a friend of a friend of two people I subscribed too. I like his writing style, but more importantly I loved the tech-focused articles he’d share on FF. I quickly subscribed. Through Louis Gray, I learned of a guy I had just noticed popping up every once in a while on seesmic: Wayne Sutton. I found out that Sutton is like a tech-god, especially across the country in the east coast version of Silicon Valley.

I was unable to attend the recent (and successful) Blogging While Brown Conference. I saw on FriendFeed that Sutton had a post on Seesmic. So, I popped onto Seesmic and asked if he knew anyone who wanted to go. He contacted me, and suggested Corvida Raven. I was able to get in contact with her and see if she could use my ticket. Without these contacts, it’s quite possible that my ticket would have gone to waste.

It was also through FriendFeed, I learned of a new toy: Wordle.

So, this is a really long way of saying I take back almost all of what I said about social networking sites before, though I’m still not getting a Facebook profile.

I’m the #2 Plurker in Los Angeles.

[applause]

Thank you, thank you…I still need to get SamProof out of my life. There was a day back in June when I was the #1 Plurker, but it must have been a glitch because Sam was nowhere to be seen. But as you can see, I’m gaining on him in the supremely stupid Karma category.

I want to thank my plurkbuddies for being such wondering and interesting conversationalists. They keep me laughing and sane throughout the day. Feel free to drop in on my plurk page and join the fun.