BlogHer

What is blogher.com and what is its reason for living, what’s it there for?

Blogher.com is a community of users interested in sharing their opinions, advice, ideas, and personal experiences with others in order to participate in a supportive and active environment. Blogher.com lives for women who have the objective of uplifting other women, while at the same time gaining inspiration and success for themselves.

Who was it founded by and what was the idea at the start?

Elisa Camahort, Lisa Stone, and Jory des Jardins started Blogher as a way to expose women to a supportive community of contacts that will encourage and help their economic, educational, and social empowerment.

Who owns it now and how is it organized, business-wise?

Blogher is currently owned by original founders Elisa Camahort, Lisa Stone, and Jory Des Jardins. Blogher currently receives investments from capital firm Venrock. BlogHer has recently partnered with NBC and iVillage in an effort to reach out to more women. BlogHer also works with sponsors on their website and for their annual conferences.

What’s the business model, as far as you can determine?

While providing platforms to connect women with each other, Blogher also connects consumers with marketers. The site and its events are powered mainly through advertisements. Sponsors provide special deals for Blogher users.

Who is the target audience, in the old fashioned sense: the likely consumer of the site’s content?

Blogher is mainly aimed at women of 35+ years, who are technologically literate and extremely active in political and social spheres. However, this site is also open to both males and females of various ages who want to become apart of this community.

What can users do at blogher.com? What are their powers, so to speak?

Users can write articles on any topic, comment, list their own blogs, participate in contests and book festivals, sign up to participate in or speak at conferences, and make money by using Blogher advertising on their personal blogs. Users can also donate money to improve maternal health of women and save lives from all over the world.

Who are the ideal users of the site, the ones blogher.com is truly made for?

Blogher is perfect for those who are highly active both on the internet and in real life, hoping to make connections. Also, for people who are searching for opinions on very specific topics.

What do the most active users–the power users, the super-contributors- tend to do at the site?

They write thought provoking articles and regularly interact with their readers and other users through comments.

How does that differ from what more casual users would do?

Most users only read and never interact or generate content of their own. They do not use the site as frequently as the power users.

Anything especially nifty or extremely effective about the technology available at the site?

No, the site could actually use a lot of improvement. The Search function works terribly as the results it returns are rarely relevant, making it very hard to find new content. Additionally, the UI is poorly designed which makes it difficult to find information.

What do the blogher.com community standards say?

BlogHer promotes differences of ideas but does reserve the right to monitor comments or posts that are blatantly disrespectful or not well thought out.

How active would you say the users are in communally enforcing those standards?

The users all abide by the community standards and create a very positive atmosphere. I would imagine that any distasteful content would be immediately flagged because the community is so proactive and does pride itself on its standards.

Division of labor: What work does the blogher professional staff do to make the site “go?”

There are editors for each section who regularly post feature articles and reply to comments. The staff monitors and updates the website, contacts sponsors and partners, organizes conferences, and solicits new ideas from its users.

As distinct from… What work does the user community do that makes the site go?

The community supplies the content that makes visitors want to revisit on the site and refer the site to others. They create an encouraging and knowledgeable community that connects the various users.

What kind of reputation system is there for contributors to the site?

There is no ranking system. However, personal profiles show the user’s recent activity including posts and comments.

What other mechanisms are there for creating trust at the site and how do they work?

Users are encouraged to link back to their personal blogs and provide a thorough profile. This allows users to get to know each other better and know the context in which they write posts or comments.

What do you think binds the user community together?

People are so knowledgeable on so many different subjects and they are fully open to share and be supportive of each other. It is incredibly supportive and rational in addressing niche topics.

Why do you think people come back to blogher.com? What are they getting by returning?

People go to BlogHer to find unique opinions presented in an unapologetic, yet, open manner.

Finally, is the community at blogher.com capable of doing actual journalism?

Yes. Mainstream Journalism focuses only on so many things because it has an obligation to satisfy the whole. BlogHer has no obligation and chooses what it, not a corporation, thinks is important. Something that could be overlooked by MSM in significance would certainly be picked up by BlogHer users who have a much more intimate knowledge and obsession of that topic.

Is it capable of doing great journalism?

Yes. BlogHer users are very professional in writing their posts and most of them are professionals in their fields, giving them an expertise and education well suited to writing. As an individual, it may be difficult and rare, but especially with everyone working together and contributing, BlogHer could be called upon to produce great journalism.

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