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Oh, dear. I think I’m about to post my first rant.
I read a story by Aaron Wall on Internet Financial News today that likened “mommy bloggers” to “naive amatures [sic]”, quite literally suggesting that “monetization and business experts” take advantage of this less than savvy population to create a new “scalable business model” in 2007.
WTF?!
A more blatant slap in the face comes from the founder of Shuzak.com, a “Social Network for Geeks” who commented on a great post on Mashable.com:
“This social network is too complex for “moms” to use.”
His words, posted 1/4/07
Here’s the supreme irony - both of these men are in the social networking game. Both of them not only know, but preach the fact that Web 2.0 is a community affair:
From the exact same article by Aaron:
“As the market for ad dollars, audience, and talent get more and more competitive people skills are going to be increasingly important.”
Aaron - you seemingly forgot your people skills while writing your article this morning yesterday.
And from Shuzak’s About page”
“We believe that social networks are, collectively speaking, human super computers and in them exists an enormous potential for collaborative intelligence.”
Jawad - I sincerely wonder if any of the “geeks” in your community are moms - is this something you check for at the door? Oh, wait, since we had kids, we must not be “intellectually inclined”, so don’t bother, I’m sure there are no moms to be found who can handle Theoretical Mathematics.
\ end rant \ 
PS :: Now, I know my next most recent post gets on the male-female thing again - honestly, this is not the regular topic of this blog, nor do I plan on writing about it more frequently.
But then again, if I find more laughably insane dribble on mommy bloggers, I’m happy to spread the word about the socially inept, no matter what gender it comes from!
Oh, no, he di’nt…
Don’t even get me started on this one!!! This mom happens to more tech-savvy than 90% of the men she knows. Need I tell you how many phone calls a day I get from my husband at work asking me technology questions?
I agree with Char - there are many women who are far more technology literate than their male-counterparts and I am one who has been in IT&T for more than 20 years. The thing about this I find interesting is that women are generally better at creating genuine networks than the guys and that, after all, is the basis of social networks (not the technology).
My hubby not only asks me tech questions - he frequently calls and asks for *driving directions* gasp!
Leah, I would have to agree with you on your comment - well said!
Young men can be horribly arrogant.
If you would have asked me when I was 21 the best way to ruin your life. I would have said - have a baby. Shows you what I must have thought about motherhood at the time.
Today I believe something completely different. I believe the best way to enhance your life is to have a baby. And you can’t do that without a mom. Moms are the backbone of civilization.
When it comes to technology, men and women are the same, some of us are good at it and some of us aren’t.
My wife saw technology for it’s growth potential. I always saw it as something neat to mess around with.
One generalization…
Males tend to obsess over technology the same way they do about sports and sex.
I’m not saying females don’t obsess over technology, sports, and sex. It just doesn’t seem as common.
What do a bunch of geeky boys on social networks know about women anyway?
Maybe if they walked away from the computer and actually talked to a real live woman they might learn something.
If you wanna see sexism in full tilt, go play an FPS (first person shooter) game online and use a female screen name. It’ll make you wanna puke.
On the upside, their ignorance of who REALLY is at the helm of driving our great nation is to our advantage. Let them bask in their make believe world, it’s safer for them there. The rest of us know better and consequently are better prepared, equipped and experienced. ;o)
Hugs,
Holly
Holly’s Corner
You got it, Holly. I try to avoid people who believe
Oh yes, boys..we need to you to please come save us Mum from our own stupidity
I don’t think moms or women are technologically stupid. My girlfriend is more savvy with engineering than I am.
The point of my post is that many people with significant authority in search and communities are making crumbs relative to their real value…especially those that are new to the web. I once was naive enough to use AOL. And I was quite broke at one point.
That line of thinking is based on my own experience, current income, and past income. I don’t think that income is a true proxy for the value of a person, but the point is that there are going to be many people looking to close the value gaps in a non automated fashion outside of search and Web 2.0 algorithms.
As far as women and social networks go, some brain studies have concluded that women brains have a larger Corpus Callosum and are better with language and communication.
I also fund a profitable business ran by a partner who has a full time woman writer on staff. She gets paid far more than what I was making a few years ago, and she is a far better writer than I am.
I didn’t forget my people skills when I was writing. I generally don’t write to appease people who want to pull me out of context and run with it. I write for the people who read my blog over and over again. Of course that does make it easy to get pissed off at some of my articles that are syndicated on other sites. Sorry on that, but thanks for the mention.
Aaron, I read your article over 10 times before I wrote this post - indeed, I read some of your other work too, which actually made me like you as a person a lot. Since I have quite a bit of linguistic training, I certainly searched for a different meaning in your words.
Regardless, the language you used in the post in question is not congruent with your stated intentions.
I totally believe everything you just wrote in your comment here - but no matter what, I do believe that in your post, you have aligned ‘mom bloggers’ with ‘naive amateurs’.
Perhaps there is a way to reword your article to be clearer on your true meaning?
I’ve been checking your blog of and on for about a week now but haven’t read anything entertaining enough to comment on until now.
I’m a male. Ok, go ahead and shoot me now and get it over with.
Seriously, the two mentioned guru’s did speak out of terms. These guys seem to forget that they once were small fish in a big pond and tend to forget the people that got them there.
I will say however, that Aaron Wall is a genius when it come to SEO. I personally have gained a lot of knowledge from him. With that said, he still shouldn’t have mouthed off the way that he did and probably has pissed off a large group of potential future customers. Not a good business move.
If I can make a suggestion. You might want to add their names to your tag line. It will help drive more people to this post.
Just because you don’t like them doesn’t mean that you can’t ride on their traffic wave.
I am an engineering student developing a social network for geeks. So I have had first hand experience observing patterns in science and technology. It should come as no surprise that the male to female ratio in tech related fields is disproportional. I do not expect my mother to understand Shuzak or MySpace or Orkut. And my mom is one among many many women.
Now this is not to say that no “mom” can use a social network. It simply means that a social network that is complex in functionality is unnecessarily reducing its market share. When developing a social network for somewhat older crowd (I know, not too old), it is better to make things as simple as possible. The social network mentioned on Mashable was difficult for me to comprehend in the 10 minutes I spent on it. That is quite a lot of time in a world where the attention span of the average user is that of an orangutan.
Women can, of course, be as versed in technology as men are (if not more). Though, the problem is that there aren’t that many women in technology just as there aren’t that many men in nutrition. Keeping things simple is an easy solution that works for everyone.
Brian - no worries, I love men, I do! I even have compassion for men who use really inappropriate words to say what they mean!
LOVE your idea on the post title - but I got it too late. I’ll keep that in mind for future reference!
Techscape - THANKS for the mention!
Jawad, in your comment you are still saying that things need to be “dumbed down” for moms - and in your comment on mashable you say that this kind of social network is too complex for “moms”.
I have no problem with you pointing out that any social network doesn’t have a user-friendly interface.
I DO have a problem with you singling out moms as a section of the population that needs to be talked down to, or that would find any site “too complex”. Some moms will. Some won’t.
Your comment on Mashable was completely out of line.
Shuzak should quit while he’s ahead.
Oh. It doesn’t sound like he ever was…
Jawad,
Now you’re going after and degrading older people as well. WOW! Why can’t you just say that most people are not technically inclined enough to use social networks. I would totally agree with that.
I setup and oversee Intranet networks by profession and I can tell you that most people in general, know very little about computers and how they work. It never ceases to amaze me how a person can use a computer every day and learn nothing in the process.
Considering that young adults have had the advantage of the computer age growing up you would think that they would know a lot more about computers than they do. I can tell you that they are just as ignorant about computers as any other age group. The truth is most people don’t have enough of an interest and are basically too lazy to learn.
What I’m having a hard time comprehending is why you think the way that you do. Everyone has their shortcomings. This is not limited to one person or a group of people for that matter. No good can ever come from profiling a group people.
By the way, I’m 51 years old and I have many people more than half my age asking me computer related questions. I would have to think that I fall in that group of older people that you mentioned since you said not really old in your post.
Jawad has walked right into the negative stereotype generalization trap. Being young and inexperienced (how is that for my own generalization and stereotype
) he doesn’t yet understand the social dangers of trying to NOT market to a specific demographic.
Instead of focusing on who he thinks is inccapable of using the interface (which he really can’t be sure of), he should focus on who he wants to use the interface. For example he could say, “I’m focusing on the young male college engineering student demographic for this social network” and he wouldn’t get into nearly as much trouble as if he said, “We aren’t building our user interface for old, uneducated, female, stay-at-home moms.”
Did that make sense?
It’s socially acceptable to focus on a market demographic.
It isn’t socially acceptable to exclude a demographic.
Very different animals.
On Mashable, the discussion was on a niche social network designed for moms. So criticizing a social network that is not suitable for moms is relevant to to Pete’s post. This is not racial profiling. When the discussion is on teen social networks, I am equally as critical of that demographic. Each market has its own needs, wants, problems and solutions.
I am in a difficult position on this blog. eMom’s readers are obviously loyal to her and biased against me. Moreover, since they read blogs, they are likely to be well versed in technology. If you disagree with my comments, it is more likely because you are a minority in the category of people I am talking about.
I’m willing to listen, but, what is the criteria used to decide if something is or is not “suitable for moms”?
How does the fact that someone gave birth enter into the ability to use a website?
That’s the spunk! And here I thought I was the only one who liked to mess my hair up once in awhile.
…eDad (aka the Bloke
You are joking right? You realize that this is not discrimination but plainly the obvious conclusion that blogging moms are not the hugest demographic on the internet, and most moms don’t have a lot of time to spend on social networks, because usually they have jobs and kids and school and to be honest if I was a single mother like my mom was, I would not be spending my time at a social network.
Now that I will probably be bashed for saying moms spend all their time on their family and have no life, or some other such silly statement. The thing is that technophile moms are not even a significant minority in most places on the internet, a few token here and there, but the time and energy put it is just not worth it for most of them.
Nobody is discriminating against moms, or calling them dumb. My mother is way smarter then me, more disciplined, way way WAY more successful then I will probably ever be in business, and uses computers everyday in her work, but it took me 4 hours to explain the concept of aim to her and teach her to use it, because she didn’t care about instant messaging. And that is the crux of the issue.
Uh, Constantine, did you even read what these guys said?
Then again, you could just be Jawad in hiding. You don’t seem to want to want to let us know who you are, and I know you came here from a chat room over at Shuzak.com.
Regardless, unless you’re willing to have a conversation, and not leave anonymous, additionally degrading comments, we really don’t have a lot to say to each other.
But I would be happy to chat more with a real person, no matter what you think about the issue.