Back in skinny jeans

Yahoo is going to help women SHINE online

Remember last week, when I said "Someone upstairs is answering my prayers." Well, here it is. Yahoo gave an invite only preview of their new online property called Shine designed to appeal to women 25-54 years old. Shine officially launches sometime late March and the url will be http://shine.yahoo.com.

What I saw made me so excited, I cannot begin to tell you. Yahoo also treated all of us like VIPs and put on an impressive event. I was shining from all the awesome food and all the fantastic women I met. Lisa Stone one of the co-founders of BlogHer was there too, and she even gave me a big hug. I felt so honored that she knew me.

The Editor-in-Chief of Shine is Brandon Holley who is the former EIC of JANE and Elle Girl magazine. She is making the shift from print to online because as she said, “more and more people are moving online.” I got a chance to chat with Brandon and wow! She is one cool lady; laid back, approachable, hip, and very open. If Yahoo management leaves her alone to do what she knows best, then I have high hopes for Shine.

Specifically, this is what got me excited like Carrie Bradshaw seeing the new line of Manolos:

A huge tech company is creating a focused effort on leveraging the influence and purchasing power of the female consumer.  Business guru Tom Peters has been screaming about the power of the female consumer for years now, mostly to a deaf audience in tech, but things are changing and Yahoo is going for it big time. If Yahoo is successful with Shine, particularly with ad revenue, watch more techies to follow.

...Yahoo is going after an age demographic with a fat wallet that is mostly ignored by marketers online....

Yahoo is going after an age demographic with a fat wallet that is mostly ignored by marketers online. The general coveted web target groups are teens and 18-35, those young and starting out in life. But what happens online when you turn 36? Poof! Somehow you don’t count as much or aren’t as coveted, and that is such a huge mistake. Yahoo is being smart.

Women over 35 are typically the Chief Purchasing Officer of the home, buy for 3-4 generations on a constant basis (kids, nieces/nephews, their generation, and parents/grandparents), and are far more financially independent than ever before. By targeting an older demographic, Yahoo is going to be able to captilize on the attention of this powerful purchasing group.

The promise of Shine is going to make things far more interesting for many women like me and my friends. Yahoo is going after 25-54 but their sweet spot looks to be 35-45 who feel hip, stylish, and youthful yet are wiser, more insightful, and have more life experiences than the younger 20-somethings. See me do the cabbage patch and party like it’s my birthday.

Shine will give female and lifestyle bloggers the power to leverage the mammoth traffic that comes through Yahoo. Woo-hoo! Prayer answer! As a professional blogger, this made me want to scream from the roof tops, and here’s why. One of the pieces of advice that all the pro blogging and web marketing sites give to help you get more traffic to your blog is to leverage the social media sites like Digg, StumbledUpon, delicious, and Twitter.

The reality though is that these social sites are great to driving traffic to your blog more if you talk about tech, business, politics or guy oriented topics like sports, gaming, science, and anything to do with “hot chicks.” Why? Because the overwhelming majority user of these social network sites are geeky guys or guys who like geeky topics. For example, how often on the front page of Digg do you see a story from a female blogger or a female oriented site or blog? The percentage is small. Another example, Digg or StumbledUpon do not have main categories for fashion, parenting or marriage/weddings which are huge topics for female readers.

Shine will allow women to create their own blog posts to share content (including pictures and video) and link to her own blog. For example, I could do a post on Back in Skinny Jeans like “5 ways to get rid of that muffin top” and then post ways 1-2 on Shine with a link to Back in Skinny Jeans for readers to get ways 3-5. Shine is a way to get traffic from the most visited website in the US.

As well, if the editors of Shine like my post, I will have the opportunity to make it on the front page of Shine or even Yahoo.com. WOW! This is exciting again because Yahoo is the most trafficked site in the U.S., and the majority of people who go to Yahoo are more mainstream users and less of the geeks, and this is good news for us lifestyle and female bloggers who get almost no love on the social sites like Digg and StumbledUpon.

The promise of Shine made this female blogger extremely excited, but the true test will be the execution, the ease of use, and the benefits once Shine is up and running. Meeting Brandon and the rest of the Shine team was a real pleasure. Seriously, I cannot wait to get my Shine-on at Yahoo!

My love hate relationship with Google's Weight Loss Advertising

I have a love/hate relationship with the Google AdSense advertising program and their weight loss category advertisers.

LOVE
As a publisher, I love the ease of putting up the code just once, and then making ad revenue while I sleep. There is no maintenece. It's easy, and the reporting system is fabulous. Looking at the Google Adsense Page Views stats makes me feel like a rock star because the numbers are always higher than what Google Analytics or TypePad stats says. I know they are different counting systems, but when you're a blogger trying to make a living, you tend to gravitate to the "better looking" numbers. Clothing size or web traffic, it's all the same kind of manic obsession. My blog is old enough too now where the ad revenue is much greater than before and allows me to pay for bills like phone and cable.

HATE
I hate the fact that as the publisher, I am not given more control to filter out the types of ads that appear on BISJ. Yes Google has a "Competitive Ad Filter" but you have to enter the url of each offending advertiser. Now, when it comes to the subject of weight loss, I have no doubt that Google has millions of advertisers related to weight loss and weight management.

There is no way I can monitor ALL of those companies, and submit each one of those urls. I do not understand why Google will not give us publishers the option to filter by subject like NO ads about quick weight loss like "lose 30lbs in 30 days," or ads about Hoodia, liposuction to lose weight, or diet pills. I know it can be done but Google wants to get rich so they make it hard for ads placements to be limited. Good for Google, but a pain the arse for the publisher who has higher senses of consistency and integrity.

I get emails from some of my readers who chastise me about my apparent hypocrisy in that I write about healthy weight loss, and that sitting right next to a post will be a Google Ad reading "Lose 9lbs in 2 days." Those who blog and use the Google AdSense program understand how stuff like this happens, but someone who is not savvy in the workings of Google advertising doesn't know and doesn't care. And, they are right. I understand their gripe.

The subject of weight loss is very tricky in terms of search. It's not like blogging about tech, business, sports, or even food. It's pretty tough to find an offensive ad in those niche topics. But in weight loss, you get the gammet of healthy messages and dangerous ones. One time I had ads about, "Anorexic Get Skinny Using..." I'm not kidding.

So, as a person who needs to make a living, and as a blogger who wants to be consistent in advertising and voice. What do I do? I am constantly torn by this subject. I'm looking avidly for new sources of income that allow me to maintain consistency. Recently, I joined a new ad network that is supposed to help me, the publisher get more access to different ad inventories which is terrific. Google Adwords is part of their inventory so that is why you're seeing more Google ads around here.

But, the big BUT again, I'm finding the same problem in that I can't filter out specific topics. Anyone got any ideas? I could use some insight.

Video: MacBook Air Thinnovation makes other notebooks feel fat because 5lbs is now too heavy

I promise this is the last on the nonsense that is the Apple "Thinnovation" message for their ThinBook Air. In this clip, other notebooks now feel fat and unlovable because the "new it girl" is so much thinner. The truthiness of this video depicts our society's obsession with thin even if it is just a hunk of electronics. I couldn't help laughing in some parts because it really is sadly predictable sometimes.

In laptop world, their size 0 is now 3 lbs. Remember when people got excited about 5 lb laptops? Before Britney's next court appearance, a parade of other 3 lb notebooks will fly out of the woodwork ASAP as the rest of tech jumps on the "Thin is a Win" bandwagon.

And because I know tech so well, some marketing go-getter is pitching this idea, "At our press conference, let's hire some hot fashion models and have them walk on stage holding our 3lb laptop in its rainbow of colors. Better yet, can anyone find out how much Giselle or Heidi would cost?"

Whew! I feel so much better after that vent. Thanks for your patience. Ok, I'm done. Back to our regular more uplifting content.

Happy 2nd Birthday Back in Skinny Jeans and thank you to all our readers

Today, Back in Skinny Jeans celebrates her 2nd birthday. Woo-hoo! So much has happened over the course of the year that I hardly know where to begin. First, let's start of with some milestones:

• Back in Skinny Jeans reaches a Google Page Rank of 5.
• We wrote 796 posts this year which averages 3 posts/day over 5 days/week.
• Our monthly traffic grew 8x from Nov. 1 2006 to Nov. 1 2007.
• The post "How to explain RSS the Oprah Way" becomes the most popular lamens explanation of RSS in the Internet as it appears #1 in Google and Yahoo search results for "explain RSS". The post has been translated  into 10 different languages to my knowledge. This post has its own Google Page Rank of 6 which is amazing for just one post.
• Some our stories appear on larger media sites USAToday.com, FOX News, iVillage, AOL, and Reuters US & UK.
• We were handpicked by Hallmark Cards to be one of a handful of bloggers in attendance at their very first Blogger Conference.
• The top 10 most visited posts of the year were (in no particular order):

• Rexy "Anna Rexia" Halloween Costume
• Anorexia and an Internet suicide
• How to Explain RSS the Oprah Way
• 21-year-old Brazilian model dies from Anorexia (Ana Carolina Reston)
• Aquafina and Dasani is actually tap water with a fancy name
• Tyra Banks was hurt by fat remarks
• Photodropping Away 100 pounds from this model
• Even Faith Hill isn't "perfect" enough for a magazine cover
• 7 ways to cut down calories and fat from Starbucks drinks
• The break-up diet: Losing weight and a boyfriend

We've had a very prosperous year, and I have to say that I could not have done it alone. I want to extend a HUGE bouquet of gratitude to all our readers because without you, there is no blog, and to all my fellow blogs, bloggers, and friends who have not only showered us with loads of link love but with much support, a shoulder to cry on, and inspiration.

I want to extend a personal thank you to Flabuless and Maria aka Manola Blablablanik at Sex and the Beach for burning the midnight oil many nights with me, and keeping me from eating a whole bag of chocolate chip cookies during the night.

To Matt, we remain close friends. He consistently believes in my talent and ability to "build castles", and to which this blog would never have existed had he not encouraged me. To my best friend Chris, who has been my friend for over 30 years. She consistently reminds me of my tenacity and has been with me through all kinds of ups & downs. To my parents, who are THE best parents in the world. I seriously won the parent jackpot with these two. To my sister-in-law Casey who blogs about my favorite little people in the world, my triplet nieces Makena, Riley, and Alyssa.

I look forward to our 3rd birthday next year, and thank you again to all!

 

Skinny Jeans featured on Twitter today. Follow me drop the last 10 pounds.

Today, Skinny Jeans is a featured Twitterer on the Twitter Public Timeline amongst TMZ and the New York Times. Woo-hoo!

I mentioned on Wed that I am using Twitter to help me shed the last 10 pounds. I'm using Twitter to micro blog what I'm eating, what exercise I'm doing for the day, inspirational thoughts, and any links to helpful weight loss posts around the skinny-sphere. I'm basically sharing stuff that is quick info but not big enough for it's own blog post here at Back in Skinny Jeans.

You can follow my Twitterings either by visiting my Twitter page: Skinny Jeans or on the sidebar of the blog here it lists the last 5 Tweets I posted. So far, Twittering has been helping my weight loss efforts in that it's making me a bit more accountable and disciplined in my exercise and food. It's tougher to slack when people are following you ;-)

Can Twitter help us lose the last 10 pounds?

There is a very popular social web tool called Twitter which gives one the ability to communicate their daily going-ons to your group of friends in short tiny posts via cell phone, IM or web page. You can only write 140 characters so it's like email on a restricted diet. I like to see Twitter as the water cooler of digital communication for those who have little time and attention span yet wanna be in the know.

Maria did a wonderful write-up explaining Twitter, Twitter's so Easy, Even Grandma Can Do It. There is also The Tao of Twitter, and for truly geek speak Newbies Guide to Twitter.

I'm going to use Twitter to  track my daily going ons on my journey to drop these last 10 pounds. Anyone is welcome to join in and follow me. Twitter is FREE  to join,  and it is easy. You can follow me on my Twitter page, Skinny Jeans. On the sidebar of Back in Skinny Jeans is a Twitter widget, so you can see the last 5 things I did in my day to help me shed these last 10 pounds. I figured Twitter along  with Weigh-in Wed would help be more accountable in my weight loss effort, and let it be a social thing too. Hey, I'm  open to anything that will help me reach my weight goal.

Be sure to go into the "Settings" part of your Twitter account if you want t o set-up notifications via your cell or IM. Note: Twitter can eat into your cell phone Text message plan if you choose to send Twitters via your cell depending on what you have so be sure to check with you carrier plan. You don't have to follow using your cell as you can always go to people's Twitter web pages.

So, let's see if Twitter can help Skinny Jeans drop those last 10 pounds.

Scrapblog – Create A Story With Your Photos

It took me all of five minutes to create a one-page Scrapblog as tribute to my companion bird.  You can do a  whole lot  more.

By Maria de los Angeles Lemus

Scrapblog is a dreamy, easy to use digital scrapbooking website available to anyone who wants to do more than just share photos.  Why dreamy? Because it’s fun, free and simple -- this is the kind of thing we like!

You can start an online scrapbook quickly with several pre-set themes or a blank page -- either way, there's oodles of room for creativity.  Scrapblog Builder offers basic graphical menus that let you add backgrounds, photos, shapes, text boxes, music, videos and more, while using your mouse to play with layout.  When I tested Scrapblog, I felt like a kid with a brand new box of crayons!  (And yes, I actually own a box of crayons.)

Folks with absolutely no background in graphic applications may need to tool around Scrapblog Builder to get the hang of it, but I wish all computer stuff was this user-friendly.  The grab bag of design and publishing options isn't like a cluttered purse; instead, what I need is easy to find.  I can spend more time doing instead of figuring out how to do it and I needn't know squat about how the developers work their magic.

Please enjoy our other blogs!

Is the Apple iMac suffering from the Size 0 obsession?

Steve Jobs announced the new 2007 Apple iMac yesterday with the headline:

"The new iMac. You can't be too thin. Or too powerful."

I thought it was interesting that Apple would use a body image metaphor to describe their newest iMac design. To continue the metaphor, could the iMac be suffering from the same societal pressures to be thin as us women? Is there such a thing as computerexia-nervosa? If the iMac, the most fashionable desktop computer around isn't thin enough, does that mean it isn't good enough or lovable enough for us consumers? Let's see.

Since the first 20" screen iMacs came out, the iMac indeed has continued to lose weight and inches over the years. As well, the first two iMac designs had beautiful curves, and starting in 2005, the iMac's curvy figure went away replaced with straight lines like today's fashion models. And the newest design in 2007, is even thinner and lighter like the Hollywood Bone Brigade. I miss the curves.

I like that the new iMac design is made of recyclable materials: aluminum and glass. It is pretty. I could do without the black border around the screen though. The thinness is not really that big a deal to me. So, can a computer be too thin? I say yes. If the thing gets any lighter, we'll be able to blow on it and watch it fall over like Nicole Richie on a windy day.

How to become an eLebrity in a YouTube universe

An eLebrity is someone who's become famous online like lonelygirl15, Amanda Congdon, and Ask a Ninja because of their enigmatic and entertaining video presence.

My future prediction is that the next Oprah and Martha Stewart will get their start online. Why? Because it's cheap and easy. You don't have to audition and wait for a shot at being in front of a camera. You can get your video camera out, do your "show", and then slap it up on YouTube. Simple.

So, you want to be an eLebrity? Here's 6 tips on what it takes to be famous in a YouTube cosmos.

[via Wall Street Journal]