I spent this Saturday at Blogher '06 in San Jose with about 700 mostly women dipping in and out of sessions around the Hyatt's swimming pool. Mostly, I wished I had my bathing suit instead of the black long sleeves I wore so I could take a dip in the pool. Believe it or not, I'm actually kind of an introvert, so big crowds tend to overwhelm me -- I often feel, as the cliche states, "lost in the crowd." I felt like that a lot Saturday, despite running into people I know and having lots of great 1:1 conversations. Here's what I took away from the day:

We've come a long way, baby. I was not alone in the blog to book phenomenon this year. And if it wasn't blog to book it was blog to brand or blog to ad network or blog to small business. Lots of women bloggers are figuring out how to make blogging pay more than just Web hosting costs. I was amazed at how many women have agents, book deals, television deals and who have managed to make blogging their full time gig in one way or another. I think this is somewhat alienating to the contingent of Bloghers who write just to express themselves, as a creative outlet, or who don't feel any desire whatsoever to even attempt to make money off their blogs...interesting tension. I also think this tension existed around the presence and integration of corporate sponsors. When you have a community as diverse as Blogher, you're never going to please everyone. I loved meeting Ariel Meadow Stallings, aka Electrolicious. We bonded over both having writen books this year while working and blogging. Her book, Offbeat Bride, is coming out in December. Look for it.

Missing the teens: Last year I brought Katie & Julia to Blogher and led a panel about teen blogging. I was too busy to have even proposed anything this year, but I longed for more of an official teen presence. That said, Grace Davis (a parent I interviewed for the book) was there with her teen daughter Molly. And there were two Bay Area teens who spoke on a group blogging panel from the very cool science/tech podcast called SmashCast. I also ran into Zadi Diaz, one of my favorite vloggers, who told me about her new video podcast show for kids called Jet Set Show.

DOPA: What are we doing about it?: It was great to see danah boyd and to finally meet Pew research goddess Amanda Lenhart, both of whom are quoted a lot in the book. We were talking about the Deleting Online Predators Act, which should just be called DOPEY, since it's really just an election year ploy meant to take advantage of the MySpace media hysteria and get parents to the polls. There are real issues that have come out of social technology for sure, but blocking access to all blogs, wikis, social networks, etc. in all public schools and libraries only cuts off poor kids who don't have access at home from being able to participate in this new media revolution. It doesn't "delete predators," or replace parenting or empowering individual schools to create policies that work for their student populations. Last night I signed this petition. Check out this detailed explanation of how DOPA [doesn't work] from Cool CatTeacher. There's also a Blogher post and discussion happening about DOPA here. Update: One more -- Ypulse reader and youth librarian Erin has a great DOPA post, too.

P.S. Andrea Scher (aka Superhero Designs), my friend and the photographer who took the pictures of me that I use ALL THE TIME, did a great job on a panel called "The Next Martha Stewart" where she talked about how she uses her blog to promote her necklaces.

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Posted by anastasia