Techmamas

CBS Buying CNET

In my post "Not Just A Mom" at the Silicon Valley Moms Blog I discussed why I feel CBS and others will thrive in the "Groundswell" (from the book published by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff):

"CBS had the forethought to hire a viral marketing team that was knowledgeable about blogging and took the time to connect the Silicon Valley Moms Group with Katie Couric. In a move that shows CBS will thrive in the Groundswell, they not only gave use a tour of CBS studios while some of us were in New York for a conference, but also gave us the chance to sit with Katie Couric in HER OFFICE and have an amazing discussion about blogging and motherhood (one that we will never forget)."

Today I saw the following on Silicon Valley Insider and discussed all over Techmeme: CBS Buying CNET For $1.8 Billion; CBS Predicts $1 Billion Interactive Revenues By 2010. This is another step that shows CBS understands social media and are making moves to leverage their existing content online as well as adding new content. I regularly go online to get my news from CBS and my technology reviews from CNET - so this news makes sense to me. I also read the news feeds from my Yahoo home page, so the partnership with Yahoo is an added bonus.

But my favorite example of the new social media in action are parent bloggers, who not only already have amazing content online but utilize the power of their own community and technology to get what they need from each other. Because the parents are also the key buyers for their family, their online community is a great place for relevant advertisers with good pitches to engage in the new social media environment.

A little prediction of my own for where some of those interactive online revenues should go to moving forward......

Related:

PR Newswire Press Release on Yahoo Finance

CBS CEO Les Moonves' All Things Digital Interview

Aliph Jawbone's NEW Bluetooth - 50% Smaller

I just came back from a San Francisco party for the NEW Aliph Jawbone (with Noise Assassin).  The Jawbone was on the list to test for my Bluetooth guide for moms, so now I will have the chance.  I was lucky to bring along two fellow techmamas (Glennia and Sheila), who are on their own quest to find the perfect Bluetooth. The new Aliph Jawbone is 50% smaller then the current Jawbone and has technology called "noise assassin". I have seen many positive reviews, especially for the kid   noise canceling functionality (as Glennia calls it...).

I had the opportunity to try the headset on - it was very light and seemed comfortable in my ear. The model came in three colors: black, silver and gold (for those fashion conscious).  We all decided the black was the "cool" mom color, I knew that it would match both my daily mom uniform (black sweats) and mom's going out uniform (black shirt and jeans)...

Of course the first thing I did when I came home tonight was open the box to charge it in preparation to use it tomorrow morning. The charger was easy to plug in and magnetic for a smooth connection to the headset. I also found a box with customizable options: large and small earbuds and extra large and medium leather earloops.

So far so good, we had a great night including a product demo with an Aliph representative. But the real test will be tomorrow when I give it a test drive. It seems that two members of my personal review team have already written their reviews (Wall Street Journal and CNET).

More to come.....

What Is A Tech Savvy Mom?

Yesterday I posted about the extreme of what a tech obsessed mom may look like. But the question I still can't seem to define is: "What is a Tech Savvy Mom?"

Is she someone who knows how to use a computer to manage her family? Is she someone who can set up the family TV remote control and home wireless network? Does she do her online reading through RSS Feeds on her homepage? Or how about a mom who knows how to manage getting the digital pictures out of her camera into a form that is displayed in the house or to the family in a blog? Is she someone who has a blog and shares her voice? How about a mom that can go into Best Buy, Staples or Radio Shack and talk tech with the salespeople to find the right gadget? Is she a mom that always has a charged Bluetooth headset to use with her smartphone? Does she read her emails on her smartphone or just read her emails at all?  Or even the mom who stays in contact with family/friends around the world using Skype and Facebook?  Does she help her kids use computers for homework assignments or presentations that require it? Best yet, is the "talk" she has with her kids not only about sex & drugs - but about Internet Safety and identity protection?

So readers, please help me define the modern tech savvy mom....My brother who lives in a different country just Google Talked me so I need to go chat with him......

The Search For The Perfect Bluetooth Headset Continues...

I am not sure if it was the article on Forbes, but I got a nice invite from the folks are Jawbone to come preview their headsets tomorrow (Make note... good PR move...). After testing some other headsets, I have held off publishing my Bluetooth guide for moms until I had a chance to test the Jawbone.  So - it looks like I will have all my information and add the results in my Mother's Day Gift Guide by next week. The results may be late for mother's day but in time for the July 1st 2008 Cellular Phone Law.

Top Ten Signs You Know You Are Dealing With A Tech OBESSESD Mom

UPDATE: (I wanted to clarify from the comments below that this example is a tech OBSESSED mom.... Everyone of my commenters is ALREADY a tech savvy mom!!!!!)

10. SHE IS A WIRELESS WOMAN: Knows that developing, printing and putting family pictures in frames is passe, instead she emails pictures to her WiFi Digital Photo Frame, Despises hooking up cables to her laptop, uses a WiFi family printer instead to enable all family members to print pictures and files from their laptops remotely.  To further her WiFi obession, she only uses a EyeFi to send the pictures she does take with her digital camera to her computer.

9. SHE HAS HIGH STANDARDS FOR SECURITY, SAFETY AND RELIABLITY .. Can't complain to anyone that her wireless network was not installed correctly, because she is the one who installed it. Enjoys trying to remember the WEP key as a mind game...Wired her family so they can work in any room with their laptops -that all have parental controls installed ... Have kids regularly recite "DO NOT GIVE AWAY ANY PERSONAL INFORMATION ONLINE".

8. SHE HAS MANY HANGOUTS ONLINE: Her non-tech savvy mom friends had to join Facebook and Twitter just to keep up to date with her...Has a nice set of live and virtual friends... Documents her public passions using Typepad blogs and private family adventures using VOX blogs. Puts her holiday shopping gift ideas online.. Join GoodReads just to connect with people that read BOOKS. Organized all of her favorite online reading into feeds from her home page or from Alltop.

7. SHE FILLS TECHIE VOLUNTEER OPPORTUNITIES AT HER KID'S SCHOOL: Happily takes on the techie tasks at her kids school including volunteering at the computer lab, putting together excel spreadsheets and implementing email groups.

6. SHE STREAMLINES FAMILY MEDIA: Uses TIVO to schedule shows for her master bedroom TV using TIVO online on her laptop while cooking dinner or uses TIVO moblie while waiting at carpool. Hooked up APPLE TV in the family room to allow her iPod obessed kids and their friends to listen to music, rent movies, listen to podcasts from the TV.. Is in charge of backing up the family digitial media... Did the family research for BlackBerry versus iPhone and PC Versus MAC.

5. SHE HAS A PAPERLESS MOBILE OFFICE: Uses her SMARTPHONE to managing the family schedule, addresses, all her emails and mobile social networking applications. Has learned to balance checking email while on the elliptical machine or in loading food into the grocery cart...Has romantic emails and IM with hubby during the day with her hubby...Has multiple re-charging stations to keep all her and her families gadgets charged up..

4. SHE EMBRACED BLUETOOTH: Is deciding between BlueTooth speakerphones, BlueTooth GPS device or a BlueTooth steering wheel.

3. Her husband calls HER a CrackBerry.

2. Her dream gift other then Foot Candy, wearable electronics or a fully digital home would be finding the perfect noise canceling, clear sounding, fashionable BlueTooth headset....

NUMBER ONE SIGN:  Her favorite Mother's Day activity was turning off ALL technology and watching her boys plant flowers for her...

Facebook In Reality: The Video - With Added Mom Thoughts

My friends all know that I am a Facebook evangelist, but some of my tech savviest friends still don't get why. I tell them that I can keep track of what my personal and business friends are doing, get invited to events and keep my network up to date on my blog posts and favorite links.... How joining Facebook groups has helped me do some amazing business networking at night while the kids are asleep....How Facebook has helped me deepen the connection between my blogging network by adding them as friends... Or how about one of my mom friends who credits Facebook with giving her the ability to keep up to date with her friends around the world?  Or another Facebook savvy friend who uses it to help build her business network.

I am working on getting as many mom friends on Facebook to see it for themselves. Many think I am some crazy techie when I tell them I want to create a Facebook group for the moms from my kids schools' to socialize, which will be easier then trying to run after them in my sweats during the craziness of school dropoff, pickup or class parties.

I mean, come on - do moms really have the chance to meet other moms from their kids' schools unless they happen to have a playdate or carpool to sports events? Isn't that process inefficient?

Maybe developing some Facebook manners will help my mom friends jump on the bandwagon....I already tell those bothered by all the applications not to add applications they won't use. I warn my friends in advance that I am thrilled to read their updates, links and feeds but please don't send me something that I tell my kids are bad manners in real life (i.e. POKING). I also say just ignore the sophomoric humor that exists on all social networks..

Talk about sophomoric humor, a UK comedy troup idiotofants.com did a great job of explaining how NOT to use Facebook (warning - as they would say in the UK - don't get your knickers in a twist that some of the following humor has some raunchy bits):

All I can say is that parodies of social networking applications that get millions of YouTube hits means that it is already part of the modern lexicon - and here to stay.  

Not Just A Mom

Today I wrote a post at the Silicon Valley Moms Blog called "Not Just A Mom" explaining how I feel parent blogging relates to what Charlene Li is talking about in the book she co-authored called "Groundswell". 

And my wonderful hubby and boys gave me a special day. Here is a picture of the flowers they planted for me. Happy Mother's Day!!

Controlling Social Media Noise Levels

One of the biggest complaints I hear from parents using social media (for themselves) is the "noise". Noise comes from some social media applications not interacting with each other or getting more functionality then you need.  I just posted about Facebook Connect and Yahoo Open to connect between social media sites, which is a step in the right direction. I don't hear that complaint from the tweens/teens who seem to thrive on social media noise. When parents join one social platform to make business or social connections, they also are exposed to other applications of no interest (i.e. stop poking me...). ReadWriteWeb just posted this morning that filtering will be the next step for social media:

"How does this affect noise levels? If you're using a service to promote content, you may be considered noisy to those that are looking for conversations. If you're using a platform to keep in touch, then those looking for content and in depth conversation surrounding particular content would need a way to block out idle chatter."

I was just talking to one social media savvy mom who explained that even using Twitter is confusing - some moms use Twitter just to converse while some use it to share links or publicize posts. Both are valid uses of Twitter but the social tweets may not like the publicity tweets (and visa versa). I use Facebook and Twitter for both reasons, especially now that I installed Tiny Twitter and Facebook Mobile to my BlackBerry Curve. I also happy when my friends share their thoughts or links with me.

But I do feel overwhelmed with trying to decide how to use the different social media platforms in a way that controls the noise. I try to only "friend" people I know or that have associations with me and stay away from adding applications that have the word "poke", lead to dizzy graphics appearing on my profile or are not useful to me even if my friends are using them. Any other ideas?

Related: ReadWriteWeb - Six Ways To Filter Your RSS Feeds

Facebook Connect and Yahoo! Open

For those, like me, that are pondering where their social graph should live should look into Facebook Connect and Yahoo Open. This post at the Groundswell blog says it all.....

Having a Technology Moment With My Son

I am sitting shoulder to shoulder with my older son as dinner cooks and my twins are playing across the street at a friends house. It is one of those quiet moments that I will always remember as special.....

Except that I am blogging and Twittering while my son is playing Lego Star Wars on his Nintendo DS Lite.

While this may seem odd to some, we are quite enjoying ourselves. He is showing me how his light saber works and I am showing him a YouTube video I am loading on my site.

Happy Friday night to all...