The first in a series of water images, enhanced with selective shading, to invite you to find your own picture in the picture.

Yesterday’s thought-provoking Twitter question of the day was this: Why, Karoli, are you moaning about being placed in the Style section of the NY Times when the ad running on the side of your blog is for JC Penney’s home store?

My response: No matter what subject I blog about, furniture is relevant. It’s pretty universal, that idea of having things to sit on or at, sleep on, work on, or put your stuff on.

His response: But if your ad was an Intel ad, you’d be featured in the tech section.

Mine: Which begs the question: Why aren’t tech companies rushing to do ad buys on women’s blogs?

It’s really a chicken/egg question, isn’t it? Do we blog to the ads or do the ads stem from the blog? Or do they have to be linked up at all? If you start from a premise that ads and bloggers are somehow inextricably entwined, the answer seems obvious, which is what rocks Google’s world. Context-sensitive advertising is what it’s all about. Blog about Intel; Intel advertises. Blog about politics; campaigns buy ads, because of course, the readers of those blogs would be most likely to click through those ads to discover the product, candidate or service.

I disagree. This is partly because I live in a world of intersecting circles, diverse interests and passions, as do most of you reading this blog. You may be a photography nut but that doesn’t mean you don’t buy shoes. You may write about health or ADHD or parenting or your kids, but that doesn’t mean you don’t give a damn about politics (especially this year!).

If I followed the model of context-sensitive advertising on this blog, Entertainment Tonight and alarm companies would be rushing to buy ads here, because the top searches for content on this blog relate to the posts I did on Britney Spears and Firstline Security. Those posts are less than 1% of what I care about. I’d guess that’s true for just about every one of you folks who visit this blog or spend any time there.

Another word for this idea of context-sensitive advertising might be this: stereotyping. Perhaps Intel isn’t doing ad buys on BlogHer blogs because they assume that readers of blogs written by women would not be interested in their latest enterprise technology, or fastest chip, or graphics accelerator, etc.

They’re dead wrong. I love new hardware like I love fast cars and great pens. It’s one of the joys of being a geek. But I don’t always blog about it; I just use it. And if I like it, yes, I write about it, just like I wrote about the Prius, the Chevy Tahoe Hybrid and the BlackBerry (which is truly God’s gift to mobile technology…hear me, RIM?). I love my Nikon cameras and blog with and about them often, but Nikon doesn’t advertise here either. If they did, would that mean the New York Times would place an article about women bloggers in the Travel Section?

The fallacy in the argument that ads define the blogger is this: Most women don’t write to the ad revenue. (That’s also true of many men who blog, though blogs with a ‘business model’ seem to be built for that context-sensitivity thing) It’s nice, but it’s not why we write. I run BlogHer ads on this blog because BlogHer is responsible about who they accept ads from, and they’re fair about sharing the revenue. But the day I start deciding what to write or how to write it based upon what ads might pop up on this site will be the day I tell you all good bye. I don’t make enough money from the ads on this site — my site, under my control — to let anyone define what I will and won’t write about and where my focus will or will not be.

The editorial decision to run an article about the BlogHer Conference in the Style section because the ads on our blogs are for furniture companies is a sign of dangerous and stereotypical thinking. While I appreciate the NY Times reporting on BlogHerCon at all, I also think they would have done well to focus less on the obvious — marketing opportunities to women — and more on the important — women empowered to raise their collective voices in support of issues, people, children, fathers, mothers, and society as a whole.

The point here is to be heard, not sold. The takeaway from BlogHer for me had very little to do with making money and everything to do with making noise and making connections. Isn’t there something newsworthy about over 1,000 women plus many more in virtual attendance via Second Life leveraging technology to make a difference?

I think there is. Do you?

You can see the rest of the best of the great nearly-lost photowalk of 7/26/08 over on my Flickr stream. Long story short: Lightroom didn’t import images, I formatted SD card and didn’t realize they were lost until hours later. A sleepless night, some help from friends, some criticisms from others, and fellow Flickrites’ shared experiences rescued them from being gone forever.

When you publish an article about women bloggers, including women political bloggers, and seem to be making the point that women are a force of nature in the blogosphere, as well as being responsible for spending 83 cents of every dollar spent, don’t you think it’s just a bit of an insult…

…to publish said article in the Life and Style section?

There is a certain bitter irony about seeing a New York Times report about the BlogHer conference entitled “Blogging’s Glass Ceiling” published in Life and Style.

Because, um, we’re not all about shoes and hairstyle, though there’s something a little scary about a political blogger with a pair of kickass shoes, for sure.

But as long as we’re on the subject of women and political blogging, let’s take a look at what the NYT had to say about the most excellent session at BlogherCon on women and political commentary (or as I like to call it, “Finding my Inner Pundit”). Or not. Because it wasn’t much, beyond acknowledging that such a session took place.

Instead, this was the punch line:

This year, women seemed to have moved on to other issues, such as gaining influence and making money. There were practical workshops on issues like building Web traffic and using open source software, sessions that dealt with emotional issues related to blogging, and specialized meet-ups (like one for baby boomer bloggers).

Now, this much is true. We were certainly courted by companies looking for a receptive audience. Not that there’s anything wrong with that — there isn’t. I would do the GM Tahoe carpool thing again in a heartbeat. But…

That wasn’t the heart of what BlogHer was about. Not at all. At its heart, it was about connections, community, building friendships and renewing old ones. It was about stretching our voices, coming out of our exiles as second-class bloggers in all areas of the blogosphere , from tech to politics, to speaking out directly as consumers about what we like and what we don’t like, and learning to be strong, credible, confident.

It was about being what has come much more easily to men in this space. About some equality. Not pushing men away, just stepping up to their level, joining our voices with theirs.

Perhaps a conference like BlogHer for men wouldn’t even be news, so they wouldn’t have to be exercised about being stuck in the Style section, but do you think that if it were, the Times would have put it in the Style section?

Women are much more than a pair of shoes and a credit card. Yes, we spend and should have a voice with those who want to sell their products. But we also think, we parent, we build and are community, we volunteer, we are professionals, we are laborers, we are voters….

We are entitled to be considered as a multi-faceted part of the larger whole that is the world we live in. Don’t boil BlogHer down to baby boomers and mommybloggers. There’s just much more than that.

And if they don’t believe ME, they should listen to Erin, who has assigned them her official #SUCKIT tag.

…consider the possibility that waves which look harmless are usually the ones that getcha. This little wave popped up on the rocks, knocked me back on my butt, forcing me to choose between the camera and my phone.

The camera won, at least in that split second. Got out of the way of the water, yanked my BlackBerry out of my pocket, pulled the battery and staggered up the beach to safer ground.

Fortunately it looked like the water just got in around the edges of the BlackBerry, so I was optimistic, but also in need of a phone. When your whole life is on your phone you can’t afford the 48 hours to dry it out, especially on a Monday.

I went home, changed clothes, decided which kid’s upgrade I was going to burn this time to replace it, and ran to the AT&T store. After a fair amount of angst about the fact that all my data was on the old phone, so having a new one was about half the joy, but less filling, I realized that I had not backed up the phone data to my PC.

Oh, stupid one. Yes, there was no. backup. 500 contacts in a phone that took a swim in the Pacific Ocean.

After 24 hours of grouchy Twitter grousing, a friend gave me some advice that worked…and so after the phone dried out, I managed to get my contacts transferred from the old phone to the new one.

I also want to kiss every employee of RIM responsible for the durability of their phone, because the old phone, now completely dried out with a new battery installed, works just like nothing happened.

Only problem…I can’t convince the kid whose upgrade I burned to take it. She wants the Tilt. I say, start saving. In the meantime, I’ve got two perfectly good, identical phones and no upgrades for 14 months. Think she’ll change her mind?