Category Archives: blogs

blogs

Nichelle Newsletter and Random Thoughts

I am so OVER summer. It’s too hot. It’s record breaking hot. My natural hair will not look decent until after Labor Day.

I appreciate laughter.  I love comedy.  If I can make someone laugh,  I have achieved something.

Gawker.com is dead. I thought I would feel some kind of schadenfreude about the end of that website, but I don’t. It’s the end of a blog era. Now I hope someone writes a really good tell-all book and it becomes a Ryan Murphy tv show called, American Blog. Sean Bean can play Nick Denton.

I am back to creating my Nichelle Newsletter, and I promise weekly updates. Subscribe on Tinyletter.  So far, I am done two weeks in a row.

I created a Tumblr for my Savannah photos. My goal is for my Savannah content makes the first page of a Google search for Savannah.

I also did a podcast this week. Check it out on Soundcloud.

 

blogs

Conferences And BlogWorld Next Week

TechMunch at BlogWorld Expo
Recently, I changed my twitter bio to say: “Cupcake Enthusiast, Editor, Connector. Tweets about food,conferences and Mad Men.” I added conferences because I go to lots of them. In the past week, I have spoken at Pod Camp Philly and attended Finovate. Next week, I will be speaking at Blog World Expo as part of TechMunch.

This year, I have been to about 10 conferences. At PodCamp Philly, one of the speakers said something that resonated with me. People go to conferences mainly for two reasons: networking and education. I would also add to deal-making and branding yourself as an expert. I like speaking at conferences, and hope to get paid to speak one of these day.

blogs

Links From BlogHer

Post BlogHer, I am cleaning out my purse of all the business cards I collected and want to share links of some great women. Check these out.

Owning Pink, a wonderful site for women.

Make and Takes, a craft/food/fun blog with projects for kids.

168hours, blog and book by Laura Vanderkam.

Momotics, where motherhood meets the politics of parenthood. Danielle loves cupcakes.

WLB Consultants, a blog about work life balance by Chrysula Winegar.

Mighty Girl,  lots of mighty stuff from Maggie Mason.

Carley Knobloch, life and career coach, productivity expert.

Mocha Momma, the funniest card I got at BlogHer.  It says “Mocha Momma will cut a bitch”.

Angela Haynes, mixed media artist

I’m remembering, a pop culture nostalgia blog. Hillary Buckholtz is someone I have know online via emails and Facebook for years and we finally met at BlogHer.  Yay!

blogs

BlogHer 2010

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nichecupcake
Cheryl Contee of Jack and Jill Politics took the picture of me.

BlogHer has evolved tremendously since I attended the first conference back in August of 2005 in San Jose. There were only 300 attendees then, but it was a remarkable feat because blogging was still “new”. Blogging was not considered mainstream, and also not considered “women’s work”. Blogging then was equal parts confessional, conversational and confrontational. Most of the influential bloggers were men back then but Lisa, Elisa and Jory knew differently. They created a community where women can blog and now there is more content that is more informational and inspirational as well as being confessional, conversational and confrontational. The totality of voices is what Blogher has facilitated and that is great.

I didn’t attend any of BlogHer parties this year, mainly to stave off even more information overload. Part of me still feels like I am still recovering from SXSW back in March. Attending conferences is actually hard work mentally with so much information absorbed in a short amount of time. It is hard to remember anyone’s names or what they blog about, what twitter handle to start following or what URL to bookmark.

Instead, I enjoyed learning about how to run for office and how to increase traffic to my blogs. I ran into friends I met at SXSW, Foodbuzz, Blogging While Brown, Techmunch as well as fellow New York City bloggers. It was great to see them all.

blogs

Blogging While Brown NYC Meetup

bwbmeetup ladies

Last night, I hosted the inaugural Blogging While Brown NYC Meetup at Houndstooth Pub in Midtown. It was so much fun meeting new people. There are a lot new bloggers on the scene who are doing cool stuff.

Here’s a list of the attendees’ twitter handles:
@gcam @cavaughn @makeupkimporter @kittybradshaw @TempleofGlam @brettandthecity @mypolaropposite @funkybrownchick @artdeal @laidbackchick @shy2del @thefabchick @misssmith11 @streetforce1 @hergoodybag @osochic @jonesmag

See more pictures from meetup.

blogs

How To Make Money From Blogging…NOT

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AOL badge
When I heard about Media Bistro/AOL Seed’s event called “How To Make Money Blogging”, I signed up thinking I would get some good tips about how to make money. Note: I hate the word “monetize”. Many of the attendees were either newbie bloggers or people thinking about starting a blog. It was a stark contrast to the experienced bloggers who attended to the #bkblogs event on Wednesday. The panelists, Lockhart Steele (Curbed), Dorothy McGivney (Jauntsetter) and Stephen Lenz (Urlesque) were definitely knowledgeable. They all agreed that you have to blog about something you are passionate about. However, the event was more for beginning bloggers so it was the not the best fit for me. The oddest moment was after the panel when a woman peppered me with questions about why she should have a Facebook page and what kind of Facebook page she should have. I didn’t even know if she blogged or not. Don’t get me started on her question about the difference between Twitter Feed and Facebook Feed. [KILL ME NOW.]

On the upside,  I so loved the cool badges we got; and the reception was nice. Plus, I got to hang out with Erica and chat about blogging.

Anyway, I did learned something tonight. From Popeater to Lemondrop, AOL owns a whole lot of blogs and websites. I really want to know how AOL makes money blogging. That would be worth my time.