"I think that women who have things to say that they didn't consider important have found a way to express those things, and are finding out they have a huge community of other people who think they are important," says Reison.
Jan Reison writes for the Web site aginghipsters.com and is one of the more than 1,000 women from around the country who are meeting their online colleagues in person at the Westin St. Francis Hotel this weekend. It's the third annual conference by a website for women writers called BlogHer 2008.
"Personally as a writer it's nice to meet other writers and other bloggers and from a professional standpoint you can't get these people around you in the quantities that they're around you and have access to them that you can at BlogHer," says female blogger Amber Scott.
Chantel Williams gets 300 to 400 hits on her website about herself, lifeandtimesofchantel.com. She likes the way the BlogHer website motivates woman. "I think BlogHer has achieved its goal of raising awareness for women and technology, but then it's gone even further, with creating a voice in the political arena, online, really driving subjects and topics that are important for women," says Williams.
Amber Scott writes for capessa.com which is aimed at mothers. Other mothers, like Amanda Magee, write about what they know. She's attending the conference with a ten-week-old baby and has two other children at home. "My blog, toddlywinks.blogspot.com, started as an online journal about my kids, but became much more of a dialog about being a working mom and now being a mom of three daughters and being married to a small business owner," says Magee.
Cloe Spencer, the creator of the website neopetsfanatic.com about virtual pets is just 17 and has been writing on the Internet for three years. She's even making money. Spencer says, "I have google ads on my Web site and that makes me an average of $1,000 a month. I keep it in a bank account and I'm saving it for college."
The BlogHer 2008 conference runs through Sunday. Information can be found at blogher.com. If you'd like to track the blogging this weekend, visit blogher.com.
Blogs mentioned in this story:
aginghipsters.com
lifeandtimesofchantel.com
capessa.com
toddlywinks.blogspot.com
neopetsfanatic.com
