It’s Not About the Mommies, It’s About the Criminals
May 26, 2009
There’s this little drama that keeps swirling around the blogosphere. It involves paid-blogging, product reviews, honesty, transparency, integrity, liability, blah-blah-blah…
You can go debate it elsewhere if you like. There’s a ton of bloggers sure they have the answer and it’s whatever position they happen to hold on the matter. Do a quick Google and you’ll find a lively argument and people ready to verbally eviscerate each other over what you should or shouldn’t do. Or skip it – it’s getting kind of old, honestly.
But lately, every time you read one of these, they bring up the fact that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is considering revising their guidelines (for the first time since 1980!) and that it’s looking at Bloggers and how Social Media is impacting marketing.
Unfortunately, this is usually being dragged out as some sort of threat to “Mommy Bloggers” and whomever dredges it up tries to use it to imply that moms who blog product reviews “better watch out!”
Okay, seriously people. Let’s get to the real, shall we?
1) Moms (and Mommy Bloggers) aren’t the only ones out there doing product reviews. It’s just that they’re the latest group to get focused on by mainstream media and by marketing bloggers. But Tech Bloggers have been doing reviews for years. Magazine writers have been doing product reviews for years. Did you think that every one of those beauty & fashion magazines that tout the latest boots or makeup haven’t been sent samples? If so, you are living in fantasyland.
Companies have long been sending product samples to those who review – be they old-school magazines, bloggers, or even the currently-hot-but-totally-misunderstood-and-mislabeled “Mommy Bloggers.”
2) The FTC? They’re trying to revise their guidelines so that they have the power to go after criminals. That’s right, I said criminals. Those perpetrating fraud on consumers. Those guys. The bad guys.
Don’t know who they are? Here… let me show you.
Now, given that I don’t want to drive traffic to scammers, I’m not linking these websites, I’m just doing screenshots. Each small image links only to a larger, more detailed capture of the sites.
Now, what’s the difference between these “blogs”? The names (Alexandra vs. Claudia) and the locations (Georgetown, TX vs. Aurora, CO) – but other than that? Not much. Same pictures, same text, same everything.
As I said, I’m not about to drive traffic to these scammers – but you can see from the URL’s in the image above that they aren’t presented as marketing sites – they come across as blogs. Mommy Blogs.
I suspect that like many of these scams, these particular sites will disappear soon enough – to be replaced by the exact same everything but on new URLs. So I deliberately linked the images above to a basic scroll capture. For whatever reason, SnagIt couldn’t get the “comments” that are at the bottom of each page — if you’re really curious? They are simply text that is the exact same on both sites with the exception of the names, and are designed to imply that people have tried these and they work.
So why would the FTC want to be able to go after these guys?
Because if I’m a woman desperately trying to lose weight, and I come across one of these sites, I’m probably only getting in so far before I give up. What $50? $100? Then I’m certainly not going to tell anyone I got scammed. But I’m also not going to take the time and money required to sue them. Besides, how do you sue a con artist successfully?
This is where the FTC comes in. If they have not only the ability but the mission to “get these guys”? Well it benefits us all. Because “these guys” are going to keep suckering people in by pretending to be “moms who just stumbled on this amazing secret!” and it doesn’t do any of the real Mommy Bloggers and Product Reviewers any favors.
I’ve never known a real Mommy Blogger who claimed that she lost 25 pounds in 2 weeks using a miracle cure. But these sites above? I’ve seen their ads on Facebook and on Google. In fact, that’s where I first saw them. I clicked through an ad because it said that someone “near me” had discovered this “free” miracle weight loss method. I was curious what the scam was.
But I knew it was a scam before I clicked… My heart goes out to the overweight woman who gives it a try only to find out that she’s signed up for “autodelivery” and auto-billing… or given her credit card information to some guy in Malaysia.
So enough with the scare articles about the FTC coming to get us all, okay? Honestly, they’re just trying to make the Internet less scummy… and Mommy Bloggers? Not scammers. Not scummy. Really.
Just Remember, Okay?
May 25, 2009
Today’s intended post on Memorial Day remains unwritten.
Every year around this time I find myself watching war movies that wrench your guts out and leave you crying – and they’re only movies. They’re just pale reflections of what they represent. At the end, the guy gets up, wipes off the blood and the horror and goes to eat in the cantina on the lot.
Or I stop and spend time remembering those who did give their life in the service of their country… and inevitably, I travel down the road of grief & contradictions and confusions that attend it.
I never manage to write anything I’m happy with. So I just seem to put something up like this… Last minute on the day of. Hoping people kind of missed it. Because it’s not about me at all.
It’s about trying to find a way to say thank you to all of the men & women who gave their lives in the service of their countries. Whatever else they were or weren’t – they were soldiers. May they rest in piece.
Nielsen Top 50 Power Moms in Digital Media
May 11, 2009
May has been a rough month for me blogwise. (Didja notice??)
A week long battle with the Flu in our house followed by 8 days on the road – oh yes, there are blogs coming from those 3 events as well!! – meant that the first time I could even think about blogging something coherently was this past weekend. Annnnd I didn’t.
But on Friday May 8th I got the most unexpected and welcome surprise. I woke up to find I was on the Nielsen Top 50 Power Moms in Digital Media list. (page 5 under Tech Moms – it’s an MS PowerPoint presentation – if you need a free viewer go here)
What does that mean? Well, according to the report:
Nielsen Online’s Power Mom 50 is a collection of leading voices in the mom blogosphere based on a blend of blog posts, comments and link love developed through ongoing monitoring of more than 10,000 mom and parenting blogs as tracked by Nielsen Buzzmetrics. In addition to site engagement, number of Twitter followers, ratings and other metrics were included in the calibration to provide a comprehensive sphere of authority and influence.
I was a little stunned, truth be told. Because I have been so absent from this space of late. But then looking at the stats clearly shows that… In fact, it was just the push I needed to get blogging again.
Then while I was perusing the list of other Moms, two things occurred to me:
- I know a lot of those women. Most of them, in fact. And I’m completely in agreement with Nielsen that they are amazing, influential, insightful Moms and social media voices. It’s just an amazing honor to be listed amongst them. Almost as much of an honor as it is to know them and to work with them in this space.
- This isn’t really about me – it’s about you. Without those connections I have through this blog, through Twitter, and through other Social Networking sites, I might as well be standing in an empty field shouting to myself. This is really not just about me… it’s about US. You and me together, and all of the people we interact with all over the Internet. I’m in awe of the power of technology to bring us all together and give us this voice.
So I want to take a minute right NOW (before writing another post or updating another status) to Thank You. Whether you’re a reader, a fellow blogger, one of the companies I work with or even just someone who Googled your way here? This would never have happened if it weren’t for you too.
You are amazing – and I aspire to live up to your faith in me. Thank you.
Ethical Hacking – Beating Bad Guys for Fun & Profit (giveaway)
May 11, 2009
Quick! What do you think of when I say WarGames? Sneakers? Hackers?
If you aren’t stuck with an image of a young, blonde Angelina Jolie in your mind’s eye right now, then you are probably scanning over this sentence to see where I’m going with this and wishing I’d get to the part about hacking faster and explain the title of this post already!!
Recently, the amazing folks at Izea contacted me about a Certified Ethical Hacker Course valued at $2,895 from the EC-Council. Of course, my thought was “cool… where do I sign up? Oh wait, my security skills are way out of date. I don’t even work in the field any more!!”
Fortunately for both you and me, they weren’t suggesting that I should leave the cushy world of motherhood, blogging and social media and try to get into the highly competitive (but still damn cool and well-paying) world of Network Security.
They were thinking that I might want to be able to offer the chance for one of my readers to WIN an entire Ethical Hacking iClass package which would normally cost you (or your company) $2,895. This includes the books, lab manual, and online class.
We’re talking about Security Fundamentals, Ethical Hacking, Penetration Testing, Computer Forensics, Disaster Recovery, and Secure Programming here folks.
Seriously – there’s so much actually in the course that I can’t even begin to list it all here. Just check the course site & you’ll see. This is hard-core. So if you’re in the field and want to bolster up your credentials with a globally recognized certification, or you’re wanting to finally get your foot in the IT Security door (and this would be much more convincing to an employer than those scripts & bots you’ve played with) or you are just burnnnning to get back to work and know how much something like this is really worth in today’s economy – read on.
There are two ways enter and you can do one, either, or both!!
Comment on this Post:
Leave a comment tell me 1) why you want to become a Certified Ethical Hacker – and 2) go here, scroll down to the part where it says “During this five-day course you’ll learn” and tell me which topic sounds the most intriguing to you (personally? I’m all about the Buffer Overflows – but don’t tell GeekDaddy!)
Tweet this on Twitter:
“RT @GeekMommy I just entered your contest to become a Certified Ethical Hacker! http://urlbrief.com/98d904 #CEH”
Each tweet or comment counts as one registration, up to two registrations per person. The winner will be chosen at random by IZEA based on all entries.
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