think-progress:

The real reason Yahoo bought Tumblr: It’s about young women.

More detail from Think Progress’ very smart analysis:

[W]hen Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer talks, as she did this morning on the call that announced the deal, about the fact that “Tumblr views itself as a home for brands,” like movies, or suggests that Tumblr and Yahoo could work together the way Google and Blogger did, with Yahoo serving ads on Tumblrs whose users would like to have ad placement, she’s talking about getting ads in front of young users, and monetizing content by young people. And whether it’s true or not, the perception will be that Mayer specifically means getting ads in front of monetizing content created by female and non-straight young people.

Whether that means that the oft-mocked confessionals and .GIFs of Tumblr will come to be seen as respectable because they’re something Yahoo is going to try to make money off of is a different question entirely. Yahoo’s perception that young people will help it shore up its aging brand, and that they’ll be valuable to advertisers isn’t actually much different that the insight that young women be shopping. Sometimes, the very fact that young people, particularly young women, have money to spend is the thing that makes them seem ridiculous to the very people who would like to extract that money from them. Trendhopping that necessitates regular consumption and deep engagement on things that other people have deemed frivolous are traits that make consumers or users valuable to advertisers. But the assignment of financial value to those behaviors has never meant that we pass along any more deference to young people’s tastes as part of a larger bargain.

That sentence I put in bold is basically the exact point of the panel that Rae led at SXSW (where, by the way, we were the only all-female panel during the tech conference, and where Tumblr was very well-repped by Danielle Strle).

Start taking it seriously.

noirbettie:

mightyhunter:

This 17-Year-Old Coder Is Saving Twitter From TV Spoilers

Imagine you forget to watch a new episode of Game of Thrones the night it airs. Even if coworkers stay mum about important plot points, Twitter is abuzz with spoilers. Fortunately, there’s Twivo, a new program that allows Twitter users to censor their feeds from mentioning a certain TV show (and its characters) for a set time period. Jennie Lamere, a 17-year-old girl, invented the software last month—and won the grand prize at a national coding competition where Lamere was the only female who presented a project, and the only developer to work alone. Internet: Meet the reason we need more women in tech.

(From Mother Jones)

I’m so excited by all of the teenagers in science and tech that we’re hearing about these days. MORE GIRLS PLEASE! 

At SXSW, we talked about how we can’t wait to see the apps fangirls create to make the internet further work the way THEY want. What we may have not said so clearly is that it’s really the way that EVERYONE wants the internet to work. Go girl.

Me + Rae @ VH1’s 2nd Annual Music + Pop Culture Event @ W Austin.

This week I’m interpreting “lean in” as “go out,” and Rae kept me honest and made it easy by planning our social networking agenda (in the old school sense of the world).

My homebody tendencies are lovely and lazy and comfortable but probably ultimately less helpful, especially right now, to my short- and longer-term career planning. 

So I’m going out. One more night (minus Rae) and then I fully intend to return to LA and collapse on the couch with my wife and dog for a weekend of cuddle-based detox.

blurintofocus:

This is what panel prep looks like. Of course Jared Leto is our competition so we has to chat and take greenroom pictures.

Today I was on a panel at SXSW organized by Rae called “Girls and Tech: Why Young Women Rule in Music” and it sort of blew my mind so much that - as Tumblr says, I can’t even. Full recap and thinky thoughts tomorrow, but I’m already six hours behind in reblogging this RIDICULOUS AMAZING photo so I wanted to get at least that much up now. 

I’ve heard Jared Leto talk about music and fans before - at a social GRAMMYs panel that Megan (blue dress above) helped organize - so somehow it seemed to make perfect sense that we would ALL go talk to him about how it was ridiculous that we had panels down the hall from each other at the same time (and invite him to come crash ours). He immediately got that the girls and women we were going to talk about were the same fans who he’s been using social media to connect with for years.

Also - this is what you get when a teenage dream-slash-rock star tells five ladies dressed up in honor of their inner fangirls to take a photo where everybody reenacts the most amazing/exciting thing that’s ever happened to them.  

Thanks to everybody who came hear us talk. This was a truly inspiring day for me and I’m just proud to have been a part of it.

last minute research for my #sxsw panel cc @lndsygblr