I think the problems people had with sponsor related things at the conference can be broken into three groups. The conference sponsors themselves, the sponsored bloggers attending the conference, and the amount of schwag received at the conference.

1. The Schwag

People complaining about there being *too much schwag* simply haven’t attended enough conferences to see that this is what happens.

I remember needing an extra suitcase each year to bring home all the stuff I got at E3, and loving it. Don’t want it? Don’t take it or give it back. People do have the ability to say no, don’t they?

There was a schwag recycle area, and when I showed up with my stuff, there was someone standing right there who took almost everything I was giving back off of my hands. She also gave me a cute little travel candle that I rather like.

I would also be a total hypocrite if I complained about the makeup/fashion sponsors, because, well, I love what I got. I adore Lush, the new lip balm thingy is pretty neat, Mary Kay has great lipstick, and let’s face it, Ann Taylor has now given all of us the most stylist USB drive we will ever see. We ARE women, and it makes sense to me that there would be brands targeting women here.

2. The Sponsors

All conferences need sponsors to survive.

Let’s face it, sponsors are absolutely necessary. Maybe the conference needs very clear tracks to it, like others tend to do. The mommy blogging track sponsored by Wal-Mart. The Geek track sponsored by someone else (there weren’t very many geek sponsors). And an independent track nobody sponsors so there is no feeling of favoritism.

3. The Sponsored Bloggers

Biases and priorities need to be made clear.

A number of bloggers at the conference were sponsored, given scholarships, or paid (I’ve heard all three terms used to describe the same thing) to go to the conference on behalf of some brand. While there, they would then promote the brand or hand out product wherever they were, be that on a panel or at a party.

It is a given that the name of the company you work for belongs on your conference badge if you are there for the company. It should be no different with sponsors – if you’ve been sent there by random brand name, your badge should say “Sponsored by Random Brand.” That makes it very blatant, and may even prevent some people from accepting these sponsorships in the future.

Thank you to the sponsors.

Without the sponsors, the conference fees could easily have been in the thousands, as most conferences are. Many women would not have been able to go, and, well, I’m not going to need to buy laundry detergent for a while (and as a girl who doesn’t have a job, I appreciate that).

BlogHer is a conference that is growing in size and maturity, and as it grows, it will need to follow more of the standards that other conferences do. But please – sponsors – hear the message of “thank you” louder than any other. We appreciate all that you’ve done, and look forward to seeing you again next year.

I gotta admit – I agree with folks on this – there is a problem here.

Twitter is like any other social network – it’s no fun unless you have friends to follow. It does make sense to create a list of people for new users to add and it avoids having to create a “Tom” (MySpace) type person who will give you something to do when you first join.

My problem is around the way the list has been implemented. I have multiple problems with it:

• The only people being listed are those who already have thousands and thousands of followers. I was personally already following anyone on that list I cared about.
• The list is fairly static
• There is no clear way to get yourself on the list, beyond knowing someone at twitter.
• The list isn’t “fair.” One newspaper has already complained because another newspaper has had multiple feeds listed, they have done, and can’t figure out how to fix it.
• There doesn’t seem to be any actual logic to what’s in the list. You’d expect the list to cover a wide range of interests, but it’s all sorts of weird.

The list is truly akin to an advertisement, which, let me make clear, I have absolutely no problem with. When I was at MySpace, we created (and this still exists) an Editor’s Pick spot for applications that would receive the same sort of promotion as paid ads, but would be clearly designated as an editorial choice. Ads would be marked as ads, and anyone who wanted to be featured could ask to be listed (btw, if interested, head over to http://developer.myspace.com) more information about this program is here:  In fact, everywhere I’ve worked in the last, oh, 10+ years, has a rule that ads must state they’re ads.

The Suggested User “ads,” while not being a result of money being paid (as far as we know), are clearly there because of….something. Is it knowing the right person at Twitter, is it having a certain number of followers, is it ‘quality’ of what the person says, is it some sort of evaluation of the person themselves, what? “Payments” do not always involve cash.

Suggesting users is a great idea. The problem is in the execution, and, really, all issues that are fairly easily fixed. It is to Twitter’s benefit in the long run to make sure their users are not all following the same 20 people, and to possibly create a revenue model that doesn’t exist right now.

If the list is editorial, it should be rotated, and be pulling from a larger segment of users than just the ones who are already popular. Twitter should also tell people what the requirements are to end up on that list. If the list is going to be the result of paid sponsorships, that’s fine as well, it should just be marked as such.

Until the issues with that list are fixed, if you want to find new people to follow, I recommend checking out the #followfriday hashtag over at twitter search. You’ll be exposed to a much larger and more diverse segment of the Twitterverse than you will on the Suggested Users page.

The other day at work, I was listening to A Chorus Line on my iPod. I was getting punchy, and set my status on MySpace to “Stephanie thinks everything is beautiful at the ballet.” It’s a line from a song in the musical, but not exactly one of the most popular, or most well-known lines to people not obsessed with the show. So, imagine my surprise when I got an ad on my homepage for the musical in LA:

Sometimes I think ad targeting is creepy – I wonder how on earth it knew whatever about me.

But sometimes? It just makes me giggle.