You’ve probably noticed that I haven’t had much time for blogging lately. Now that our co-op year is over (not our “school” year), I hope to have a little more time for scrapbooking and blogging.

Some of you might recall that I’ve been dabbling with some digital scrapbooking software and have found Smilebox to be VERY quick and easy and FUN! They are giving away 1000 free annual subscriptions for teachers. I inquired, and yes, homeschoolers are eligible for this free subscription. So, if you’ve wanted to try Smilebox now’s your chance! I’m using it to create a digital album of our most recent vacation and I’ll share all those pages/pics as soon as I’m done. BTW, I finished 10 (yep *TEN*) pages in about an hour the other night and anyone who knows we well will know that is some kind of record!

I found the following article on the www.smilebox.com blog and thought I would share it with you all. It appears bloggers will give up a LOT of things to be able to continue blogging, but don’t mess with their CHOCOLATE! (LOL). I hope you enjoy this little article. I guess I’m not a very serious blogger (LOL), but I’ll try to post a few things now that school is starting to slow down.

Women in the Blogosphere
April 14, 2008
posted by Susan Wright, a Smilebox co-founding team member, Smilebox director of strategic planning and Managing Director of marketing consulting firm Compass Partners

Hello Smileboxers! For those of you who are bloggers or interested in becoming one, I’ve just returned from a fantastic conference in New York sponsored by BlogHer: BlogHer Business ’08. BlogHer is a network of 1,500 blogs by women. In partnership with BlogHer, Compass Partners conducted a sweeping social media benchmark study of more than 6,000 women. We surveyed two groups; 1,250 female Internet users via a nationally representative panel and 5,000 visitors to BlogHer’s network. The results were intriguing. I was struck by how dedicated these women are to their blogs, with more than half of the women surveyed still maintaining the original blog they started. About ¾ of the women surveyed update their blog at least weekly or more often. A few stats:

36.2 million women actively participate in the blogsophere every week (15.1 publishing, 21.1 reading and posting comments). Blogging has become mainstream.
Women are so passionate about blogging that large percentages of women said they would give something up to keep the blogs they read and/or write:
– 55% would give up alcohol
– 49% would give up their PDAs
– 42% would give up their i-Pod
– 43% would give up reading the newspaper
BUT, some things are sacred … only 20% would give up chocolate!

And remember, Smilebox is an easy and creative way to personal photos and videos to a blog! An in-depth powerpoint presentation on the survey is available on the BlogHer site. Check it out and let me know what you think about women in the blogosphere! Are you this dedicated to your blog?