Kelby Carr

If you haven’t already discovered Alltop, you should check it out. When I first heard about Alltop, and all the buzz, I honestly figured it was just because web guru mastermind super rockstar uber-tweeter and general Geek Overlord Guy Kawasaki was involved. My first visit to the site, I thought it was just a page full of feeds. Uhh, yawn.

But here’s the creepy-weird thing that started happening. My Type-A Mom site was added to the Alltop Moms page, so I would pop in from time to time to see what’s happening. My About France Travel and Suite101 Family Adventures feeds were added onto the Alltop Travel page.

This was all evidence of just how accessible Guy is. I simply harassed him on Twitter or emailed him (after his open invitation for people to contact him to suggest sites).

Next thing I knew, I wasn’t even looking to see if my feed was there. I was hitting Alltop each morning to see what was happening in my pet topics like Moms, Dads, Travel, Social Media, SEO, etc. I started neglecting my hand-picked Bloglines feeds.

Then I realized what had happened. Alltop had become my 2.0 version of the daily newspaper (and I’ll get into why I ditched reading a daily print newspaper every morning in a future post).

I’m also not at all surprised that (I believe) Alltop just got its first Google PageRank, and it’s a 6.

In its simplicity — create pages that feature all the top feeds in particular categories — it has become indispensable. Genius. I can glance at the Moms page and, in a matter of a minute, have a broad feel for what’s happening with mommy bloggers.

Have you used Alltop? What are you thoughts? Do you find it useful, useless or just totally addictive?

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Wow, I can’t believe the venom unleashed against mommy bloggers in this Toronto Globe and Mail article that questions whether mommy bloggers exploit their children. They really take it to Her Bad Mother, who is featured and interviewed in the piece (and, incidentally, a must-read mommy blogger!). The comments in reaction to the article are pretty shocking, going so far as to equate mommy blogging to neglect, comparing mommy bloggers to zombies who sit in front of a screen all day, and saying children of mommy bloggers will need years of therapy. She writes about it in a beautifully titled post, “ Crazy Narcissistic Exploitative Zombie-Pimp Mom-Bloggers Unite and Take Over.”

Some examples that I swear I am not making up:

Homer - from Canada writes: these bloggers are nut cases.. why would u want to put your personal stuff for millions to read and watch.. and then you worry about all those sicos out there… how crazy can you be..

and…

Eric the Red from Uzbekistan writes: “Writing about your daughter’s toilet-training misadventures could net you $40,000 a month and a legion of fans.”

If you’re a parent and have enough time blogging and wanting to capture and chronicle every stage of your child’s development for the world to see, your priorities as a caregiver and parent are entirely skewed. Get a life.

And if you do blog about your kid’s life for monetary gain, you are truly a cretin.

and…

Gogh Forit from Canada writes: Isn’t this just another form of pimping?

and…

My eyes are open, Are yours? from Canada writes: It was bad enough that my dad carried a picture of 3-year-old me in the bath in his wallet until I was 25.

Whatever money these people make from their kids, they should expect to spend it all on lawyers and psychotherapy for their kids later on. What kind of person tells others about this stuff? What kind of person reads it?

Boy are people bigoted against the mommy blogger. Why can’t a mom write about the amazing, wonderful, frightening, insane, beautiful, ugly experience of being a mom? Sure, moms should be careful about exposing too much information on the off chance some freak is watching. That really isn’t any different than anything else someone does online that presents personal information. People should use some sense about it.

It also ticks me off that moms get criticized for making a buck for their writing. Are you kidding me? How many MEN running corporations make millions of dollars on the backs of regular people? And maybe moms wouldn’t have to blog if a company or two would hire moms to telecommute (this is, ahem, the year 2008… you’ve heard of things like computers and email, right?).

Oh, and here’s a question for you. How is a mom who works a day job better or worse a parent than a mom who spends time blogging (probably almost exclusively during naps and nighttime, losing sleep many of you take for granted)? Both are doing what they can to earn a living and be a mom.

Really, bless Blogger and Wordpress and Google Adsense and BlogHer and every other simple platform that has made it possible for moms to work from home and earn a buck! I only wish there were more options out there. But I am certainly glad there are moms out there making $40K a month blogging about being a mom. That is supreme.

And everyone else had better watch out. Mommy bloggers are taking over the world! Don’t mess with us.

Does this get you incensed, too? Don’t comment here (or at least don’t just do that). Write about this on your mommy blog and hop over and post a pro-mommy blogger comment. I’ve tried a few times, but it keeps telling me to confirm my email. Whatev…

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