My Client and the Woman Connection--Vetting My Thoughts

As many of you know, one of my clients is BubbleShare -- a simple, effective way to share photos with voice captions. When I first used BubbleShare -- before I actually said, "Okay, cool--I'd love to help with your blogging efforts!" -- I immediately thought, what a great app for women.

Now, usually I don't think this way. I don't divide tools into 'man tools' and 'women tools' -- that would be, well, goofy. A tool is used to complete a job of some kind. Whoever is doing the job needs the tool, right?

So I did a sort of mental push-back with myself, asking why I immediately thought, "women bloggers will love this thing." I came to the conclusion that it's because the roles women fill are vast and mostly parallel, meaning time is at a premium. So, we need the FASTEST way to do anything and everything, including sharing photos. The gadgets and tools we touch every day have to match our speed and need for flexibility. With BubbleShare, you upload photos into an album and email them. It's that fast and uncomplicated.

Next synapse fired: Why would I think of women when I think of how FAST a tool lets me do something. Simply put, women today are busier than ever. Whether it's providing caregiving for an elderly parent, a baby or child, whether it's writing blogs or novels, working outside the home, whatever. Somedays just opening the mail is a major effort because it cuts into critical time. Do men do these same things? Sure they do. But I would wager that a lot more women have a lot less time because of the multi-functioning roles we've had to assume.

The other reason I thought of women is PRIVACY. You can keep your albums private if you wish, AND there is NO registration required to use the service. You just put in your email address so that you receive a link where you can manage your photos (and another email with a link to send to friends and family), and that's it. NO address or demographic or business information. NO how old are your kids. NO where do you live or what's your zip code. I love having the option of not needing to provide a bunch of information when using any online application or service. So far, you don't need to register to use the service.

Now the easy emailing is also cool (just send your friends and family the link provided). The the folks you send your story albums to won't need to register to view your photos either. Again, I started thinking, "this is great for women," and then re-questioned myself--why women specifically? I answered back that women are usually responsible for the household communication to family members far away, and what a great way to update those people you don't get to see that often.

You can not only put photos in your albums, but you can create sound captions. My first thought was of sending an album to my favorite aunt--the pictures of my daughter with her talking to her great aunt through the voice captions. Lets put it this way: I have four very smart, strong aunts. They all use email. And that's about all they want to use. That's why BubbleShare struck me as THE answer for sharing photos with my aunts.

All of this is to say, I'm not trying to push you into trying BubbleShare, although I do think the service has a lot to offer the women of blogdom--it even has an 'add album to blog' button that lets you click and copy a simple bit of code into a post--and voila, your album is posted to your blog. way cool.

What I'm really doing is vetting my assumptions about women enjoying the service not MORE than men, but enjoyng it enough to use it and enjoy using it.

As a bonus link for your patient reading through my stream-of-consciousness meanderings, I also wanted to tell you that we're having a contest with GREAT prizes for anyone who wants to participate between now and February 20th. We started the contest on Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day, and ask that participatnes take 10 photos or less on any theme that celebrates BUBBLES or bubble wrap. Add audio captions and email it to contest@bubbleshare.com.

Here's just some of what the winners receive:

• An iPod Nano
• A Blogrolling GOLD account
• Startup.com DVDs
• Hot-off-the-Presses Naked Conversation Books
• BubbleShare and Tucows wear and gear
• ElimiTaste chewing gum
• A BubbleShare VIP Account
• and more...
  

So, get your digital cameras and microphones out and bubble out for links and loot!!!!

In the mean time, thanks for listening. If you do use BubbleShare, please let me know what you think. I always pass specific feedback on to the company president and developers.

Look forward to receiving your contest entry!



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