Not like this is new news, but every day I'm reminded more and more that traditional television (and with it, traditional advertising) is dying.

For me, it started around 2002 with Netflix, which killed any need I had for cable TV. Why pay for HBO or Showtime when I could rent The Sopranos, Six Feet Under and Sex and the City and gorge myself for hours in one sitting? The years since then have produced an avalanche of other factors.

On the day that Apple releases both the 3G and the 2.0 software, it seems appropriate to extol the virtues of one of my favorite new tools of the past year: the iPhone. As a relatively early adopter (when I can afford to be), I've had the phone since September 2007. And man, this thing keeps getting better and better.

Ooh! Ooh! Our very first reader question!
Whitney wrote:

"I'm a young female who just recently got into the world of social/interactive marketing. I must say I think I've found that one thing I could do for the rest of my life. I was wondering though, without there being a specific degree in this would it be better to go the journalism route, or the IT route? I have an AAS degree in music business already, but I'd like to get your point of view on this. I was also browsing your "Sites We Dig" section and noticed the Clockwork link goes to the Future Tense site, not sure if that was intentional or a misdirected link."

Um, first of all, I totally fixed that link. Then I fired myself for being so stupid that I screwed up the link to the company I work for. Don't tell my boss!

One of the best things about technology is when you can use it to actually make life easier. As a woman who works full-time and has a two-year-old (and another on the way!), I appreciate finding things that streamline all the thankless crap I have to get done. (And some days, some of it really feels like thankless crap, doesn't it?)

So, as a sort of counterpoint to my Technology Purge post, I'm going to focus on one tool a week that makes my life easier and how I implemented it. And if I run out of things I actually use, I guess I'll just focus on something cool once a week. So, welcome to a little thing I'm calling "Geek Chic of the Week."

This week's focus: Online Calendars

I should say right away that this post is in danger of turning into a rant.  That is not my intention.  I am not here to whine.  I am here, though, to put out into the universe a concept that needs to be discussed.  So, here goes. 

The web is not cheap. 

There.  I said it.

Part of what I hope comes out of this Geek Girls project is getting more women and girls interested in technology, whatever that might look like. For some, maybe it's as simple as learning what RSS is. For others, maybe it means being encouraged to go get a degree in Computer Science. The point is, I hope that it lessens the intimidation factor for a group of people that can sometimes fall victim to a "Math is hard, let's go shopping" mentality. Keep in mind, this is coming from a girl who, in 4th grade, told her mother she hated math and wished it would die. So, despite the fact that I have ended up being a person who embraces technology at work and at home, I sure wish I would have gotten into it earlier and a lot more deeply.

No offense to my print designer friends (and really, some of my best friends are print designers, I swear!), I've lately been thinking about how much I love Interactive designers. And production folks. And developers. Maybe it's because many people seem to think that a designer is a designer is a designer and the result of this way of thinking is working with clients who, for whatever reason, want the person who designs their offline materials to also create their web site. "You guys can work with so-and-so, right? He'll do the design and you guys can produce it."

Sure. Sure, we can...

Today I spammed everyone on my AIM contact list with an invitation to join Facebook.  I was searching for co-workers on the social network, trying to understand the more useful apps and plugins available to the average user, when I inadvertently clicked yes and authorized Facebook to contact everyone on my buddy list.  I was distracted.  I was multitasking.  I was not as careful as I should have been.  And, with one click, I was totally humiliated.  My heart stopped for what seemed like an entire minute while I prayed for a confirmation screen that never came.  I had misread a question, given my permission, and there was no going back.  I just sat there and wondered how I'd explain to my colleagues, friends, peers, and, of course, the random total strangers I'd added to my list along the way, that I was a complete idiot who'd let Facebook hijack my buddy list to solicit memberships.  I was one more unsuspecting pawn in the Facebook battle for world domination.

As consumers of digital media, do we have a responsibility to understand the technology, even a little bit?  I guess I'm not really talking about myself here.  But I am talking about those average consumers.  People like my mom or my in-laws.  People who still don't understand what a web browser is, or that AOL is not the internet.  My intention is not to put them down, or diminish their importance as we continue to evolve user experiences.  Instead, I'd like to encourage them to, quite simply, figure it out.  I want my mother-in-law to stop calling me whenever she can't get on the internet because she forgot to plug the phone cord into her dial up modem.  Not because I'm not happy to help, but because the more you get about how it all works, the more you can take advantage of the advantages and efficiencies technology, or more specifically, the internet, can add to your life. We should be afraid of crossing the street against the light, or riding a motorcycle without a helmet, or eating puffer fish.  But we should not be afraid of technology.  If we use common sense, and we're careful about the information we share, we can dive right in without fear.  You cannot break a website.  Those are words to live by.  As a user, you cannot break a site.  Fearless exploration is encouraged.

It's hard to talk to women about technology without also getting into a discussion about being a working woman. It's certainly not necessary to both work and embrace technology (I was shocked—in a good way—at the number of active online communities of moms that I discovered on maternity leave), but considering that women now make up over 50% of the workforce (at, sadly, somewhere around 50% of the cost of our male counterparts) it's a relevant topic.

I'm lucky to work for a family-friendly employer. So family-friendly, in fact, that Working Mother magazine named us one of the Top 25 Women-Owned Businesses in the nation. Holler!

Around the time of that award, they asked the women in our office to submit an application to be a Working Mother cover mom. I didn't win, but it did get me to think about why I work instead of staying at home.