The site is pretty new and is currently in Beta testing mode, but I thought I'd give an initial review of things thus far. I'll start with the following caveat: I'm not an especially girly female. I love Digg and reddit and don't get offended by the "omg hot girls" content that frequents more male-dominated social media sites. However, having said that, though I'm not fawning over the latest fashion trends or counting down the days until the next Matthew McConaughey shirtless pec-baring chick flick rom com, I am still female, and thus I was intrigued by Boudica and wanted to take a peek under the hood and see what sort of content it has, the community it's building, etc. I don't intend this to be a scathing review of a site that's "too girly" for my tomboy tastes. I'll aim to be fair yet straightforward, and keep in mind that the following are nothing more than my personal opinion.
What I Like About Boudica
- The community doesn't seem stereotypically "girly." Thankfully, unlike this satirical glimpse of what the Internet would look like if it were "ruled by females," Boudica features stories about women on the web, lists of "super foods," crazy fad diets, travel tips, gadgets, geek stuff, and more. In other words, you'll find a lot of stories that frequent Digg and other social news sites. Sure, there are submissions about Sex and the City, body figures, and Desperate Housewives dinnerware, but there's also content that I find appealing.
- I can discover articles and stories that may slip through the cracks on other social news sites. There was a submission that linked to a study claiming that gay men have similar brains to straight women. It's an interesting article, and I hadn't seen it on other social news sites. While I saw some submissions that were already prevalent on Digg, del.icio.us, etc, I did find some interesting submissions that I'd not seen before.
- The site transcends beyond social news and focuses on the community. Though I haven't delved too deeply into Boudica, there's plenty for me to do here. I can send private messages to other members, post a blog entry, submit stories to the social news section, scrawl a quick message on the "Scrawl Wall," and interact with members beyond simply adding them to my friends list. The various features are a nice change of pace from other social news sites--Boudica encourages participation and discussion, and it seems to reward/appreciate users who put a lot of time and effort into using the site.
- I like the marketing potential. Women-oriented sites can craft link bait and interesting articles/blog posts that appeal to women rather than trying to figure out a way to put a "techy/young male" spin on a story in hopes of getting a piece on Digg or reddit or Propeller. If Boudica gains in popularity, it can be a great marketing resource for sites that produce content/offer products that are more female-centric.
- Purple and pink aren't really my cup of tea. Does "female" always have to equate to "pink and purple"? I like bright greens and oranges and other "web 2.0" colors--I'd love to see Boudica have a hip, cool design that's fresh and clean but doesn't feel blatantly "feminine." Also, from a usability perspective, the pink links are a bit light and can be difficult to read.
- I don't understand the top-level navigation. At this point I can't tell the difference between the News, Arts, House, Time-Off, and Talk categories. They all seem to list submissions. "News" and "Arts" could be different subject categories, but what's "House"? Are they stories that deal with home matters? That are appealing to housewives? Is it a category entirely devoted to Hugh Laurie? Is it mighty migh-tay, just lettin' it all hang out? The same goes for "Time-Off" and "Talk"--I don't understand what they signify. I think a brief but clear explanation for each category would be useful (and perhaps it's necessary to re-name the categories with something more intuitive).
- The site lists users by "karma" but doesn't explain what "karma" is. I can imagine that Karma is like your popularity or signifies the strength of your account, but it's never explicitly defined on the site. Why is karma good? How do you get more karma? Can you lose karma? What's the benefit of increasing your karma points? Do you get a nifty badge or title that you can display? This is another feature that I'd like to see fleshed out a bit more.
- The site layout is a bit too cluttered for my taste. One one page I can see submitted stories, my account information, a list of recent blog posts, a list of people on my friends list, a list of the best karma users, my friends' recent blog posts, an invitation to invite a friend to use Boudica, a tag cloud, the best published "scoops," the best upcoming "scoops," and the Scrawl Wall. It's a bit of an information overload. I don't really need to see my list of friends--that could be something I can click on and see within my profile. Recent blog posts/friends' blog posts could maybe go under a "Blog" section that gets added to the top-level navigation. I think the Scrawl Wall is cute, but it could move further down the page so that more important information (like upcoming and published scoops) can get moved further up. It seems like a lot of the information featured on the page can be better placed elsewhere on the site.
That being said, overall I have to say that Boudica is a pretty interesting site. I'm really curious to see how popular it will become, not just among female SEOs and marketers, but what its adoption rate will be for other women (such as people like my sister, a teacher with two kids who casually uses the Internet but isn't uber-net savvy, yet sends me interesting stories and photos she comes across every now and then). I hope the site gains in popularity--if anything, it'd be a fascinating ethnographic study to see what sort of women frequent the site and what information they think is interesting. And, of course, as I said, the marketing potential is huge (hey, you can take the girliness out of the marketer...). Obviously I'll keep hanging around Digg, reddit, Propeller, Mixx, Yahoo! Buzz, del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, and other social news and social media sites, but alhough I'll certainly keep playing with the boys in their treehouse, I'm happy to sit down for a tea party with the girls every now and then, too. :)
Everyone but Twitter, eh?! You must...give in...to Twitter. Think of the children! (I have no idea what that means).
Anyway, good review and pretty much my thoughts exactly. I've always felt comfortable on Digg and I wasn't really looking for a women-only site, but it's nicely done and I hope it finds its niche.
Because frankly, women like your sister (and my own sisters) would feel much more comfortable at a site like Boudica than at Digg. Some of my friends still think of the interweb as a scary place, and a women-only, purpley site would appeal to them.
Thanks for the review Rebecca -- it's great to get your comments.
Will certainly be looking at your recommendations over the next couple of weeks before we take the site out of beta.
Maybe add a few unicorns :)
Don't forget rainbows too! :)
"Maybe add a few unicorns"
LOL! See, now I'm going to be disappointed if I go by there in a few weeks, and an animated Rovion unicorn doesn't greet me!
And he totally needs to be named Charlie.
Gender specific marketing, particular in SEO is very tough. this jobs site has done a pretty good job of balancing out the "pink" with the actually very useful..
Yeah, that must be really annoying. Maybe karma "also gives you access to exclusive emoticons"
;)
Plurk is only about karma. It's hard to ignore it when it says "KARMA" on your profile and has a fatty arrow indicating whether yours has increased or dropped. Boudica's "karma" is a lot more ancillary, so it's a bit unclear as to what karma does for you, the site, etc.
I dont actually agree with having woman only sites, or women only anything for that matter. I thought todays society was about breaking boundaries. wasnt a lot of womens liberation about men having men only things, gentlemen only clubs and memberships etc that excluded women from being involved?..
Hey im a blokes bloke and not feeling jealous cos of my feminine side or anything but something just doesnt sit right for me.
:-)
Paz,
See 'feedthebot's comment previous to yours. Women only isn't an accurate way of looking at this . . . it really should be thought of as 'targeted towards women.' Every site has some sort of target market, and for this one, the target is women.
No one is keeping you from joining because you're a dude. In fact, I'm going to go get aprofile right now, just to test this out.
As I expected . . . not even the question: "Are you a female?" . . . they don't care if you're male or female, the content is just going to be targeted towards things that women are more likely to be interested in.
Which is a thoroughly sexist attitude, no?
My attitude?
No, the phrase 'women are more likely to be interested in'.
Persona analysis is one thing, sexual prejudice is another.
Anyway, clearly sexual equality is something which takes time to achieve and we did have a huge head start on you, so I will retire from this discussion at this juncture and go back to my knitting.
this was an accidental duplicate.
I thought todays society was about breaking boundaries.
Yes, but if you read MG's post about reddit, you'll know that alot of women feel uncomfortable on such male-dominated sites. And with a largely male audience, would a story about high-heel crocs or a positive story about Sex & the City ever get promoted? Not likely. So until that changes, there is definately a market for sites that do have content like that. And it's not that it is women-only, but it is directed at a generally more feminine audience, and I don't think there should be anything wrong with that.
Hi Rebecca,
I guess I should tell you that I really don't think "Evil and Lostfulness spawned you" (as I said in the Lisa bday thing)
My comment on this post however is this...
The shame about destinations on the web made for women is the way they are often populated with men who are pretending to be women.
Estrogen identification technology is lacking.
for equal treatment lest I be smacked with a sexist stick...
The shame about destinations on the web made for men is the way they are often populated with women who are pretending to be men.
You don't like purple and pink? I bet it depends.
I bet if I handed you a purple or pink drink you would gulp it down.
I would.
I would pay someone to give me a purple or pink drink, really, I have b4.
Choke on it is more like it. ;)
I'm with Rebecca on most of this.
Just because I'm a chick doesn't mean that I want my web full of fluffy pink sunshine with rainbows and kittens. That being said, the graphic design element of this site bothers me just a bit. Just too pink for me.
However, I also admit to probably being outside of their target demographic based on a great deal of the content so it may not get a Bookmark. And that's okay...I'm all for competition so I wish them the best of luck.
In terms of their high level nav, there is a description in one of the blog entry's that explains (third paragraph down)
The blog post is helpful, but I still think more intuitive navigation would be better. That's a lot of hunting around just to find out what the categories mean...
Oh I totally agree with you. They could adjust the names of the tabs just slightly and it would be far easier to understand. A user shouldn't have to go to the blog to find a how-to just to figure it out.
Was going to mention Kirtsy.com, but shedside beat me to it.
It's very similar to Boudica, but it's been around a bit longer, and thus they've gotten a lot further in taming the splogs. It also lacks the, pardon the critique, "12 year old girl" color scheme. I was expecting unicorns to pop up at any moment.
Kirtsy has a bit more "mommyblogger" feel to it, whereas I think Boudica seems to be shooting more for the corporate business woman crowd. Sort of like the difference between Ladies Home Journal and Pink Magazine.
If you want to know what's better about this than iVillage, go to iVillage sometime. I used to LOVE that site, but it's gone downhill since it got bought out.
Another interesting women-targeted site is DamselsInSuccess.
Another social news site with a similar demographic is https://www.kirtsy.com/ (neé sk*rt).
I'm not saying you can't have two or even a hundred. Just saying I don't think it's any great innovation. Social sites must have some critical mass to be successful. Posting of articles and discussing them is nothing you couldn't do at old style discussion boards. Any social site needs to get a core of users to keep it going. It seems that this is the key to success, especially in the early stages.
It seems dominated by internet marketers now, right down to the splogs.
There are plenty of new community sites trying to do the web 2.0 thing. I just don't see how a site like this is better than a web 1.0 site like ivillage.
Why not have 2? Since when did anything on the internet not happen because there was another like it? Please, the 'net is all about redesigning the wheel and always will be.
Viva La Competition
Dan,
For one thing - it's a different concept. It's an agrregation of women focused stories that provide a forum for both voting and discussion - two very hot dynamics right now. People love to vote.
Secondly - as Christian said - why not have two - or more. there's plenty of market out there.
Prettysocial.net is another relatively new one of these.
We launched a site whose audience is primarily women 18-30 & Kirsty and PrettySocial have been good to us.
Another note - it appears the site is built in Drupal (as is ours) and a Digg like module called Drigg. Drupal has some handy SEO friendly tools built in, which they appear to be taking advantage of.
It's not really a social news site like Digg or Sphinn, but have you ever heard of Jezebel? They do the gossip and fashion crap, but a large percentage of their content is centered around news. They also have a fairly strong community, but not with all the features like Boudica. I always kind of wished they had more for the user to do, so it's nice to see something like Boudica...
I expect a few thumbs down for this, but:
It's sexist.
It stereotypes content as being suitable for, and encourages users from, a single sex.
I boycott the Race For Life for the same reason. It is about time that people understood that people are just people and not better or worse for being one sex or the other.
/rant.
From Merriam-Webster:
Main Entry: sex·ism
Pronunciation: \sek-si-zəm\
Function: noun
Etymology: 1sex + -ism (as in racism)
Date: 1968
1: prejudice or discrimination based on sex; especially : discrimination against women
sex·ist \ˈsek-sist\ adjective or noun
Please explain to me how Boudica is any more sexist than feminine hygiene products, or a jock strap. They are all products marketed towards either males or females, but they are NOT sexist. I joined Boudica to make this point exactly. Even though the content may be targeted towards women, it doesn’t mean men can't read it or join, it just means we’re less likely to be interested in the material that might be submitted.
Totally agree with Tim.
Richard, I'm unsure as to how the content is in any way sexist. Is there a proliferation of content which pokes fun at men, or portrays them as stupid or otherwise discriminatory?
I've not spent a huge amount of time on the site, but I've not seen any men haters whilst I've been there.
How is having a social news site with a female bias sexist?
You as a male are more than welcome to join and indeed contribute, I'm really not sure how you're being discriminated against...
The content is not sexist, per se.
The site declaring that one sex is likely to be more interested in a certain type of content is sexist.
"The site declaring that one sex is likely to be more interested in a certain type of content is sexist."
Is it sexist? Or is it in fact realistic?
A social news site which encourages it's members (who have a female bias - I'm not sure of the ratio of men to women on the site) to submit stories that interest them may result in a site which is of more of interest to women than men.
There are lots of magazines out there which are targetted at women - but of course there's nothing to stop men from reading them.
In exactly the same way here the content is likely to appeal to women, but men are not excluded in any way.
I think that it is realistic, in much the same way that, generally speaking, men are better drivers than women.
I guess we're just going to have to agree to differ here :)
Or, we could admit that saying that men drive better than women is mysogynistic, just as declaring content to be more suitable for women to enjoy is misandry?
A Jock Strap is for men and a sanitary item is for women - that is not sexist, that is functional.
To suggest that a certain type of content (except perhaps a review of tampons) is aimed at a single sex is the sexism here. If I flip this over and I make a site about building supplies and brand that as a site for men, I am sure you can see that the suggestion that women are not interested in building supplies is a sexist one.
My point is that it's not black and white content or prejudiced in any way (as far as I have seen). They aren't saying that their content is only for women, just that the site is targeted towards women. Again, feel free to join and consume their product as no one will stop you, but you might not like the content there as much as you would on a more broadly categorized site, or a site designed with the male user in mind . . . then again, you might. And that’s really the crux here, if you like the content go and use the site, regardless of your gender, if not, don’t use the site. Make your own decision, but don’t try to label something as sexist or prejudiced, when in fact it’s more tolerant and open than most of the social content sites out there.
To your point, if I start that building supplies site and TARGET it towards men, I'm not going to somehow disallow women from the site, I'm just going to say that my content is more likely to be of interest to men. There will very likely be more male users, more advertising targeted at men, and more content that men will find more interesting than women. It's not sexist, I wish more women liked building materials and tools, but the fact is that the content on the site is going to be more interesting to men.
You might as well take the stand that model ship building websites shouldn't target model ship builders because that discriminates against anyone who doesn't build model ships.
Your point about men being better drivers IS sexist . . . if I started a website based on how much BETTER men are at something, I would be actively promoting a prejudice against women. The difference is in the semantics.
Damn, I am getting drawn in.
If you say that model ship builder sites exclude non-model shipbuilders then this is obviously fine.
If you say that a model shipbuilder site is targeted at men because it is men who like building model ships then that is sexist.
It all seems terribly obvious to me that, with the exception of physiological differences, anything which declares itself for men or for women is sexist.
No, I am not getting drawn in, I am going to get back to work!
Well, there you go, I did get a couple of thumbs down.
Such is life.
It's like Sphinn for Chicks. I would have called it Sphicks. Oh - and the domain is available too.
My only beefs:
1) I saw an article about Anna Kournikova with no pictures.
2) Rand, Graywolf and Danny pimping stories on the front page. Is this site for men, ladies or both?
3) No Top ten hottest women superhero stories.
Okay - all of that was purposely sexist. ;)
I actually think it's a nice looking site, although a little too tame for my tastes (if I were a woman). Seems more "Ladies Home Journal" than "MaxiMiss" (which by the way, is also available). "Maxim" for the ladies - now there's a winner.
Update: I kind of like that "Maxim" for the ladies idea, so maximiss.com is no longer available. ;) Stay tuned ladies. In a few weeks, you'll be voting on the hottest men in the world. Is he hot - or is he not! My girlfriend is going to have fun with this one!
"a little too tame for my tastes (if I were a woman)". Creepy.
maximiss sounds like a new maxi pad brand
Sean, there goes 5 bucks down the drain. Genius idea though. Maximiss a pad. (the reason why I think every seo team should have a male and a female in it). When would a guy ever think of that angle?
@Mert - It appears maybe the $5 bucks wasn't a waste afterall. Somehow, I think Janet will figure out a way to drive traffic.
I have no doubt my man. I don't think you would choose a girlfriend who is not a marketing genius.
Disclaimer: This message is a note from my girlfriend Janet and I apologize in advance for any offense that may be taken by the material she has created.
______________________________________________________________ @LadyEmma -
I can assure you that by the time I'm done with "MaxiMiss", the only pads you'll be thinking about are the ones we'd like to see the boys take off when they leave the field.
To give you a bit of perspective, this first little series would be in honor of those sexy soccer players from around the world.
The site I have in mind is a little different than the lovely one created by Ms. Sullivan, but I think we can all agree - there's nothing wrong with turning the tables on the boys once in a while!
I'd be interested to hear any ideas from the ladies. As for the men in the audience - you can just send your pictures in. We ladies will take care of the rest! ;)
i think you hit the nail on the head..
"I can discover articles and stories that may slip through the cracks on other social news sites"
Women have a different point of view and therefore may find different things interesting.. smart idea from a business perspective... most women don't like the "OMG GREAT TITS" kind of drivel... then again.. some bi-girls are like boys.. so you never know... the "OMG GREAT TITS" crowd may just change gender.
however.. was thinking this weekend while watching fireworks in austin.. noting the diversity of the crowd, yet they all ended up in one place and how that related to work.. (i know.. why am i thinking about work on the pedestrian bridge, slightly buzzed watching fireworks..?? ), but at some point do we not reach social niche overload?
at what point do we have like 500 coopies of DIGG and most of our time is spent figuring out which site to bookmark to?
(disclaimer: not poo-pooing the female bookmarking site.. i think it's cash cow in the making)
thanks for the info! i just joined the site - i hope this one takes off!
Holy. Crap.
Crocs now come with heels? Yep, pretty soon the horsemen will be riding out across the sky.
And by riding you mean wobbling across the sky on rubber heels!
It boggles the mind. Seriously. The next thing you know we'll see SJP parading around on these death traps.
On the Success and diversity of Crocs
Last year's revenues were in excess of $800 million. Not bad for a shoe company with an ugly product.
Toilet seats? TOILET SEATS??!!
Ahem. Sorry, I'm ok now.
oh,i see the blue the sky afte reading it......
I really think that Boudica.com’s promoters are on the right track. There has always been good market for “Girls Only” publications. Then why not on web and social media?
Here I will like to cite an example of ‘gangofgirls.com’ (Gang of Girls dot com). This website was started for Indian women by Sunsilk (A beauty and cosmetics products co.) They initially promoted it in television commercials and now the website has become huge success. (And yes by the way they also use bright pink as background.)According to this Economic Times article (Published way back in 2006) at https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/461428.cms,
And this web site is targeted at Indian women only where women are not that tech-savvy and don’t use the Internet that much. So my best wishes are with Boudica.com.
Girls Go and have Fun!
Edit - > Added more whitespace between paragraphs. Comments need a preview feature. I never seem to get the white space right in the first attempt.
I've had a little play on Boudica and all in all I think it's a very positive step in the right direction.
Not all of the stories appeal to me, but then equally, not all of the stories appeal on any social news site.
If you've a profile there and would like a buddy I'm hannah_bo_banna
I'm 'timstaines' . . . can't promise I will be very active ;)
Cool, maybe's see you there :)
KARMA is a standard pligg feature.