updated 3:11 p.m. ET, Wed., Sept . 9, 2009

WASHINGTON – Only 12 percent of U.S. homeowners eligible for loan modifications under the Obama administration’s housing rescue plan have had their mortgages reworked, and millions more foreclosures are coming, the Treasury Department said on Wednesday.

A Treasury report showed 360,165 people had their monthly payments reduced through August, up from 235,247 through July, but a senior Treasury official conceded much more must be done to soften the impact of a severe and prolonged housing crisis.

This, combined with the end of the first-time home buyers refund and the fact that commercial default rates are rising (http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/19987/)- might be a while before we are out of the slump

End Of Speculation: The Real Twitter Usage Numbers

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by Michael Arrington on April 29, 2008

Speculation about Twitter’s new round of financing is leading everyone to speculate on Twitter’s actual penetration into the “mainstream,” or lack thereof.

Hitwise says web visits have increased 8x in the last year, albeit from a minuscule base. Compete shows about 900,000 U.S. monthly website visitors. Comscore puts the worldwide number at 1.3 million unique monthly visitors in March.

None of that data is particularly useful, since so much of the action on Twitter occurs via mobile phones, instant messaging and desktop clients like Alert Thingy, MySocial24×7 and Twhirl. Many of Twitter’s most active users rarely visit the website.

The key measure of Twitter usage is total users, total active users and total messages sent. And according to a source close to the company, these are the current Twitter usage stats:

March 2008
Total Users: 1+ million
Total Active Users: 200,000 per week
Total Twitter Messages: 3 million/day

Back in April…

The new Blog: Fashionably Late

Suitcase

@cletch

I LOVE that her blog is named The Sticky Floor. At least as much as a glass ceiling exists, there is that sticky kitchen floor that holds women by the soles of their feet and keeps them from flying.

We have come a long way in one respect from when I was young and the prevalent (voiced) opinion- by both men and women- was that women could never lead a company or a country because they did not have the strength of character, nor did they have the mental stability. This was NOT whispered in smoke-filled dens; it was an acceptable counterpoint in a discussion.

When women (again) entered the work arena, things changed. They were allowed to hold down a job as long as they didn’t slack off in the other departments:

I remember when this commercial came out, and -zing!- it struck a lot of women smack in their insecurities. It vocalized the unwritten promise that there would be no neglect, that the crumbs would still be swept up, and, no, we would NOT be too tired at the end of the day. Who wouldn’t race out and get a bottle of perfume?

We have probably come a pretty long way in that a lot of this chatter appears shocking now, or, at worst,  is kept behind closed doors. But sometimes words are easier to change than the underlying social sentiment that cause them to be said.

Ads are great, because digging through them is like looking at the social archeology of the time. The Folgers ads weren’t a one-shot deal. What I am wondering is- why the eff WOULDN’T my mother be depressed knowing that her worth as a human being, as reiterated in the ads at the time, depended on how her coffee tasted?

Thank god we have come as far as we have.

So, Pat, this is my answer- and it is an answer to a question based on society, based on generalities, not based on the individual. There really isn’t much incentive for men as a group to change, in this regard, and more than this- I was speaking about this the other day to a [male] friend and he stated that women are more tolerant of bad behavior in their significant others than men are. And I think this is probably true, and is why it is remarkable when men do equal shares within the household, or refer to watching their own children without using the word “babysitting.”

Better bring home the right kind of coffee

Are things better? I suppose so. But I have lost my taste for coffee.

It depends on which site you check me out on, because I like to mix it up. Some places I am 39. some 42, some the ripe old age of 43. I usually use the JackBenny 39 because as long as I am over 18 or 21, that’s all the site itself legally requires. Sorry for messing up your demographic-mining, guys, but there you have it.

I just hate the idea of being compartmentalized into an expectations box based on the number of sunrises I have seen. And this number matters GREATLY to some people. I was annoyed by this fascination a few months ago and posted on my Facebook status: “No, I won’t tell you my age. If you really feel that you HAVE to know, click here.”  The link went to a particularly heinous RickRoll’d- DM me if you want the link. The only regret that I had about doing this was that for several weeks after my blog flatlined because people were afraid to click on any bud.url that I had posted.

So, anyway, now you know why I am no longer married, but this segues nicely to last night’s discussion on twitter: Cougars with a capital “c.” I am not so certain what the beginning of the conversation looked like, but at the point that I butted in, it had slid down the slippery slope to age. The age of the male half of the equation was defined fairly easily- legal-to-notonebreathmorethan 30- but a simple standard (or should I say double-standard?) could not be given to the women.

And then this morning, when I called in to RE: RnD Radio, I was excited that the topic appeared to be about RE BarCamps. Having just come back from running a social media camp in NYC, I was pumped full of empathy. I had sweat buckets of blood trying to get sponsorship, cooperation from the hotel while our base camps were located in Massachusetts and Delaware, and publicity for an event that because of its generic membership floated below niche radar.

The first question floated directly at me was, “What is the age definition of a Cougar?”

Twitter conversation

And the funny thing is- this question IS important;  the question is really whether or not older women are considered attractive and vibrant enough to still be viable in any arena they choose to be in. In the population, 32.2% of all women in the United States are aged 50 and above. This shift in age demographics has forced open doors that had been nailed pretty tightly shut before, I think- go ahead and post on your Facebook status that older women aren’t sexy, I dare ya to.

Fiftylicious

The thing with Cougars is this: where (some)people would once have been truly disturbed by this type of May-December union, a more European attitude is trending. Even better, I think, is that people are looking at the trend with a wink and a smile

Cougarbait

and humor is definitely the milepost of transition.  Age should not be the defining factor when it comes to finding a soul-mate or even a lover; why can’t a person open all of the boxes looking for that missing jigsaw piece, instead of just the ones located on THAT shelf?

Older women in business, older women as stars in movies, and -yes- the emergence of Cougars as a socially accepted phenomenon as opposed to an oddity or even a stigma (think: the Graduate) are, I hope, indicative of a time where speaking of age and sex as distinguishing features will be in as much poor taste as describing someone by other superfluous- and just as irrelevant- characteristics.

HeyAmaretto is of the opinion that Cougars are older than she is, although this opinion may not be justified given the definitions found in urbandictionary.com. She is a fan of run-on sentences. She would like to remind everyone that exploitation is never pretty, regardless of the ages of those involved.

I remember when I saw the first video, I was blown away. I mean, my friend Lesley Lambert can dance- really dance- but dancing appears to be genetically linked to direction in me- both genes must be located on an atrophied “d” chromosome or something. Then here comes this group- of prisoners!- who worked together to make an orange sea of unity:

Freaking amazing.

What had started as an alternative to enforced recreation has turned into a monthly performance, YouTube video posts with millions of views (which have, in some cases, had the music removed because of copywrite infringement), and inspiration to other prisons “(8 and counting) who are now adopting this non-violent approach to rehabilitation!”

It amazes me- when I have seen times that you couldn’t get a buyer, a seller, two agents and two attorneys to all dance in the same direction, here is an entire prison- over 60% in for murder, rape or violent crime- cooperating to create beauty.

If someone had set out to change conditions in the worse prison in the country, I feel fairly certain that no matter how many proposals had been fielded, not one would have read, “To institute complete change in this prison and instill a sense of pride and comraderie, I propose that we teach the inmates synchronized dancing.”

The prison reform initiator, Byron Garcia, said that an unintended result is that the prisoners- in a system torn apart by gang activity- have become friends.

When something isn’t working, don’t just think outside of the box- throw the damned box out.  Michael Jackson tribute here. “Jailhouse Rock- video about prison reform in the Phillipines and Byron Garcia’s role in it here

So I have trouble identifying with people who are beyond touched- they are truly hurt- when a celebrity dies, although I suppose it is less that the sadness is because of the end of an individual’s life, and more, really, mourning the severing of a link of identity that ties us together. Or, in other words, we are both losing a social object. using the term that my friend Bill Lublin coined (“I remember dancing to Billy Jean with my first boyfriend”) and finding a stronger, larger one (sharing in mourning the loss of a musical icon). It has less to do with the individual who has died- because, really, do we even know that individual?

Today, I logged in to twitter to find this:

MayaREGuru Please unite in a moment of silence at 2pm Eastern for Megan Porter aka @megapixel http://bit.ly/LPmYz Pls RT#twitterqueens #Megporter

I follow this girl- for a girl is what she was at 24. In her own words, she was a “Social Butterfly. Stand for something, or fall for anything. L♥ver of Tiramisu, Photography, Dirty Martinis, Art, and Rotary Phones.”  Was I that well-defined at 24? She was only a year older than my oldest daughter.

This loss is more than the demise of a social object. It is the silencing of a voice- a snarky, smart voice. She talked about her strep throat, and leprechauns,  and mullets.

megapixel I do believe the combination of Mullet and Large Pink Scrunchie could very possibly tear the fabric of space and time.

Every loss of life is a renting of the fabric of space and time, probably at least on the level of the combination of Mullet and Large Pink Scrunchie. I think the time is coming when twitter replaces the obituary and the birth notice as the chronicler of  life’s ebb and flow.

The death of @megapixel will not “trend” on twitter, but know that her loss will be felt.

megapixel Tweeps! What’s up?

Friday night 6/26 TweetUp at Latitude at 6:30- open to general public  . I have added this to community calendars in the area, and we have had more than 200 clicks on the invite looking for more info beyond the fairly extensive amount of info that I placed in these calendars.  I told Latitude that we would be expecting maybe 40 people- we’ll see!

Saturday 6/27

• 6:30 Starting out the day early- we are meeting in the lobby of the Grand Hyatt to head to the CBS Morning Show, where we are F&C and touring backstage after- maybe more, who knows?
• 11:00 Jason Turcotte presents the TwitterQueen website makeover
• 12:00 Presentation/Roundtables session 1
• 1:00 Presentation/Roundtables session 2
• 2:00 Buffet lunch and Michelle Weber with Gyrotonics
• 3:00 Presentation/Roundtables session 3
• 4:00 Bill Lublin

Then, of course, karaoke at night if we can find a spot.

Dad and me on my wedding day

I am my father’s daughter. He was an engineer at Raytheon, and before that an auto mechanic, and my mind works the way his did, like it or not. I analyze everything to a fault, and, based on my conclusions, am stubborn to that same fault. Just like my father.

It is funny how where you are today is the sum total of your experiences. Your parents, and their parents, built the beginning of the road you are traveling on. You can try to build a better or completely different road if you don’t like the scenery that came before you, but most of the time you end up with a road that runs parallel to the original one- or at best perpendicular. That original road is always the touchpoint.

So here I sit on this gloomy Father’s Day, missing my dad and thinking how his life- more than his words- shaped me. Trust and helpfulness were a huge part of him, and I grew up thinking everyone was like that. It has created in me a blind spot of naivete.

He possessed a wicked sense of humor as well, or was possessed by it, more likely. He and his brother brought my mother out to dinner for her birthday one year, and privately informed the waitress that she was hard of hearing but loathe to admit it, and the waitress would need to speak loudly and clearly to her. By the end of the evening, both the waitress and my mother were shouting at each other- the waitress to be understood, and my mother in vain denial of her deafness. Happy 50th, Mom!

Then there are those days that time is frozen in your mind. I remember when my mother called me up and asked me what multiple myeloma was- the doctor had called her and told her on the phone that a blood test indicated that that my father had that condition. I remember sitting on the stairs in my old house after looking it up and calling her back, in essence opening up the envelope to read to her my father’s death sentence. He was sick from both the chemotherapy and the pain of the cancer the entire last year of his life, and the man who spent his life finding ways to help others finally learned that life is about accepting help when you need it, too. I don’t think the equation came close to being balanced in sum, but that’s the way you want the scales to look at the end of the day, I think.

When he died, I was three months pregnant with my second daughter, now 19. A lot of water has passed under that bridge, but I still remember the feeling that the safety net was gone and here I was- on the tightrope of adulthood, or maybe off the tightrope and learning to be that safety net for my own children as the elder for a new generation.

So, Dad, thank you. Thank you for expecting the best from people. Thank you for exposing me to an unswerving expectation of personal responsibility. Thank you especially for that sense of humor- it comes in pretty handy.  And thank you for the gift of realizing that with great depth of joy in relationships inevitably comes equally deep sorrow unless you are very lucky- and that’s okay and you can live through it.

And thank you to all of the fathers out there who are setting that same example for their children.

At RE BarCamp Philly Preparty

I was speaking with my friend Alex Wilhelm the other day, and he said to me that it seemed like he had just started seeing the #twitterqueens hashtag yesterday, and when he searched for TwitterQueens, now he sees it all over the place. That made me curious.  I went to Google and quickly took a look at some of the places we popped up.

TwitterQueens sightings:

http://www.truliablog.com/2009/06/01/rebcden-and-rebcphl-the-recap-its-all-about-relationships/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/rtroth/3573818764/ http://twitter.com/crbill/status/2116334106 http://www.powersiteblog.com/?p=2225 http://www.viddler.com/explore/niknik/videos/20/ http://www.eventbrite.com/org/204336412 http://pikchur.com/A2k http://www.braveheartwomen.com/tags.jspa?tag=TwitterQueens,&print=true

http://twitpic.com/613bm http://microblogbuzz.com/redirect/29852001 http://turcottedata.com/blog/?p=150 http://www.twittermoms.com/profile/MarleneMLinke http://localism.com/blog/fl/tallahassee/posts/1034792/Social-Networking-and-How http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBrwYOpJKkI http://www.flickr.com/photos/rtroth/3573818764/ http://www.delawareonline.com/article/20090609/LIFE/906090311/1005/LIFE/Meet-the-Delaware-tweeters http://rebarcampboston.com/sponsors/ http://kristinacusick.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/headed-to-philly-virtually/ http://www.facebook.jp/pages/Dolphin-Marketing-Advisors/57825938649?ref=mf [5th down on this site] http://helpfulhannahs.com/post/1093671/rebar-camp-in-philadephia-rock-stars-of-techno http://www.socialmedian.com/story/3609275/3-twitter-queens

Lots of fun!

Lesley Lambert’s Infamous TrampStamp video