Blogging and bringing home the bacon

SAN FRANCISCO--The modern woman, per the popular '70s television commercial, was once "bringing home the bacon and frying it up in a pan." Now she's also writing a blog.

As many as 3,000 women are here at the fourth annual BlogHer Conference 2008, which opened Friday, to talk about their lives, their businesses, and their blogs. And in some cases, they're all one and the same. Despite the popular perception that women bloggers are all stay-at-home mothers, many women here run their own businesses or work full-time, and they use a blog as a personal outlet, a connection to a community, or as a way to boost their career.

Women filled the seats and lined the back walls at the Friday session on do-it-yourself promotion for their blogs.

(Credit: Stefanie Olsen/CNET News)

Jamie Risdon Lentzner, for example, is the founder of Foster City, Calif.-based Jamie's Painting Design, a design shop, and she writes a blog about what it takes to run your own business. A first-timer to the BlogHer conferences, she said that she felt a bit overwhelmed because of the lineup of polished writers and the sheer volume of women.

"It feels like I'm rushing a sorority," Lentzner said.