sk*rt is Launching!

I know I keep going on and on about how rocking this month is. And I'm totally not kidding. For example, today, I've got a big announcement. I talked about it here. And I mentioned it here. But now I get to announce it for realsies. Several months ago I started working on a project with 3 other lovely bloggers: Laura Mayes, Laurie Smithwick, and Rebecca Gholdston. It's called sk*rt and it's basically a she-inspired version of Digg. And it's basically awesome. And it's launching today!



We all think Digg is an extremely cool concept, we just have never found the content to be all that interesting — because Digg is written for and by an audience of techie men — which we're not. So we thought, wouldn't it be great to have something like this out there that features topics we're interested in? And then we thought, heck yes it would be. And then we created it.

Here's the Gist: Sk*rt is an online media ranking site created for and by women, featuring topics women dig. Sk*rt was designed to promote sites, blogs, video, products, articles, ideas, art — anything online, really — to women and to the men who want to get in our heads. Sk*rt is basically a filter of cool stuff on the Web. If you aren't familiar with the concept of Digg, it goes like this. Any item (site, product, idea, video, blog, article, etc.) can be submitted by anyone. Readers can vote for the items by clicking the "Love It!" button on the left hand side of each submitted item. The items that get the most votes raise up to the front of the site. It's actually a great design, because it's organized so that if you only have a few minutes, you can scan through what's new, what's highly ranked or what's interesting to you; or you can search more specifically by category.

Sk*rt features nine categories: World Wise; Mind, Body, Spirit; Out and About; Around the House; Raising Kids; Getting Dressed; Entertainment; Food; Arts, Crafts & Design. There's a popular section and an unpublished section. Items have to get a certain number of votes to "make it" to the popular section. Overall, it's pretty self-explanatory, but if you're craving more details, see our Getting Started page here and our FAQ page here.

To launch sk*rt in a big way, I'm looking for your help. There are a few things I'd be thrilled if you'd do to spread the word.

1. Visit sk*rt and have a look. Play around on it. Vote on a few things that look interesting to you. Or submit something (put your favorite blog, website, product, whatever, on there).

2. Tell your friends about it. If you have a blog or website, put this button in a post or on your sidebar:


Or pick one of the many sk*rt buttons available here. And then send an email to sharethelove@sk-rt.com letting us know you posted the button, and you'll be entered to win some incredible loot. $500+ worth of incredible loot. From our incredible sponsors — Darlybird, Funktion Home, Jaime Zollars, Little Jules, and Nora Fleming. Check it out:



We're pretty pumped about all of it. Especially the prizes. You can find even more details about the sk*rt Spread-the-Word Contest and the cool prizes here.



Overall, we designed sk*rt because we wanted to have something like it for ourselves. Also, we'd love to do our part in helping get the word out that there are smart women leading the social media revolution. (That would be you).

The official media launch is scheduled for Friday, July 27th at BlogHer. Which means you're ahead of the game, totally in the know, part of the avant-garde group that knows about and uses sk*rt first. And because we're so psyched about the sk*rt launch we'll be having contests leading up to the July 27th media launch like crazy. In fact, I'll be posting about another contest today — stay tuned.

And watch for posts about sk*rt all week, because I've got sk*rt on the brain.