Simply Shiny Life

Every Tuesday, the blog post will be Totally Giveaway Tuesday. I love giveaways, and I thought it might be nice to share some real estate for some blog-o-sphere giveaways with my readers. I’d like to profile Artfire and other artisan giveaways, but feel free to list any great giveaways you have to share. Each link will contain the name of the giveaway linked to the entry instruction page. Enter as many giveaways as you would like

Got a blog giveaway you’d like to advertise? Hosting an artisan jewelry giveaway? Have a handmade soap giveaway? Announcing a felted animal giveaway? Have a guild giveaway you’d like to list? Want to announce your team’s giveaway to the world? Please use the widget below to list your announcement.

In the Your Name Field: enter the item you are giving away, and the date the giveaway expires

In the Your URL Field: enter the web site address of the page to find instructions about how to enter.

Giveaways for the week of 1/31

Note: I can’t be responsible for outcomes of giveaways hosted by anyone but me. Outcomes of giveaways hosted elsewhere are the responsibility of the giveaway owner. Please read each giveaway’s entry instructions carefully and only enter if it isn’t going to get you into any trouble in your location. GOOD LUCK EVERYONE!!

Visit again next Tuesday for a whole new list!

and don’t forget to tweet and share with your friends using the widgets below

(For those of you receiving this via RSS, you have to visit my real live blog to see the list of shops with sales. Not sure why, but looks like the Readers eat the linky code. sorry. )

Artbeads has launched their ‘Road to Tucson’ Sweepstakes!

The grand prize is a trip for two to Tucson, Arizona to attend the 2012 Gem, Mineral and Fossil Showcase! This fantastic prize package includes round-trip airfare for two to Tucson, Arizona and 3 nights accommodation. The winner will also attend classes with well-known beading instructors and have access to the biggest shows. Spend 3 fun-filled days in Tucson surrounded by gems, minerals, fossils, beads and other bead lovers! What could be more fabulous!

This sweepstakes is open to US and Canadian residents (excluding Quebec) age 18 and up. Entry deadline is March 16, 2011 at 11:59pm PT. For more information: http://www.artbeads.com/road-to-tucson-sweepstakes.html

During a rather contentious thread on the Artfire forum, the ‘rights’ card was thrown.

You know what the ‘rights card’ is,  well,                     right?

The exasperated post from the angry seller that states in no uncertain terms to the eye rolling reader  ‘I have the right to say blah blah blah’ , ‘I have the right to do this or that’

Well, no.

You don’t.

Shortly thereafter, an intrepid fellow Studio owner came along and posted this nugget:

“Take back my rights” Exercise my rights” “I have a right to….” Those are always the last arguments of people who are trying to find an acceptable way of saying “I’m gonna do what I want and I shouldn’t have to follow the rules that everyone else in the world has decided to abide by!!!”

So what “right” are you going to exercise here? The right to purchase a service and follow the rules set forth by that service? Or the right to take your money elsewhere and not purchase that service? Cuz those are the only two “rights” you have here.

In the colloquial sentiment of my former Maine neighbors:

Ayup.

Every Tuesday, the blog post will be Totally Giveaway Tuesday. I love giveaways, and I thought it might be nice to share some real estate for some blog-o-sphere giveaways with my readers. I’d like to profile Artfire and other artisan giveaways, but feel free to list any great giveaways you have to share. Each link will contain the name of the giveaway linked to the entry instruction page. Enter as many giveaways as you would like

Got a blog giveaway you’d like to advertise? Hosting an artisan jewelry giveaway? Have a handmade soap giveaway? Announcing a felted animal giveaway? Have a guild giveaway you’d like to list? Want to announce your team’s giveaway to the world? Please use the widget below to list your announcement.

In the Your Name Field: enter the item you are giving away, and the date the giveaway expires

In the Your URL Field: enter the web site address of the page to find instructions about how to enter.

Giveaways for the week of 1/24

Note: I can’t be responsible for outcomes of giveaways hosted by anyone but me. Outcomes of giveaways hosted elsewhere are the responsibility of the giveaway owner. Please read each giveaway’s entry instructions carefully and only enter if it isn’t going to get you into any trouble in your location. GOOD LUCK EVERYONE!!

Visit again next Tuesday for a whole new list!

and don’t forget to tweet and share with your friends using the widgets below

(For those of you receiving this via RSS, you have to visit my real live blog to see the list of shops with sales. Not sure why, but looks like the Readers eat the linky code. sorry. )

Facebook Fan Page Notifier

I can’t remember if I’ve mentioned this tool previously, but if not, it’s definitely one to bookmark. Doesn’t it bug you that you get email notifications for your regular personal profile page, but not your Fan page?

I use a tool called Fan Page Notifier to ensure that I don’t miss pithy comments to my own ShinyAdornments Fan page as well as the latest from BBCAmerica or the Daily Show.

Just visit the site, log in with your Facebook credentials and then place a check mark next to the Fan pages you’d like to receive updates. You can choose to see when anyone adds an update to a particular page or only when an Admin adds one. Or both.

Enjoy!

Oh, Etsy sellers. If you missed this post in the forums,  here is your chance to find it and read it. And laugh. Because you have to laugh, it’s simply so infuriating.

What if Etsy were a grocery store?

Reseller.

Innocuous word, right? But oh so rife with connotation and negativity. At least in the online selling venues I am most familiar.

Much angst, gnashing of teeth, and arguing is occurring right now with at least two of these venues. And not just heated discussion with venue owners. Much, much heated discussions among the venue’s sellers as well.

So what is a reseller? And why the angst? There are a myriad of definitions, but in the simplest Kristy terms, a reseller is someone who sells a manufactured finished product online. The bone of contention for artists is that many of these sellers also have the audacity to state that these are artisan handmade goods. These resellers then sell them on venues in which, supposedly, they are not allowed to do so, by that venue’s own usage terms. These resellers lie to unsuspecting buyers about the good’s origins and their makers. They state that these artisan goods are handmade by the seller herself. Failing to inform buyers that these goods are indeed created in a factory or by sweat shop workers.

Both venues that I have the most knowledge about (Etsy and Artfire) utilize a Terms Of Service (or Terms of Use) document to outline what is and what is not permissible activity within the site. This document outlines what kinds of items can be sold and what are not permitted. On both venues, generally accepted saleable items include handmade (and the definition of what, exactly, is handmade, is long), antique/vintage, and supplies. Supplies are defined as items used in the making of other items, but not finished items per se.

An interesting difference between the venue’s handling, or mishandling as the case may be, of the situation is occurring with Etsy and Artfire right now. Etsy has a myriad of resellers. These sellers blatantly violate TOU and are brought to administration attention time and time again. Etsy does little to police its own site nor does it seem to want to change the TOU to incorporate them. Instead, Etsy administration’s inaction and lip service about the issue to angry sellers continues infuriatingly unabated. Just read example after example listed on the blog called Etsy Call Out . Or the dozens of threads that have been closed by Admin when the topic has come up on Etsy’s forums at the Etsy Closed Threads blog.  Is the inaction because each of those reseller stores generates needed revenue for Etsy? Is it due to mismanagement? Is Etsy’s plan really to incorporate these resellers soon but doesn’t have a solid communication plan to articulate it? One thing is sure; inaction isn’t helping the situation any and neither is it placating these angry sellers continually pointing out the ongoing situation to Etsy administration.

Artfire has similar issues with resellers. They exist on the site and their numbers are growing. The difference? Artfire is admitting it has a problem, and asking it’s sellers to help develop the solution. Will everyone be happy with whatever is determined to be the next course of action? Do pigs fly? I don’t expect a solution in the short term. This baby needs to gestate for months at least before all nuances are advanced and practical aspects are considered.

Finding THE perfect solution isn’t the thing, for me. It’s the fact that a dialogue is occurring. It’s the fact that the Artfire team has acknowledged the issue instead of remaining in their ivory tower of ownership. The solution discussion has been ongoing and vehement among sellers, but it’s not only the Seller’s gnashing teeth. Artfire’s staff has enjoyed a bit of gnashing themselves, and I suspect it will continue for a while until some sort of solution is discovered.

I’ll be curious to see how it shakes out next year at this time. Could be an interesting ride.

What do you think?

For the record, free speech is governed by the First Amendment of the Constitution:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Did you note that it states Congress shall make no law?

So, if I tell you to shut up, because you are making inane comments of sheer stupidity (my opinion of course), guess what? I’m not breaching your free speech rights. Because

A. I’m not the government

and

B. because, frankly, you can go around the corner where I can’t hear you and spew whatever nonsense you’d like. Until someone else tells you to shut yer trap. And, if that someone else is a private citizen or business, etc, they won’t be violating your freedom of speech either.

(Of course it’s not always this black and white. For some interesting reading, check out the volumes of free speech case law precedent available online)

Why do I bring this up? Because of the latest shenanigans on Etsy.  To make a long story short, there once was a seller with items that offended other Etsy sellers. Petitions were signed, emails were sent, blog posts were written and forum posts were started about the apparent (at least to the protesters) offensive items. And guess what? Etsy ignored them. Big surprise. It was feedback from only their selling base, not from anyone of power, right? You can find details here and here

Next, this seller’s items appeared on CNN with a bit of discourse from the CNN newscaster about what a poor internet citizen Etsy was to allow such offensive things. And then Etsy listened. To CNN.

Etsy scrambled to change their site terms to not allow these offensive items using newly created verbiage vagaries. Items previously allowed with no issues and under which this seller posted. These new terms were posted for Etsy sellers to read and digest and make comments.

So how is this relevant to my initial blurbs about free speech? Well, in these comments from sellers, there were many that referenced free speech, slippery slope, first amendments, blah blah blah. But the truth is, Etsy can do whatever it wants in policing its site. Free speech doesn’t apply as it’s a private venue.

Sellers should be less upset about the non-existent speech violations and more upset that Etsy caved to media and didn’t give them an iota of deference.

It certainly doesn’t engender very much trust in whether Etsy site owners will actually ever do the right thing for its sellers. No. It does not. What is does appear to highlight is that the site owners listen to the media and a bit of negative national publicity can go a long way.

Good to know.

Wish we’d figured out how to use that during Coralgate.

HA!

Every Tuesday, the blog post will be Totally Giveaway Tuesday. I love giveaways, and I thought it might be nice to share some real estate for some blog-o-sphere giveaways with my readers. I’d like to profile Artfire and other artisan giveaways, but feel free to list any great giveaways you have to share. Each link will contain the name of the giveaway linked to the entry instruction page. Enter as many giveaways as you would like

Got a blog giveaway you’d like to advertise? Hosting an artisan jewelry giveaway? Have a handmade soap giveaway? Announcing a felted animal giveaway? Have a guild giveaway you’d like to list? Want to announce your team’s giveaway to the world? Please use the widget below to list your announcement.

In the Your Name Field: enter the item you are giving away, and the date the giveaway expires

In the Your URL Field: enter the web site address of the page to find instructions about how to enter.

Giveaways for the week of 1/17

Note: I can’t be responsible for outcomes of giveaways hosted by anyone but me. Outcomes of giveaways hosted elsewhere are the responsibility of the giveaway owner. Please read each giveaway’s entry instructions carefully and only enter if it isn’t going to get you into any trouble in your location. GOOD LUCK EVERYONE!!

Visit again next Tuesday for a whole new list!

and don’t forget to tweet and share with your friends using the widgets below

(For those of you receiving this via RSS, you have to visit my real live blog to see the list of shops with sales. Not sure why, but looks like the Readers eat the linky code. sorry. )

I’ve been scarce of late.

Well, that’s not entirely true.  I’ve just not been here. Posting. Writing. Passing along stuff that might interest you, my lovely readers.

I’ve been performing a bit of soul searching; trying to figure out what makes a good balance. Where should I spend my time? Where should I spend my efforts? What activities actually contribute to my joie de vivre. Which activities do not? Probably a similar query to yours every now and again, right?

I’m an economic thinker at heart. Probably assimilated by my day gig. I tend to look at my personal activities and related things with an eye toward opportunity cost. Does the benefit outweigh the spend for me? And during the looking, more often than not, I tend to drop everything. And in this case, my online case, my blog life, my jewelry life, my online relationships, I did just that. Pretty much just bowed out of most everything online over the last month or so. I set things down to get a better look at what was around me. A sort of trees for the forest you might say.

And you know what I discovered? That I miss posting to my blog. Writing about things that interest me. Publishing a bit of data that might help other folks who are online just like me, that like to create, just like me. But I also discovered that I’m not very good on a deadline. And I’m not very good with publishing on a schedule without feeling like the clock is constantly ticking.

And you know what else? I’m not going to.

Blogging and interacting started out fun for me. I’m lucky enough to have a day gig, so I don’t have to rely on everything else to pay the bills. My time spent online equates to stress relief and fun. Or it should.

So I won’t be posting regularly. But I will be posting. I’ve no idea what I’ll be posting about. Once I start making jewelry again, I suppose it will find its way here again. I also expect I’ll be posting about stuff that makes me happy as well as stuff that irritates me. Stuff that’s fun. Stuff that’s interesting to me.

I hope it ends up fun or interesting reading for you too. And the opportunity cost is less than your alternatives. That would be my hope. And thanks for sticking with me.

Happy new year everyone…