We’re witnessing a generation of consumer web companies growing at an unprecedented rate in terms of both user adoption and revenue.

But here’s a little secret that’s gone unnoticed by most. It’s women. Female users are the unsung heroines behind the most engaging, fastest growing, and most valuable consumer internet and e-commerce companies. Especially when it comes to social and shopping, women rule the Internet.

The report also touches on the role of agencies, finding a split of opinion in client-side attitudes. “There are those that feel their agency is driving innovation and those just see them as paying lip service to a new practice in social media that isn‟t really an area of expertise or even investment.”

Those data suggest that the industry has come a long way in addressing an issue that has long troubled management at many of the larger agencies. The industry can ill afford to lose talent, and while there may be legitimate reasons for the decline in the percentage of women in older demographics, it would be smart to try to figure out ways to keep them.

* Get them signed up on our project management system (ours is a modified version of Redmine).
* Make sure they have a profile pic (it is nice to see their face when they post on stuff).
* Get an instant messaging program or Skype (I use Adium, so it doesn’t matter what platform they prefer.)
* You need some sort of version control. We use SVN for code and Dropbox for non-code (PSDs, DOCs, etc.).
* A conference call system if you have more than two people. We use Skype, iPhone merge calling, and freeconferencecall.com.
* For collaboration, I like join.me and Skype for screen sharing, and Jing or Skitch for annotating and screen casts.
* Get their socials and follow them. The best way to know what’s going on in their lives is through Facebook and Twitter, and since there’s no water cooler in your virtual office, making personal connections online is essential.

Parker is indulged because he has been a driving force in several pioneering internet companies, including Napster and Facebook (although he was ejected as president of Facebook for alleged bad behaviour) and has others up his sleeve. He is portrayed in The Social Network, the Facebook film, as a gifted but amoral playboy who charms his way to the side of Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s founder, and brutally ejects a rival.

According to the latest CIPR's Annual State of the PR Profession Survey, PR is dominated by women (65 per cent are female), yet men are more likely to hold a senior management or director position and are almost twice as likely to be earning a salary in excess of £50,000.

The yummiest way to use up over ripe bananas I have ever come across. See the comments for even yummier additions.

Unless you live on Pluto and you’re just in town for the temple fairs you probably know the situation with Groupon and their notorious Tibet ad. From within the China echo chamber it can be tricky to calibrate your reaction to this kind of thing. Those of us who live here are prone to flinch at things that people living in America don’t give a damn about. But we often learn that flinch reaction the hard way, over years of doing business in China and wrestling the occasional PR crisis.