Alana Brooks must be doing something right. Not only does she have a successful blog, she’s also hooked a job at a startup so hip that hip is in theie name. Alana is originally from Baltimore, and she came to Boston to study journalism at BU. This lasted until she realized that she wanted a job, so she switched to PR. And now she does social media for HipHost as well as engaging in a bazillion other social media tools. (She keeps touting the merits of StumbleUpon although I have no idea what that is. Maybe for journalistic purposes I should Google it, but I’m in a café that doesn’t have Internet. Also, does Internet really have to be capitalized MSWord? I would Google that, but alas, alack.)

I don’t have any direct quotes from Alana due to a recording malfunction and my photographic memory malfunction, but she’s pretty memorable. So here’s what I’ve got:

1) She used to eat bagels from Espresso Royale Café when she was in college and she hadn’t had one since then, so she was pretty excited when I suggested meeting there to chat.

2) More companies should make clothing for petite people. Although you can’t tell from her well-proportioned style photos, Alana is tiny. “Petite bloggers all wear the same things. Ann Taylor and J. Crew.”

3) Actually, too many bloggers wear the same things. We discussed the brilliance and perils of Modcloth embracing the blogging world. Brilliant from a marketing perspective, perilous in that some bloggers give up their innovative thrift and start wearing Modcloth exclusively.

4) Puppies! They must have come up at some point. Alana lives in the South End: Dog Capital of Boston. Also, sometimes she puts cute pictures of dogs on her blog, which is another good reason to read it.

5) Alana told me I should be a HipHost if I wanted to make extra money on the weekends. You can create any kind of tour on the HipHost website. I realized I value my weekends more than money, mostly because that is the only time I see my boyfriend, but if he lived closer I would definitely consider it. To all of you out there who want some easy extra money, this is way less sketchy than working for a psychic hotline. 

 So check out The Good Girl Gone Blog, and good reading!