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October 19, 2009
First set of SXSWi '10 panels announced
The first batch of panels for South by Southwest 2010 have been posted this morning on the official site.
SXSW says that more than 2,300 panel ideas were submitted via its Panel Picker and that a second round of panels will be announced on Nov. 9. In all, more than 300 panels will be part of the fest March 12-16.
Among the panels that caught my eye in this set of about 110 were, “2009 Iran Election: Women’s Revolution? Twitter Revolution?,” “From Trolls to Stars: The Commenter Ecosystem,” “Media Armageddon: What Happens When the New York Times Dies,” and “What Guys are Doing to Get More Girls in Tech!”
Also sprinkled in the list are panels whose topics I feel like I’ve seen 3 or 4 times before, or panels that are mostly about a Web celebrity who has already spoken at SXSWi, which is unfortunate.
For newcomers to the fest, this is a tantalizing early list, but for those who’ve attended before, a lot of the panels listed so far either seem too general (“Future of Context”) or panels that have literally been on the schedule in some form or fashion for 10 years (“Writing Web Content For A Living”).
Excited to see how the next batch of panels varies from this one.
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October 16, 2009
Gaming On at Mohawk
“Game On” is not only the set of words you can see next to a gigantic, terrifying representation of my head on the side of the highway, but also the name of last night’s Austin Chronicle/South by Southwest Interactive ScreenBurn event.
Upstairs at The Mohawk, Game Over Videogames had the inside lounge area covered with old-school Mario and Sonic games as well as four-player “GoldenEye 007” for the Nintendo 64 set up.
Wizards of the Coast had a “Magic: The Gathering” tabletop set up in anticipation of this weekend’s big Pro Tour tournament at the Austin Convention Center. (Free for you to go check out.)
Challenge Games showed off their brand-new Facebook 3-D football game, “Gridiron Live,” which has already been written up in TechCrunch. It’s free to play but tokens can be purchased to add players and capabilities. You can play against friends or single-player against the CPU.
The company said they have another big Facebook game in the works, to be released in a month or two.
Axelo showed off their new PC “BAT” controller, which brings tilt-sensitive motion controls (like the PlayStation 3 SIXAXIS) to Windows. It worked nicely in a flight combat game I tried. It’s going to be priced about $120, but a special introductory price will bring it closer to $79.
There were lots of iPhone and Wii games on display, 8-bit music and a “Rock Band” guitar tournament (no love for drummers, unfortunately).
Good time, good space — let’s keep these big video game events coming, Austin.
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January 5, 2009
Best tech trends of '08 and a look at '09
In yesterday’s paper, we ran a story listing what were (in my view), the top five tech trends of 2008 and what five technologies to look for in 2009 might be.
Of course, a list like this covers an awful lot of ground and must overlook a lot of trends that were certainly important just to keep it to five.
With unlimited space, I might have talked about coworking, electronic voting, the ascension of Netflix to multiple streaming platforms and online shopping.
But I’m a lot more curious about what you readers have to say. What were your top five tech trends of 2008 and what are your predictions for ‘09?
If case you don’t have time to read the whole article, here’s a tiny version of mine:
Trends of 2008:
- Cloud computing — your stuff, online.
- App stores — cell phones grow up, get programs.
- Social networks — Twitter and Facebook continued growing.
- Hybrids — gas prices spiked and people got interested.
- Screens — cheap displays meant more content on more screens.
And my picks for stuff to watch in 2009:
- Netbooks
- Off-site storage
- Smarter TVs
- New media gets more competitive
- Air/gesture-based computing/gaming
What do you think? Get to prognosticating!
Permalink | Comments (4) | Post your comment Categories: Applications, Austin, Computers, Gadgets, Internet, Movies & DVDs, Phones, SXSW, TV, Videogames
September 12, 2008
Sarah Lacy returns to Austin
Last night, journalist Sarah Lacy made a return to Austin, six months after her infamous South by Southwest interview with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
Lacy, who is tall, chatty and overwhelmingly positive, signed copies of her book, “Once You’re Lucky, Twice You’re Good: The Rebirth of Silicon Valley and the Rise of Web 2.0.”
The signing was part of an Austin Tech Happy Hour at The Marq on 5th and Congress Ave. It was well attended with startup geeks, PR professionals, coworking enthusiasts and all manner of networkers.
I wondered if Lacy would remember me from the YouTube video that helped fuel her notoriety and instead of clobbering me on the head, Lacy greeted me warmly and we reminisced about the fallout from the festival. It didn’t hurt that I purchased a copy of her book, which she graciously signed, “to Omar — I’m getting incriminating video of YOU tonight! Best, Sarah.”
After the signing, we talked about the changing journalism scene, Lacy’s upcoming projects. Already exhausted from her multi-city book tour and her frequent tech conference travels, she plans to take some time off next year and start work on her second book, which she’s already got an idea for. True to her word, Lacy shot a video of me with her Flip videocamera (who knows where it’ll end up?) and allowed me to shoot a follow-up video you can see below, past the photo.
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September 5, 2008
First impressions of 'Spore'
It would be impossible to pass judgment on Will Wright’s “Spore” in only the two nights I’ve been playing the game (the game hits U.S. stores on Sunday; we just received an early review copy on Wednesday).
Influenced at its core by “Powers of 10,” a 1977 short film about the relative scale of the universe, “Spore” seeks to be both infinitely expansive and as intimate of the living spaces of the bestselling PC game of all time, “The Sims.”
The game’s interface is slick, intuitive and polished to a high degree, no surprise given the many years it’s been in development and Wright’s reputation for great game design. But based on the first three stages of the game I played through, the game is slighter than I expected, though it’s brilliant on a technical level.
After choosing a planet to create life, players are thrown into the primordial ooze in what is in essence a high-def, gorgeously rendered version of “Pac-Man.” As your cellular creation grows, you can add parts when you mate with like creatures until you evolve enough to go on land.
Sounds great, but it took me less than an hour to get to the second stage.
The second phase, in which you’ve built a nest and walk the land seeking to hunt or befriend other species, is gorgeously rendered, but also short: a few hours was all it took to get to the tribal level, a take on classic real-time strategy games like “Warcraft” and “Civilization.”
Blazing through the stages is not the point, though: these stages are really sandboxes for players to exercise their creativity by building strange, unique creatures and sharing them with others. In this, “Spore” really shines. The first mass-market video game to embrace social networking on such a grand scale, “Spore” allows players to share anything they create with other players or to download other people’s species. The mechanism for this, available at every stage of the game, is beautifully realized. Accessing the “Sporepedia,” thousands of creations are instantly rendered on screen, laid out like individual playing cards. Players can also create screenshots, animated avatars and “Sporecasts” to further the contents of their universe.
The real star of the show, however, is the game’s fascinating “Creature Creator” which was previously released as a $10 stand-alone tool. With it, you can add mouths, limbs, spitting pods and all manner of biological errata to your creature. The tool renders changes and skin patters in real-time. Players can test drive their creatures, seeing them show an incredible range of expressions and actions. It’s a brilliant achievement and lots of fun to play with, but I wonder if hardcore gamers will find it has much staying power once the initial thrill is gone.
Does “Spore” get deeper in its gameplay as it goes? It’s too early in the gameplay to tell. But it does a lovely job recreating some of its antecedents from the history of video games while putting its own imaginative spin on sandbox gaming.
We’ll be following up with a full review of the game as we play through the remaining stages, “Civilization” and “Space.” Stay tuned.
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August 28, 2008
Odds and ends
Here are some bits that I’ve been meaning to tell you about, but have fallen through the cracks for one reason or another. It’s the catch-up entry:
- mtvU has launched campus guides for 25 colleges (they plan to expand to 50 by the end of the year) including the University of Texas at Austin. How is it? You tell me. The menu bars are orange; they got that right, at least.
- Screenburn, the awesome free-to-the-public games event that takes place during South by Southwest Interactive is holding a game design competition. Check out their site for details. Entries are being accepted through Dec. 5.
- AT&T has launched a home installation/repair service called AT&T Connectech, which is reminiscent of Best Buy’s Geek Squad (the guy on the home page is even wearing a blue shirt). Services start at around $70 and include 7-day-a-week on-site service. Sadly, I am my family’s Connectech.
- Still thinking about upgrading to a 3G iPhone from your first-gen iPhone, or just want to get rid of an iPod? A company called NextWorth will take your trade-ins and give you money (up to $200 for a good-condition iPhone first-gen) or store credit at participating stores (though none that I can see in the Austin area). I haven’t used it, so I can’t vouch for NextWorth, but I thought you should know. Trader beware.
- In case you missed it yesterday, a letter from a reader who can’t understand why people waste time with Twitter and Facebook received many insightful comments.
- Austin’s Pangea Software is offering its iPhone game “Enigmo” for $5.99 on the App Store, down from the usual $9.99 until next Wednesday. I haven’t played it yet, but I’ll be downloading it soon.
- The Statesman has submitted a panel idea for South by Southwest Interactive and today’s the last day to vote for it in the Panel Picker. Go check it out.
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May 9, 2008
Zuckerberg keynote ranks lowest in SXSWi survey
The little cards that South by Southwest Interactive 2008 attendees filled out (or, he said guiltily, failed to fill out) were collected and tabulated. The results of the scoring for all the panels at the festival have been tabulated and on the SXSW Interactive site. (Via SXSW Baby)
The post makes sure to point out that the results are far from scientific, but that doesn’t change the unsurprising outcome: the highly praised Jane McGonigal and Frank Warren keynotes were among the top-ranking panels from the festival, and the trainwrecky Mark Zuckerberg keynote was far and away the lowest-ranking.
Some other observations:
- Sponsored panels were all over the map, with one on angel investing ranking highly and a few on social networking ranking very low. You could conclude that attendees don’t mind sponsorship of panels as long as there’s high quality in the content.
- The top three panels — McGonigal, Warren and a panel about an Iraq military surgeon’s video blog — were emotional, human-driven panels that made a strong connection with their audiences. As we move forward in this barreling train of social networks and mobile communication, SXSWi would do well to remember that it’s these most human of stories that make for memorable festival experiences.
- Panels about branding didn’t score very well.
- Panels related to gaming ranked highly (including the McGonigal keynote).
Other thoughts on the panel feedback? Post them here in the comments.
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April 8, 2008
More awards for Web sites' virtual mantels
In case you aren’t already burned out on Internet-related awards after the Bloggies, the South by Southwest Interactive Web Awards and the YouTube Awards, you can vote on a whole new set of categories in the 12th Annual Webby Awards.
Or instead of voting, you could do what I’m doing and ignore it completely. The Webbys, which announced their nominations today, have five nominees for each of 70 categories (“Insurance?” “Pharmaceuticals?” You’re kidding, right?). Just looking down the list, you’ll see some ridiculous inclusion like The New York Times for “Best Copy/Writing.” I think their Web site might have gotten a little help in that department from the newspaper, don’t you?
In addition to nominating practically every Web site on the Internet, the Webbys also distinguish several hundred more sites as “Honorees.”
Way to honor so many Web sites that it makes the awards themselves completely meaningless.
No disrespect to the sites up for awards: many are the usual suspects you’d expect to be honored for great work online. But given that there are already awards for blogs and videos, you’d think the Webbys could narrow things down a little. As it stands, it seems pretty meaningless to me.
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April 4, 2008
Talking online content with Austin's Unicorn Media
It was lost amid the shuffle for me at South by Southwest Interactive, but a new Austin company launched during the festival and aims to be another option in the increasingly crowded online video and music market.
Unicorn Media says it wants to give artists (musicians and filmmakers, primarily) a platform to get their goods out online and make money from their work.
Why would artists do that instead of putting their own work on YouTube or MySpace and building an audience there?
Unicorn plans to split advertising revenue with its artist partners and employ a “Velvet rope” policy, accepting what it considers to be only the highest-quality content on the Web. But in the YouTube era, is a subjective set of the “highest-quality” videos and music what people really want (or are willing to sit through ads to get to, even if the content itself is free)?
Joe Bransom, vice president of Artist Relations at Unicorn Media, chatted with me by phone and talked about the young company. He said the traffic on the site so far is “incredible” since the festival, but he declined to say what “incredible” means in terms of numbers.
The festival launch, he said, was not really a push for Unicorn as a consumer experience, but more of a starting point to get artists on board. He says that video and audio will stream on the site, but that eventually artists will be able to decide what content they’d like to sell through the site (for example, song downloads) and that once an artist is accepted into the fold, they’ll be able to upload their own materials and have control of their own social media page. Artists who work with Unicorn won’t need to be exclusive to the service and retain all the rights to their work.
So far, Unicorn has signed indie record labels Silverback Records and Suburban Noise.
The quality of video, Bransom said, will be 700k HD quality and music will be CD quality. “We want to give the viewer an experience that’s much better than YouTube and other sites,” he said, “We don’t want any crappy video that’s not professionally produced.”
I asked Bransom about OnNetworks, another Austin company focused on online video. He made it clear that they’re not competitors — he said his company would more likely work with a company like that to distribute their videos to other parts of the Web.
Most notable for gadget heads: The company is looking at the possibility of a proprietary piece of hardware that could hook up to a TV or partnering with another company to bring Unicorn’s content to a service (like, maybe, Apple TV or any number of other streaming devices hitting the market to bring Internet video to the living room).
So what will Unicorn’s content focus on? Well, that’s a little fuzzy. Bransom said that as far as video, it’ll be a broad range: “We have content about elder care. We’re also getting into extreme videos like base jumping and snowmobiling off of cliffs. It could be a 12-year-old kid or a 50-year-old or older person,” he said, “pigeonholing an 18-35 (demographic) doesn’t really work with the Internet.”
But does lacking a firm target audience mean large volumes of content without a focused identity?
We’ll be watching Unicorn to see what develops. Who knows whether they have the right strategy. It seems as if there are dozens of new video sites popping up, all convinced they’re going to change the way we consumers entertainment.
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March 21, 2008
'Chocolate Rain' triumphs in YouTube Awards
The YouTubies have been announced!
The 2007 YouTube Video Award winners have been announced and although some familiar nominees didn’t make the winner’s circle (Obama Girl, the “Leave Britney Alone!” guy), one of our favorites, Tay Zonday, did win for music:
One winner with Austin ties is the series “The Guild,” which also recently won an On Networks/Greenlight award for best original series at South by Southwest.
You can see the nominees for the awards here: as usual on YouTube, it’s an eclectic mix of the silly, the profound and the truly weird.
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March 18, 2008
South by Southwest parenting co-op?
New York City blogger Jeffrey Zeldman has posted an entry on his site today suggesting that visitors to the South By Southwest Interactive Festival form a parenting collective next year to pool resources. It would allow parents to bring their kids to Austin to the festival and not have to choose between spending a week away from their children or missing SXSW Interactive.
As the fest grows (and it was huge this year), I think more and more people are going to be forming groups to deal with logistics like this. It felt as if there were more first-time attendees this year than I’ve ever seen at the fest. Now that these festgoers know the lay of the land, they’ll be much more organized next year, and we’ll see things like this come to fruition.
I can speak about my own experiences at Interactive: I live 45 minutes away and I found myself getting home anywhere from midnight to 2:30 a.m. and getting up the next morning to come right back. I didn’t see my 7-month-old that entire weekend. My wife and I knew this would happen in advance and asked family for baby-sitting help. My daughter stayed out of day care until the last day of the fest, when I decided to skip the evening events and end my SXSWi early.
Even living close to town, it was still logistically tricky to be a parent and make the most of the festival. I spoke to lots of local parents and SXSWi attendees who skipped the evening events altogether to be at home. This doesn’t seem ideal to me if you’re serious about making the most of Interactive. There were some great nighttime events, lots more networking than you’d see in panels and just a lot of fun and relaxation to be had. It’s never been clearer that South by Southwest Interactive is about more than panels and keynotes. We can expect even more parties, happy hours and socials next year: parents are going to need an action plan. Zeldman’s suggestion is an excellent start.
Parents who went to South by Southwest Interactive: What were your strategies for balancing the fest and your home life?
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: Austin, Baby-daddy, Internet, SXSW
March 17, 2008
Looking back on the SXSW Interactive we missed
After going home for some major baby time and watching a lot of TV, I’m finally allowing my brain to go back to South by Southwest Interactive, that joyous, overfilled pot of multimedia goodness that by Tuesday afternoon felt like it had spilled itself all over the Twitterscape and the blogging world.
There is so much to cover at the festival (especially this year, the largest SXSW Interactive ever) that even a team of several people working full time can only hope to capture a fraction of it.
Here are a few things we missed that still deserve a second look:
The Web Awards and the Bloggies: Every year I plan to go to the Web Awards and every year something happens to thwart those plans. This year, it was posting a video of Sarah Lacy that kept me in the Hilton lobby, away from my planned evening of laughing over what I expected would be hilarious jokes from Eugene Mirman. There’s a picture floating around Facebook of winners from the Web Awards partying while I sit in the background against a tiny corner, hunched over my laptop editing video, like some SXSW Smeogal, fascinated by the glow of my precioussss. You can find the winners of the Web Awards, and the next day’s Bloggies at their respective houses of Internet worship.
The On Networks/Greenlight Awards: Same excuse as above. The Lacy story was breaking and I had to cut bait on a lot of Sunday night events I’d committed to. Here’s the winner, incidentally, and a photo from the event that the organizers were nice enough to send afterward. Former Austinite and creator and star of “The Guild” Felicia Day is second from the left.
Photo by Mary Sledd
The closing night party: If you went to this, you either have much more stamina than I have, or you just didn’t party quite as hard the rest of the week. Cheers to those who went. I was at home, entering the beginning stages of a deep coma.
Sched.org: We used this marvelous little scheduling application throughout the festival but didn’t write much about it. (The iCal exporting made my iPhone happy, and I felt very organized having it in my hand at all times.) One of the best parts of the festival was when I showed it to Michael Barnes for the first time and saw his eyes light up. (He’ll be writing more about it today in his Out & About blog.) I will be very disappointed if there’s not something this useful at every major future Austin festival, including Austin City Limits and next year’s South by Southwest.
The Facebook people party: I missed a lot of good stuff Monday night because of a detour to Trudy’s. I had already seen Mark Zuckerberg the night before at a Pangaea party and just didn’t feel like I needed to do that two nights in a row. Besides, if I had gone to Pangea, would I have gotten this picture with Eric from my favorite Web site, Icanhascheezburger.com? Nope, I didn’t think so. Plus the photos posted to Facebook from that party later don’t make me feel like I missed too much.
Phizzpop Design Challenge: Another one I missed due to “Going with the flow” Monday night. I blame the “How to Rawk SXSW” panel for planting that idea in my head.
Barcamp: I was only there for an hour, but I saw enough fun being had, that I left reluctantly, sure that the people attending were going to be having the time of their lives.
Music? Apparently, there was some sort of music festival that broke out right after Interactive? Did anybody hear about this? Huh. Maybe I should check that out next year.
Permalink | | Categories: Internet, SXSW
March 12, 2008
What happened? Deconstructing the Sarah Lacy Incident
I ran into journalist Sarah Lacy at the Java Jive coffee shop at the Hilton Hotel on Tuesday afternoon.
I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to get her thoughts on what had happened two days ago during her infamous interview with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, in which the crowd turned on her, heckling her with insults like “Ask better questions!”
The interview got so disruptive that Lacy had to surrender to the audience, letting them ask the questions. A stunned Lacy said she had thought the interview was going well.
During our 20-minute conversation, Lacy had an upbeat attitude about what had happened Sunday afternoon, even though, it’s a journalist’s worst nightmare and the blogosphere is still abuzz with what happened.
Several prominent technology Web sites have written comprehensive stories mostly about how she conducted the interview, not about what Zuckerberg had to say. Even publications such as Advertising Age and Wired have written about the dust-up.
It can be tough to be a female business reporter, much less covering technology, Lacy said. This isn’t the first time she has been attacked for “just doing my job.”
At the end of the day, she said you have to shrug off the criticism, and go out and talk to people about what happened.
That’s what she did, she said, at South by Southwest, attending parties and even conducting an interview with Glamour magazine the next day.
Lacy said she had discussed the interview beforehand with Zuckerberg, Facebook officials and South by Southwest organizers.
She said obviously Facebook and South by Southwest wanted someone with a business focus, otherwise they wouldn’t have asked her to come. One of the things Lacy was criticized for was asking too many questions on the business decisions and managing of Facebook.
She also mentioned that she is the only reporter who enjoys close access to Zuckerberg, and that is how she is able to pull answers out of him. She thinks her ability to get Zuckerberg talking was not appreciated enough during the hour-long interview. Zuckerberg is notorious for being a difficult interview, answering in either short sentences or in clunky PR phrases.
Lacy also mentioned that South by Southwest organizers asked her not to take questions from the audience. (Hugh Forrest, SXSW Interative director, says that interpretation is not entirely accurate.) One of the huge frustrations of the event was people in the audience weren’t allowed to ask questions until the last five minutes.
Meanwhile, Lacy said people have come up to her or e-mailed her apologizing for what happened during the interview. She said more people have said nice things to her than negative things, and Robert Scoble, a well-known technology blogger, even apologized to her for things he said on the Web site Twitter during her interview.
After hearing what Lacy had to say, I spoke to Forrest, the SXSW Interactve director, by phone today. He shed some light on what had happened behind the scenes.
He said Facebook and SXSW did collaborate on who to bring as an interviewer of Zuckerberg, but that ultimately it was Facebook’s call.
“I had recommended a bunch of people, journalists I knew in town,” Forrest said. He said they were more comfortable with Lacy. “They felt Mark was more comfortable with (her) and wanted to minimized his discomfort level.”
Forrest said he wished there had been more publicity and press about what Zuckerberg actually said during the wide-ranging interview, instead of Lacy.
“In retrospect, there are a million things we wish we did differently,” he said.
For instance, he said he would have networked more with Lacy beforehand.
“Afterward, I talked to Facebook and asked them if they had done this, gone over all the details with Sarah, if they had done that,” Forrest said. “It is just one of those planning things where it seemed right.”
As far as whether SXSW organizers asked Lacy not to ask questions, Forrest said all he said was “Let’s be clear that Facebook is comfortable asking questions.”
“I was disappointed because we got a lot of publicity, but for all the wrong reasons,” Forrest said. “Wish it had gone better, but it didn’t. We live and learn.”
The heckling might scare away more people like Zuckerberg from coming to speak at South by Southwest, Lacy had told me. I asked Forrest about this.
“I hope not,” he said. “It was great to have him involved,” he said. “He certainly brought us a lot of attention before that we might not have had.”
He pointed out that Frank Warren’s Post Secret keynote was received enthusiastically the next day, and audience members left moved by the emotional speech.
He added that what happened during the keynote was in the spirit of SXSW Interactive. “In the past, three years ago, five, twenty years ago, this type of reaction would have taken three or four hours. Now we have the technology that it’s absolute real time. People are connecting with other people who are frustrated,” Forrest said.
“The rules of engagement are changing with this new technology,” he added. “Maybe that is the big point to be taken away from all of this.”
I thought our conversation was done, but Forrest called back 10 minutes later.
He wanted to add a point: that Zuckerberg was a big speaker for them, and the crowd was excited and nervous to see him on a level that SXSW Interactive wasn’t used to.
People packed into two ballrooms, with folks standing and sitting on the floor in the main room.
“We never had the amount of energy and nervousness on a speech as the thing with Mark,” Forrest said. “To some degree, that may have negatively impacted the presentation.”
“Everyone in this event would love to be in his (Zuckerberg’s) position,” he said, “being young, able to dictate the terms of what you are going to do, and how that is going to change the Internet. Plus, he doesn’t talk that much to the public, and they wanted to see if he was going to say anything.”
To those who bothered to listen, he did.
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March 11, 2008
Dear old media: your days are numbered
I’ve been to funerals that were cheerier and more upbeat than the last panel I attended at South by Southwest Interactive. (To be fair, they were pet funerals, but they were beloved gerbils.)
The panel “Roll Over Gutenberg, Tell McLuhan The News” (average blogger: “Who?”) was a mournful dirge declaring, basically, that old media is up the creek without a paddle, or even so much as a rolled-up newspaper.
George Kelly, online coordinator for the Contra Costa Times, said “Time is growing short” for mainstream publications who hope to utilize this whole Internet craze to keep themselves relevant.
Despite news blips like yesterday’s New York Times online explosion over the New York governor, Kelly believes old media is in for some hard times: “I’m thinking about death. I’m thinking about the end of the industry as we know it. Not seeing a rebirth.”
It made for the most depressing time I had at the festival. Audience members within an already-small turnout streamed out little by little as Kelly ran a one-man panel that invited lots of audience questions, all of which were greeted with a meaningful pause, then more bad news about why newspapers just don’t get it. To paraphrase “Mystery Science Theater 3000,” the panel had more pauses than a Pinter play.
The panel could have really benefited from a few more panelists, perhaps even someone on the new media side who could offer perspective from the other side of the equation.
The few, if any, bright spots, are for old media to find ways to do meaningful, useful reporting using new media tools like Twitter, Facebook or databases. Kelly mentioned one New York Times project that allows readers to see where U.S. soldier deaths from the war in Iraq are concentrated by the zip code of where they came from.
Finding better ways to reach users on mobile phones is also a potential area for growth.
But overall, Kelly said, old media jobs are going away and aren’t being replenished.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go see if we have any Prozac in the house.
Permalink | | Categories: Austin, Internet, SXSW
Jane McGonigal: Life Needs to be More like Games
Jane McGonigal has been researching happiness.
As a futurist, part of her job entails predicting what is going to happen. So she’s been doing a lot of reading and research into the study of happiness. What makes people happy?
“This isn’t about warm fuzzy feelings,” McGonigal said. “This is understanding the human brain and body. And the kind of optimal conditions that let us live a high quality of life.”
And what is the answer … ta-dah: Games.
It turns out what makes us happy is: having satisfying work to do, the experience of being good at something, time spent with people we like, and the chance of being apart of something bigger.
She equates all of this to games. She said games are built to satisfy people who aren’t equipped to deal with life. They get feedback and rewards. Imagine that!
McGonigal says she thinks life should be more like games. What if there was a game that rewarded you and encouraged you to do chores? What about exercise?
Basically, she’s talking about the concept of alternative reality and serious games.
These are games that are developed with a purpose other than entertainment.
“For a lot of gamers their experience of life is that it is not sufficiently deigned for them to be good at, in the way that games are,” McGonigal said.
Permalink | | Categories: SXSW
Bloggers who made it
“Bloggers who made it” was inspirational for people considering starting up blogs or quitting their jobs to focus full-time on their Web sites or blogs.
Celebrity baby blog writer-founder Danielle Friedland spoke about how she got the idea for her site while watching the Golden Globe awards in 2004. She noticed a lot of celebrities were having babies, and her husband suggested she write about it. But nobody cares, she said. Well, she was wrong.
The panelists included Ken Fisher from Ars Technica, who said he has about seven full-time staffers now, including a physicist. It’s important to him, he said, to really know what they are talking about when writing about technology.
There’s also Manish Bhatia with Left Lane News, who said he started blogging in 1996, which may make him one of the first bloggers.
Then there’s Jill Fehrenbacher, who runs Inhabitat.com, a design blog.
She used to work at a marketing company, designing banner ads for credit card companies, when she decided to simultaneously go to architecture school and start a blog. She ditched school and kept the blog.
They all had interesting things to say about what it takes to go from hobby to business. Friedland said she not only quit her job a couple of years ago, but her husband quit his job. “Being able to put him on an allowance is pretty cool.”
Fehrenbacher’s take on journalists vs. bloggers: “What makes blogs interesting and different is they have perspective. It’s not people with journalistic training. That is a benefit to us.”
Bhatia commented that at the Consumer Electronics Show, bloggers had different badges than journalists. He didn’t know which to take, so he grabbed both.
But they all agreed that more than anything, it takes passion. You can’t go into blogging thinking you’ll strike it rich, Friedland said. You have to really care about, well, in her case, celebrities making babies.
Bhatia said he almost gave up in 2001 and went to graduate school. What stopped him? Google’s AdSense came along and gave him a much-needed revenue boost.
Permalink | | Categories: SXSW
Casual MMOs: Keeping virtual peeps coming back
When people think of massively multiplayer online games, they think of “World of Warcraft” of other brawny, mind-bogglingly huge video games that include “Everquest,” “Tabula Rasa” or “Eve Online.”
But many of the most popular online games are aimed toward casual users and offer simple graphics, quick gameplay and a much broader potential audience. “Scrabulous,” the popular Facebook Scrabble-like game, is an example, as are many kid-friendly online worlds like Club Penguin and Habbo.com.
As the fest wound down on Tuesday, a half-packed panel called, “Casual Multi-Player Online Games: Serious Revenues” began with a limerick about journalist Sarah Lacy and her keynote with Mark Zuckerberg, but soon got down to more serious business.
Panelists, including representatives from Mind Candy (“Moshi Monsters”), Gaia Online and Conduit Labs agreed that the challenges in creating these new virtual worlds are making money online. Should casual games charge a subscription or should they rely on sales of virtual objects or advertising?
Another challenge is keeping players engaged: they have an insatiable desire for new content and it falls on the developers to keep these games fresh, interesting and fun.
Disney is putting $100 million into 10 virtual world projects, including the recently launched “Pirates of the Caribbean” and many online games will seek to take advantage of a generational shift: players younger than 25 don’t make such clear distinctions between “Virtual” and “Real” life because they’ve lived with both for much of their lives.
One thing is clear: if there are more successes like “Scrabulous” and “Puzzle Pirates,” expect a flood of games.
“Once big media wakes up to something, they tend to oversaturate the market,” said panelist Nabeel Hyatt of Conduit Labs.
Permalink | | Categories: Austin, Internet, SXSW, Videogames
Packed in for Eisner
I couldn’t hear a thing at this morning’s packed talk by Michael Eisner, who was interviewed by Mark Cuban, so here are some highlights from people who could.
CNet: Cuban asked Eisner if he thought traditional media would ever “get” online content. “I think they should participate, and they will eventually be very successful,” Eisner said. “These people are not stupid. They understand what’s happening. The business, though—the economics are so small.” For an emerging field without huge profits (yet), it might not be up their alley.
PaidContent: The pair on stage had a good back and forth on the future of broadband entertainment. Mark Cuban reiterated his long-held view that the technology won’t be there for awhile to really deliver interactive HD video to the home. Eisner predicted that within five years the internet will be as important content-wise as cable or satellite (note that’s a clear prediction as compared to his previously vague statements about the timeline for all of this). Cuban then started talking tech, explaining why it won’t happen, to which Eisner just replied: “This is why I’m in content.” Basically meaning: we’ll let you guys figure out the tech, and I’ll make a good story.
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Angel Investing 101
Attended a great panel on angel investing.
Panelist David Rose, of AngelSoft, spent an hour going over the basics of how to find and get angel investors for your start-up.
(Angel investors, by the way, are investors who want to give money to early-stage companies. These are companies that sometimes don’t even have a product yet or are in the very early stages of developing and distributing a product or service.)
Here are some of the highlights from this well-attended panel:
• Do friends and family investing first. Angel investors want to know that you have some “skin in the game,” that you’ve invested all you can, and that your friends and family believe in you enough to invest.
• Look for individual angel to invest, but angel groups are a great way to find investors. These groups typically invest between $250,000 and $2 million.
• Look for groups in your area. They are more likely to invest in local companies.
• What do angels look for in a business? That it’s scalable. That the founder has an unfair advantage. Why can’t somebody else do this from scratch? A great entrepreneur. Low investment required. A reasonable valuation. For angel investing, a typical valuation can be around $1 to $3 million. A really (think 3,000 percent) good return on investment. This is because most deals fail to return anything. But the single most important this is YOU — the founder.
• So what do angels look for in the entrepreneur? Number one thing is integrity. Are you squeaky clean? Number two thing is passion. Other factors are: experience, knowledge, skills, leadership ability, etc.
• Most angel groups allow you to apply online. Read the questions carefully. You’d be surprised how many people don’t actually read the questions. Submit a video pitch. Do your research and target groups that are likely to want to fund your company.
• But, if you’ve submitted these online pitches and haven’t gotten any bites after six months, time to go back to the drawing board. Either fund it yourself or maybe move on to another idea.
• Most start-ups don’t get past the application stage. But if you do, there will be a screening process and possibly the chance to meet with a coach.
• Once you meet with the angel group, you might also meet with the wider network.
• You’ll have due diligence meeting.
• If the funding is completed and term sheets signed, angels become involved in your company, like mentors, helping guide you and grow your company. It’s not just a check.
By the way, Austin has an angel group called the Central Texas Angel Network.
Permalink | | Categories: SXSW
March 10, 2008
Modern marketing
A few brief notes from Monday’s session “Self-Replicating Awesomeness: The Marketing of No Marketing.” Moderator David Parmet led a discussion on what he called the best kind of marketing, the kind you don’t notice.
Deborah Schultz — It’s less about technology and more about the way you look at customers. Don’t be afraid of tools that let you hear back from customers.
Chris Heuer — Social media change how we relate to each other. They change the relationship between companies and consumers. A company can’t just say “build me a community” and expect results. Don’t just think about giving away a product to build relationships with customers. You can share knowledge and bring people together to learn from each other and communicate.
Jeremiah Owyang — The companies that are best at this type of marketing let go and let customers take charge.
Tara Hunt — After finding jobs and other opportunities by first giving away her work, she believes in the value of social capital, your relationships and reputation. Giving away some of your work shows people that you have knowledge. For example, you could give away general advice, and then a client will pay to get more specific advice from you.
Hugh McCleod — Communities form over “social objects” like a new phone or gadget. Corporations tend to think of community is a lever they can pull to make it to do what they want. The shift in marketing is from “here’s why you should buy X’ to social gesture, such as getting product samples to opinion leaders on MySpace.
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Managing creativity
How can your group create creative results, on a deadline, over and over again? Bryan Mason and Sarah Nelson of Adaptive Path studied theater troupes, orchestras, a restaurant kitchen, a magazine and a screenwriting collective to find out how these creative groups work well together, and came away with “10 Tips for Managing a Creative Environment,” which they presented Monday afternoon.
Cross-train the entire team. Give all members of the team experience with other related disciplines and administrative tasks. It’s important to have a sense of what others are experiencing. It makes the group cohesive, so that it’s easier for members to step into new roles as needed. It also teaches empathy.
Rotate creative leadership. In the Neo-Futurists theater troupe, actors make final decisions on the plays they wrote, but then they also act in fellow troupe members’ plays. Having ownership of their own play makes them more willing to play along with another troupe member’s ideas when he or she is directing.
Actively turn the corner. The creative process has two parts: Divergence is when everyone is throwing out new ideas and considering the possibilities. Convergence is when an idea has been chosen and the focus shifts to executing it. The key is making sure everyone feels part of this shift and is aware that it has been made. There can be problems when some people think the group is in the brainstorming phase while others have moved on to execution.
Know your roles. Once that corner is turned, members of successful teams know what their “battle stations” are — they know what they’re supposed to do, what they can make decisions on and what they can’t.
Practice, practice, practice. In crunch time, you want to know that what is supposed to happen is what will happen. Find ways to try new people and new methods during times that aren’t mission critical.
Make the mission explicit to the whole team. In the making of “Avenue Q,” creators set the theme of the main character searching for his purpose in life to determine what material would stay in the show.
Kill your darlings. When you’re getting rid of material, do it in a respectful way. Another “Avenue Q” example: Songs that got cut weren’t rejected, they were “going in the TV show” (although there were no plans for such a show).
Leadership is a service. Being a leader is the ultimate support position.
Generate projects around the group’s creative interests to give people more ownership and engagement.
Remember your audience. In creative work, it’s easy to get caught up in your own creative vision. it’s easy to
And they threw in a No. 11: Celebrate failure. It’s a necessary byproduct of theh creative process. There is something in every project that can be done better next time. Let people know it’s OK to fail.
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PostSecret's Frank Warren makes all of SXSW cry
If there were blog categories here for “emotional” and “profound,” I’d be using them.
Frank Warren’s Monday keynote about his Web site, PostSecret.com (which was written about by Lilly Rockwell Sunday), was one of the most well-received and humanistic South by Southwest Interactive panels I’ve ever seen.
It was everything the Mark Zuckerberg kerfuffle wasn’t.
In fact, stunned audience members left the packed convention center ballroom wiping away tears. One person said, “This just turned the whole festival around for me.” In the hallways, attendees couldn’t get over how moved they’d been by Warren’s lovely, generous and heartbreaking presentation (which is bring me close to tears now just writing about it).
PostSecret.com features cards sent in by readers sharing their deepest secrets.
Warren began with a video presentation of some of those cards set to a song by Tori Amos. He read some examples of confessions from his site: from a barista, “I serve decaf to customers who are rude to me.” From an expectant father: “I know she’s not mine, but I love her anyway.”
Some of the funnier South by Southwest confessions: “All these Web celebs have never worked for clients.” “I have a SXSW crush, but I’m married.” “My company, a large one, sent me to SXSW to steal ideas from start-ups. I’m pretending to be a freelancer.”
Whoah!
Warren said some people just want to share a funny story. Others, he says, “are mailing in secrets to search for grace or to be able to apologize to someone or search for a greater sense of authenticity.”
Things got even more emotional during the Q&A after Warren’s fine and warm presentation: A guy from the audience proposed to his girlfriend. She said yes. An Austin woman confessed that her sister is sick and that she fears she may die.
Warren encouraged attendees to “Free your secrets and become who you are.”
Clearly taken aback by the appreciation of the very large audience, he said, “What a special place. I’m coming back to South by Southwest.”
Before the keynote, which may go down in SXSW history as one of the best (and worth finding online when the video is posted by the fest), director Hugh Forrest addressed yesterday’s Mark Zuckerberg/Sarah Lacy keynote.
“When we say ‘South by Southwest Interactive,’ we do mean interactive,” Forrest said.
Permalink | | Categories: Austin, Internet, SXSW
Laughing with the LOLcats guys
Doesn’t it seem like you’ve been reading I Can Has Cheezburger? for more than a year? Yet that’s about how long the addictive LOLcats site has been around.
Two of the players behind the site shared its Cinderella story with a large and thoroughly charmed audience at Sunday’s 5 p.m. session. They even gave away free cheeseburgers.
Site founder Eric Nakagawa (aka Cheezburger, as he’s known on the site) shared how the it all began when a friend (known on the site as Tofuburger) sent him the picture of a cheerful looking gray cat with the “I can has cheezburger?” caption. When he finally quit laughing, Nakagawa bought the domain name. The Web site that now gets 1.5 million page views a day started with that single image.
While LOLcats were floating around already on the Web, Nakagawa and Tofuburger decided to compile them in a blog organized with tags.
They began the site as a hobby, but its offbeat humor caught on. Nakagawa drew laughs from the audience as he talked about living a kind of “double life”: working at his day job while e-mailing site users in LOLcat speak. At the same time, he was handling problems like server crashes, adding features like the “cheezburger factory,” which made it easier for users to create their own cat macros, and sleeping not at all.
Site CEO Ben Huh, who wore a cheeseburger hat with great aplomb, joined the storytelling to talk about the growth of Cheezburger after it was purchased last summer. It now has nine full- and part-time employees. The site gets 8,000 pictures a day, and posts about six of those. Huh says the site has a “keep it simple” philosophy. The goal after it was bought was that users would not notice a change at all. They focus on growing the core group of users who love the site.
The Q&A was also lively, with one audience member asking Nakagawa and Huh about whether they used LOLspeak in real life (she admitted to saying “nomnomnom” — LOLspeak for eating — a lot during Thanksgiving). They both admitted to doing so, and Nakagawa even talked in the voice of the LOLrus. Eric and Ben, fans - you has them.
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Zuckerberg watch: billionaire unfazed at developer meetup
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg answered some real questions (ones posed in the form of a question) at a Facebook application developer gathering at Pangaea at 4:30 p.m. today.
Zuckerberg briefly mentioned the unpleasantness of Sunday’s keynote speech, but didn’t seem particularly disturbed by what happened and he defended journalist Sarah Lacy.
Zuckerberg used the occasion of the “make-up Q&A” to talk directly with developers. Questions posed included questions about Facebook’s place in the international community (the company is talking about how to deal with its site in China; it plans to include regions in its site for countries the U.S. recognizes), whether it will create its own currency/market or use someone’s else’s infrastructure (no real decision there) and how it will handle privacy concerns versus opening its platform (carefully).
The Q&A lasted about 30 minutes and was pleasant. Zuckerberg seemed unfazed about all the negative attention to his keynote and, dressed in a zip-up sweater, seemed ready for tonight’s Facebook party.
Brief aside: I met the CEO late last night at Pangaea. He was walking past me and we were right in front of the club near the live band.
The exchange went like this: he walked by — I poked him (as I would on Facebook) and offered my hand. He shook it and we leaned in to talk, but couldn’t hear each other. I tried to introduce myself. He couldn’t hear me.
“What?” he said.
I tried again. He couldn’t hear me. It was really loud.
Finally I said, “Welcome to Austin!”
He nodded and hurried away.
I ask the tough questions.
We’re gonna need a better photo app.
Permalink | | Categories: Austin, Internet, SXSW
So what did Zuckerberg say?
By now you’ve all heard of the keynote Incident in which audience members started heckling journalist Sarah Lacy as she interviewed Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
It was pretty brutal to watch, as the audience members chafed at Lacy’s chatty, conversational style, and at one point yelled at her to “Ask more interesting questions!”
But enough of that.
Here are some highlights of what Zuckerberg had to say:
-“A lot of people thought it was a college thing for a long time,” Zuckerberg said. But he assured his audience that this is a “long-term” thing. “What we are tapping into is a universal need,” he said, the need to connect and communicate is a “fundamental thing,” and eventually, “this or something else like it can be used by everyone in the world.”
-On Microsoft: “They are very happy. We are very happy…I can tell you that it’s going very well for both of us.”
-On advertising/Beacon: “When we announced that, we probably got a little ahead of ourselves. We said we had more of it figured out that we probably did. We view that as a mistake that we made.”
The first iteration of Beacon was “just trying to get it out.” There were “a lot of mistakes in how we communicated it.”
“We’re still relatively new still and figuring this stuff out.”
-Discussed how the company structure is to build the Facebook platform, but an increasing number of applications “we’re not developing.”
“We know our DNA isn’t set to develop these things,” Zuckerberg said. We try to build a platform that allows other people to build services, he said.
-When asked if these privacy concerns were going to keep cropping up, Zuckerberg pointed out that 20 to 25 percent of Facebook users share their cell phones with their friends on the site. “Actually giving granular control, the more information we will be able to share and achieve our goals,” Zuckerberg said.
-Incentive system. Users are fundamentally good, Zuckerberg said. Their process keeps them in line. The more requests get approved, the more privileges, etc.
-When asked about article in the Financial Times that discussed the possibility of an iTunes-like music feature on Facebook, Zuckerberg’s first response was “I don’t know.”
“What is going on there is we talk to a lot of companies all the time about a lot of different things. There are great music applications. That is a vertical we haven’t gone after at all…music is not something we really touched on a lot.”
“As a company we’re out, talking to different companeis in this space, but at this point, I can say that … we have nothing to talk about right now.”
-Zuckerberg said along with Microsoft’s 1.6 percent stake and the $15 billion valuation came high expectations. He said recruiting can be difficult because it can attract people who may want to work for Facebook because they think they will strike it rich with an initial public offering or a sale of the company.
-An initial public offering or sale of the company “is not the goal. That’s really not what we are trying to go for.”
-When asked about the hiring of Sheryl Sandberg as chief operating officer, who was snagged away from Google, Zuckerberg said Facebook has about 500 employees now. “Having someone who can help us scale is incredibly important in the coming years,” he said. “I think she has a good track record.”
-When asked why he wants to be CEO, Zuckerberg said: “What the CEO does is sets the tone for the organization and sets the tone for what you are trying to build. Being in that role is a good way to make sure the organization focuses on that.”
-Being a technology company is an important part of the culture. Zuckerberg said they have a lot of empathy toward developers.
-When asked about whether Google was mad because Facebook is trapping so much information, Zuckerberg said in an aw-shucks manner, “No, those guys are nice.”
Anything else I missed? Tell me in the comments section.
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March 9, 2008
Journalist Sarah Lacy speaks: the video
Journalist Sarah Lacy, who interviewed Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg for his South by Southwest Interactive keynote, is already laughing off The Incident.
Saying she’s used to rough treatment as a woman covering technology, she seemed in high spirits after the Austin Convention Center was ground zero for a public flogging of the journalist.
She says she’s not too upset: her Amazon.com book rating is through the roof, she says.
See the video below:
Permalink | Comments (8) | Categories: Austin, Internet, SXSW
Journalist Sarah Lacy speaks
I just spoke to Sarah Lacy, the journalist heckled at the Mark Zuckerberg keynote. I’ll be posting a video very soon.
Stay tuned
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South by Southwest Interactive panel shorties: Day 2
Here some stuff from Saturday that we’re wrapping up:
Kill Your Mouse/Kinetic Computing — Rather than a mouse and keyboard, will we be using cool “Minority Report”-style floating screens or what? The panel consisted of usability experts and people who are working on the next generation of human interfaces, including Microsoft’s “Surface” table/touch-screen computer and Kai Huang of RedOctane, the publisher of the “Guitar Hero” games. The panel seemed to agree that letting people hack and improve your products is a good thing, but nobody expects the mouse/keyboard interface to go away anytime soon. We were asked to think about what we define as a mouse. The goal is to create an interface so easy and intuitive that you don’t have to think about it. That’s easier said than done, of course. One interesting tidbit: when Huang was asked whether he had any idea if “Guitar Hero” would become such a huge hit, he said “No clue. If I did, I wouldn’t have sold my company (to Activision).”
Girls in IT — We’ve written before about the dearth of women in technology and what local groups are doing about it. The panel reiterated what we’ve heard before: that more young women need to be encouraged to embrace science and technology and that the system is inherently difficult to make that happen. One interesting find: Girls performing more poorly on math tests when asked their gender before the test. Panelists encouraged parents to spend more time making sure their daughters don’t fear math and science and to get more involved with their education. Said panelist J Strother Moore, the Chair of Computer Science at the University of Texas at Austin, “We’re basically ignoring half of the population and then complaining that there aren’t enough workers.” From one commenter on the intra-panel chat room: “I was always really hard on myself about grades too, but I never realized it was because I was female.”
Behind the scenes at the Onion News Network — The online video talent of the Onion media empire spoke on the challenges of writing and producing comedy for online, including casting (it helps to cast soulless, interchangeable talent, they said) and avoiding topics that are too on-the-nose. They said the key is creating a tone similar to the popular print/online newspaper and to stick as closely to the language/looks of 24-hour news networks as possible with high-production values (or at least stuff that looks like it). The group is expanding into a morning-style show, a Sunday morning political-style show and other types of media-aping productions. Most hilarious; the “Ninja Parade” video. The panel ended with a bit of taboo: a video planned for a DVD and never released publicly was shown with lots of warning to audience members. It featured a news report with a window that showed hard-core pornography as the topic of smut on TV was discussed. Even with the warnings, some stunned audience members muttered, “Wow,” when it was over. As usual, The Onion mixed shocks with hilarity.
Permalink | | Categories: Austin, Internet, SXSW, Videogames
Zuckerberg keynote: audience turns on journalist
You’ll hear more about this later, but BusinessWeek columnist Sarah Lacy lost control of her interview with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and things got ugly.
Audience members began interjecting, others demanded the Q&A start early so as not to hear more of Lacy’s non-questions and finally the audience boo’d and applauded when Lacy tried to defend herself or when Zuckerberg dodged one of her questions or told her he’d answer them better if she asked some.
Zuckerberg didn’t seem to want to reveal much, but he seemed peeved that Lacy mentioned his site would be launching in France before Zuckerberg could make the announcement himself.
The audience revolution was not pretty. Lacy didn’t score points by plugging her book about Facebook (“You should read it,” she advised the 23-year-old billionaire) or by being very chummy, mentioning past interviews and a recent dinner.
UPDATE: Our video has been posted.
Were you at the keynote? What did you think? Please post a comment here and let us know.
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Social change, one phone at a time
“Mobileactive: How Mobile Technology Impacts Politics and Vice Versa” looked at how small devices — mobile phones — can generate big changes in politics and activism.
We couldn’t stay for the whole session, but learned enough to be intrigued and want to learn more.
The main panelist we got to hear was Katrin Verclas of the site MobileActive, which teaches activists how to use mobile technology.
Examples she gave of mobile activism included human-rights videos being spread by mobile phone in Egypt and a campaign to get citizens to call legislators in Argentina. In Sierra Leone, cell phones made it easier to monitor elections for abuses.
She said that in the U.S text messaging has helped spur young people to vote. She also talked about an SMS campaign in California where messages from residents on health care streamed onto a large screen set up near the Capitol in Sacramento.
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Waiting on Zuckerberg
We are front row center, Ballroom A, for the Mark Zuckerberg keynote.
We’ll be posting video highlights later.
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Another slow start, bloggers versus journalists, and Zuckerberg
I woke up this morning feeling like I had been run over by a truck.
Strange, I hadn’t had a drop to drink last night. I wasn’t hungover.
True, I had gone to the Google party. But I had been home by 9 p.m. and in bed by 11:30 p.m. I was downright prudish by SXSW standards.
Then I looked at my clock. I had forgotten all about daylight savings time but my cell phone alarm hadn’t. It was 8 a.m., my snooze had been going off for an hour.
After staggering toward the Austin Convention Center, stuffing an Einstein’s bagel and two Tylenol into my mouth, I arrived at “The Female Takedown of Casual Gaming,” a half-hour late.
The panel was interesting, and included a lively discussion of women “power players” who help their young children “level up.”
But I felt so sleep-deprived I found myself dozing off.
Thank goodness for the next panel: “Top Ten Ways to Piss Off a Blogger.” This panel woke me up, no caffeine required. Hosted by Rohit Bhargava, it included a great give-and take between the attendees, which included a good split between bloggers and marketers. The take-away is this, in no particular order:
-Don’t spam bloggers (what’s interesting to me, is this lesson wasn’t also applied to journalists. So only bloggers don’t like unpersonalized e-mail pitches?)
-Don’t act like you read a blogger’s site when you don’t.
-In the ultimate double-edged sword, don’t treat them like journalists, but don’t exclude them from the privileges that journalists get, either.
-Don’t properly attribute something from a blog.
-No attempt to establish a relationship with a blogger. This includes asking for favors from a perfect stranger, like asking them to blog about a topic and get it up by the end of the day.
-Not formatting movie files, etc. so they can be easily posted.
-Before pitching, make your pitch relavant and find out if blog’s site has a section where he or she writes about the kinds of pitches he or she would like to get.
It was an extremely interesting discussion, especially from my standpoint — what bloggers would call the MSM: Mainstream Media. Many of these marketing lessons, it seemed to me, applied equally to bloggers and journalists.
It was interesting to hear that bloggers seem more willing to demand these things from marketers, and complain when they don’t get them.
Now I’m waiting in a mostly empty ballroom for Mark Zuckerberg, the 23-year-old founder of Facebook, to speak.
I thought this was the most high-profile event of the conference but there is hardly anyone here. Mostly it’s media folks and eager bloggers.
Stay tuned for more coverage on Zuckerberg’s interview at SXSWi.
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SXSWi Frog Design Party: Fire dancers and green beer
The Frog Design Saturday night South by Southwest party was supposed to be off the chain. Grupo Fantasma would be playing, it would be at the Mexican American Cultural Center and there were going to be fire dancers.
How were we to know it would not only be off the chain, it would also be off the entire hook and even off the sheezie?
The party was completely packed. We could hear the music all the way in the Statesman parking lot across the lake. There was free green beer and ice cream (check out ourStatesman A-List photos). Fire dancing. Lots of music. It might go down as the party of the fest (if the Monday Facebook party disappoints).
Here’s some pics and a video.
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March 8, 2008
'Runway' contestant part of craft panel
“High Tech Craft: Why Sewing and Knitting Still Matter” was like the best show-and-tell show ever.
Panelists including Diana Eng from Season 2 of “Project Runway” showed off creations like a hoodie that takes pictures when your heartbeat increases, a solar-powered brooch, a scarf that changed colors based on temperature, another scarf that contained an MP3 player and a purse that lights up when you open it.
Eng and another panelist, Alison Lewis of Iheartswitch, spoke movingly of the influence of their grandmothers on their work. Eng’s grandmother taught her to sew, but she was also a math and computer science teacher and emphasized to her family the importance of technology.
Lewis’ grandmother started crafting in her mid-50s after she was widowed and was self-taught. Lewis spoke of admiring her grandmother’s resourcefulness and positive attitude.
Moderator Natalie Zee Drieu of Craft Magazine led an interesting discussion about the intersection of technology and fashion and what future developments the panelists projected.
Eng said that with stores such as H&M quickly copying the clothes of high-end designers, technology might become how luxury goods distinguish themselves.
Panelists Mouna Andraos of Electronic Crafts and Syuzi Pakhchyan of SparkLab both hoped the future would bring clothing that consumers woudl be able to interact with and customize more.
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A conversation with Eugene Mirman, host
If you only know Eugene Mirman, the comedian, for his very brief appearances on “Flight of the Conchords,” get thee to some of his hilarious Web videos where you can see him strut his stuff.
Then go see some of his Space Talk videos. Good stuff, man. Seriously.
Eugene is hosting the SXSW Web Awards Sunday night. Who knows what stars will show up, but in our book, Mirman is plenty of wattage for us. Here’s an interview with the host with the most:
Austin American-Statesman: It’s what, noon over there?
Eugene Mirman: Yes, it is. It is exactly noon. You did a fantastic job.
I try to be punctual. You’ve been here several times? What do you think of the festival?
I have. I love it. I’ve come back maybe the last five or six years. I stay for the whole thing. For the last several years I do a show during interactive before the music starts at Emo’s. This year I’m doing it with Mike Birbigliaand Michael Showalter (10 p.m. Monday).
How is that different from doing the awards show? Is the material different?
Some of the material might be different. It’s different because one is a stand-up show. No one in our stand-up show is going to stand up and go, like, “Best blog is…”
There won’t be awards at Emo’s?
You never know. There might be awards but they will be significantly less than at the awards show. Some material will be similar, some will be different. I’ll do a lot more material at the stand-up show and things that aren’t related to Interactive world or technology. The reason I’m probably hosting this is I have things that relate to Web stuff and technology or whatever. But I also have things about the government.
Do you do a lot of awards shows?
It’s the first one I’m probably hosting.
With Invite Them Up (a New York-based comedy showcase) are you considered a host?
It’s not that I’ve never introduced things. I hosted a comedy show just last night. It’s the first time I’m hosting an awards show.
Do you have a strategy of some sort?
A strategy? To make it enjoyable and fun for the audience as a comedian would. I’m not competing in it. I have funny things I’ve prepared that I think people will laugh at.
In addition to being on stage are you going to be showing videos and such?
Yeah, I’ll probably play a few videos and a few comedic bits. Yes. I will in fact do that. I will try to entertain people throughout the boring hour of awards. That’s what award shows are. Someone trying to distract people who are excited to win a thing to put on their Web site about how their company is very good at something.
So there’s no physical award like a plaque or something?
There probably is a plaque. But it’s not like they’ll go to meetings with the plaque. They’ll probably just put a thing on their Web site that says, ‘We’re the best at new ways to sell… junk.”
Or make a video of the plaque and put it online?
They’re welcome to put a video of their plaque on YouTube. If they believe that will drive business to them.
Are you preparing material geared to a geekier audience than you would for Emo’s?
I’m preparing tech jokes but they’re not for a geeky audience. I have jokes that will involve the Internet or a Web site I found that you can do funny things with. All the stuff I do I would do at a show, it’s just that they happen to relate to the Internet. If somebody asked me to host love awards show, which I find unlikely, I would probably do more things centered around love and dating.
All your love material.
My two love-based jokes. I think stuff will relate. That’s my intent. But I’m not like adding a lot of technical mumbo jumbo to my jokes.
Like HTML code jokes?
Yeah, there isn’t like, “a=href” as a joke or whatever it is a a href equals. People would correct me.
People would —
What?
Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to —
I was just correcting my own HTML in case someone was gonna write me an angry letter about my misspeaking HTML code.
You were correcting on the fly.
I’m correcting my jokey code. But you were going to ask something more important than me correcting my jokey code.
No, probably not, no. I was going to ask if you’ve visited any of the Web sites nominated. Do you do research so you can make specific jokes?
I might. I’ve looked a little, but mostly… I’m not trying to come up with a perfect joke about a specific Web site. The stuff I do is generally related. As people win them I’ll try to knock them down by making fun of them. That part is not true. I will congratulate them. I’m not mad at the sites. I will look at them.
They haven’t done anything specific to you?
Not that I’m aware of.
If, say, the Oscars are the pinnacle of awards shows, where would this rank?
Probably below them. You want me to say how far below? Is that what you’re looking for?
I don’t want to get you fired from this gig.
I find it unlikely that I would be fired from the gig. I think it’ll be a fun event.
With all the videos you produce, it seems like you spend a lot of time online. What are your favorite sites?
I do spend a lot of time online. I will reveal my favorite Web sites at the awards show.
A lot of people now know you from “Flight of the Conchords,” but they really haven’t featured your character that prominently. Shouldn’t they get rid of those New Zealanders and put an American front and center?
I would hate to be the star of their TV show. That wouldn’t be great for me because of all the singing and faking an accent. I don’t sing. I like doing sort of a smaller role.
What are you working on today?
I have done a show every single night for the last 7 days. I have a book that I’m working on so I’ll be editing that. It’s called “The Will to Whatev.” Sort of a fake self-help book.
Are you working on that alone?
I am writing it alone, but I have a publisher who will print copies and sell them to people. I’m the king of all media like what’s his name.
Stern?
Howard Stern, yes.
Or Simon Cowell.
Simon Cowell. I am like a super-duper low-rent Simon Cowell.
What will the book show you how to do?
Anything from go to school well to how to start a manufacturing plant to how to die.
How to die well?
How to die well and maximize stuff in Heaven.
How long is this book?
Six pages. No, it’s just super dense and really accurate. I don’t know, 200 pages, plus or minus. It’s mostly dull jokes so don’t do anything you see in it. That’s how it can be so all-encompassing and shorter than the Bible. (It will be published) a little less than a year from now.
And there you have it. If you see Eugene at the fest, tell him we said hi.
Permalink | | Categories: Austin, Internet, SXSW
The Art of Speed: my favorite panel of the day
This was a great panel for anyone who wants to start their own company.
The panelists were: Mike Cassidy, who has started and sold several companies and is known for pushing to do this on a quick time frame. And by “quick,” he means meeting with three venture capital companies in one day, and having term sheets by the end of the day at 4:30 p.m. That’s just one example of how Cassidy rolls.
Then there’s Cali Lewis, part of the husband-and-wife team behind Geekbrief TV, three-to-five minute podcasts covering consumer electronics and new technology.
Last but not least, Evan Williams, who helped launch Twitter, Pyra Labs and Odeo. He still works at Twitter and credits SXSW for helping Twitter explode in popularity last year. Our technology and culture writer Omar Gallaga wrote about this phenomenon last year.
The “Art of Speed” was moderated by Tim Ferriss, author of “The 4-Hour Workweek.” Williams also credits SXSW with getting his book off the ground last year.
A lot of the the talk revolved around productivity and efficiency. There were also some entrepreneurial success stories from SXSW last year:
-One obvious time-suck is e-mail. Ferriss doesn’t do it at all and outsources it to an assistant. He joked that attending SXSW, with its abundance of laptops, is like an alcholic attending a bar.
-Ferriss also mentioned that filling up your day with meetings to look productive may not be the best use of your time. Warren Buffett doesn’t keep a calendar, he said.
-Cassidy said he comes home every day at 6:30 and runs every day at lunch. He finds that there’s always a crisis but you have to make room for a personal life.
-The most important thing is finding great talent and keeping it, Cassidy said. He courts talent, having them over to his house for dinner, sending flowers, etc.
-Cassidy hates first-day paperwork and insists that is completed before the employee’s first day so that person can actually start real work their first day.
-Williams said he didn’t intend for Twitter to explode last year during SXSW; it happened by accident. They had the right sponsors, and the right people were using it when they came to SXSW. Afterward, it really took off.
-Ferriss said he also hit it big at SXSW last year when he was promoting his book. Afterward, his book hit the New York Times bestsellers list. He said the key was not meeting as many people as possible, but spending as much time as possible with about 10 people.
-Be careful of internal friction issues, Cassidy says. You can spend more time trying to fight internal power struggles than fighting external enemies, he said.
-With mentors, don’t be afraid to reach high, going for those people you think might be unattainable. Ferriss said he has helped students at Princeton get in touch with high-profile business leaders such as the CEO of Google, etc. Ferriss also said when sending e-mails, say who you are, and be brief.
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SXSWii Day One shorty shorts
I’ve been bouncing around like a pinball in a game played by a hyperactive teen, so instead of doing long write-ups of yesterdays panels (already so far in the past that I barely remember them), I’ll give you the very brief gist:
Rawk SXSW: The Basics — This might go down as the most fun panel at the whole festival. An accordion guy, lustful talk of Texas BBQ, funny photos of panelists and about 15 minutes at the end devoted to looking at pictures of lolcats. Much hilarity ensued when the panelists couldn’t type in the correct URL for ICanHasCheezburger.com, and even more laughter came from the photos themselves. I swear, if they did a panel with nothing but funny cat photos, people would show up. I know I would. They’re even more fun to watch with a group.
Respect! — This design panel featured Web designers griping that nobody in their companies respects them: They’re always left out of the loop and brought into projects at the last minute and not given the time or resources to really do their thing. The best advice to designers was to be proactive, get more involved in what your company is doing even if it means coming in early and leaving late and to try to find a work environment that fosters better communication and more involvement from Web designers. For some, unfortunately, that’s not the norm.
Friday Night Mix at Six — This was the party of the night for Interactive. People lined up around the block to get into Six and then stood in line again to get up on the rooftop. It went like that from 6 p.m. until the wee hours. Lots of schmoozing, lots of fun. I got to meet one of my writing heroes, N’Gai Croal, there. If he’s not the best video game writer in the country, he’s at least in the top three. Here’s a photo. That beer’s not mine, by the way:
Permalink | | Categories: Austin, Internet, SXSW
Online Extremism
This afternoon’s pannel ‘Online Extremism - And the Muslims Who Fight It’ introduced the attendees to a new type of terrorist, the Islamic fundamentalist hacker. The panel, made up of private security officers, former and current governement officials and a the founder of Muslim community Web site, also introduced us to the people fighting this new enemy.
“It’s an online battle for their hearts and minds,” said Mohamad Hluchan of iDefense, a cyber-intelligence firm.
Hluchan spoke about the sophistication of the encryption and coding software like Asrar Al-Mujahidin and the “two way street” between organized crime and terrorists. The Kalashnikov-toting fundamentalist is the face of these orgnaizations, but the tech saavy brain is a much more insidious foe.
If Hluchan gave us a new boogey man, Mohammed Suleiman Khan, founder of Hadithuna.com, gave us the face of the people working to combat the negative perceptions spread this new enemy. Khan’s Web site is a sucessful online community that hosts over 57 million blogs from housewives and college students to more radical minded fundamenalists. Khan admitted to walking a fine line between promoting provacative dialouge and facilitating hate-speech. Ultimately, the radicals have helped promote the website’s objectives by demonstrating the power of the majority of its users to police the site themselves when it came to hateful and inflamatory speech.
Overall, the panel was an introduction into the online grassroots approach that many Muslims around the world are embracing to combat the work of extremists. Videos like ‘Yeh Hum Naheen’ (‘This is Not Us’), a sort of “We Are The World” collaboration of Pakistani pop stars, fight back against the negative perception of Muslims perpetrated by terrorist propaganda. Frank Cilluffo, associate vice president for homeland security at The George Washington University, challanged the roomful of bloggers and journalists to help in this effort to combat radical extremism.
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Video and photos: BarCamp Austin
I’ve got a bunch of other photos posted on the Statesman’s Flickr SXSW pool and I’ll get to those soon, but here’s some quick pics and a video I shot at BarCamp Austin, happening all day today at GSD&M Idea City.
Permalink | | Categories: Austin, Internet, SXSW
Should I be looking for a new job?
That title is a joke, but after hearing first panelist Corey Bridges, from Multiverse, talk about what he sees as the inevitable destruction of the newspaper industry, I left wondering if perhaps I had picked the wrong panel to kick off my Interactive experience.
Bridges spoke at “Rise of the Indies: The Future of Video Game Development.”
But some of his talk focused on other industries, such as the news media and the music business.
His big take-away? Things like the Internet and the drive toward user-generated content have completely dismantled traditional industries such as the news media and music industry.
“Everybody wants to express themselves in some way,” Bridges said. “A lot of people want to express themselves in blogs.”
What does this mean for video games? It means that, increasingly, big game publishers such as Electronic Arts aren’t necessary. Independent game developers can create games for much less and without the restraints that publishers have.
“Obviously production and distrubition are now in the hands of these indies,” Bridges said.
None of this is breaking news. I was a little disappointed that Bridges didn’t have better insight to share. But he was amusing to listen to, excited when he learned that folks interested in podcasting his talk were OK with curse words.
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Customer service secrets from Zappos
Zappos.com is known for outstanding customer service. Tony Hsieh, the CEO of the shoe (and now clothing, makeup and electronics) site shared some of the principles that have worked for the company at a session called “Top Ten Lessons Learne din E-Commerce.”
E-commerce businesses are built on repeat customers. Hsieh says Zappos focuses on building customer loyalty.
Word of mouth really works online. Hsieh says word of mouth is the No. 1 way Zappos gets new customers.
Don’t compete on price. Hsieh says Zappos tried things like offering coupons, but found out that the new customers they got through coupons did not become loyal, repeat customers.
Make sure that your Web site inventory is 100 percent accurate. Getting a “your item is not in stock” message drives off customers.
Centrally locate your distribution. Zappos picked Kentucky for its distribution center because it enabled the company to offer faster shipping to more customers, while at the same time costing Zappos less money.
Customer service is an investment, not an expense. Zappos doesn’t have scripts for its call center employees; nor does it try to minimize call time. Hsieh says measures like that save money in the short term but don’t create long-term customer relationships.
Start small, stay focused. For example, Zappos has started selling clothing but is not making a huge push in this direction. Instead, they’re building slowly, taking their time figuring out how clothing sales will work on the site.
Don’t be secretive and don’t worry about competitors.
You need to actively manage your company culture. Zappos has a book that spells out its company culture, and bases a big part of hiring and evaluating on culture fit.
Be wary of so-called experts. Hsieh says most of the consultants they worked with on various areas were a big waste of money and time. He emphasized that not all consultants are bad, but that no one knows your business as much as you do.
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Getting a late start at SXSWi
So far, not so good. But it’s mostly my fault.
I thought if I left my house at 9 a.m., I’d have plenty of time to get to the Austin Convention Center for the first South by Southwest Interactive panels at 10 a.m.
Boy, was I wrong.
After swinging by Starbucks and the Statesman to grab a notebook and pens, I would have enough time to walk over to the center.
But after glancing at my watch and seeing that it was already 9:40 a.m., I drove over to the center, guess I could use the Convention Center parking garage.
Wrong. The line was snaking around the block just to get in. I circled the block and decided to shell out $10 a day to park at the Hilton, which is also having a corporate event for Whole Foods Market, so its capacity was filling up fast.
Scrambling, I ran across the street only to find that I wasn’t registered. Whaaa?
“But, my company already registered me,” I told the volunteer.
“You’re not in our system.”
Speed-walking to the press booth, I disovered indeed I was registered, it just hadn’t been put in the system. Whew. Crisis averted. Badge in hand, I was on my way.
Lesson learned: Leave the house about an hour before you think you need to.
Although I missed the 10 a.m. panels, I still made it in plenty of time to capture most of Saturday’s festivities, which run until 6 p.m., not counting the after-parties.
Stay tuned for my blog on the 11:30 panel: “Rise of the Indies: The future of video game development.” (I’m listening to it now and just heard the panelist talk about newspapers are dead and will soon start folding. Gulp.)
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I spy at SXSWi
Things I’m seeing a lot of at South by Southwest Interactive 2008:
- iPhones
- Nokia smartphones, particularly the spiffy N95, which can stream video to Qik.
- Renewed interest in Twitter, as well as Dodgeball to keep track of where your peeps are at the fest.
- Lust for BBQ. On a “How to Rawk SXSW” panel, vegetarians were asked to raise their hands. “What are you doing in Texas!?” they were asked. Everybody wants to go to Salt Lick.
- Lots of first-time attendees. At the same panel, about two-thirds of the audience raised their hands when asked if it was their first fest. Sure, it was the newbie panel, but it was still a lot of people.
- Tons of parties. The evening events, at least on the first day, definitely overshadowed the panels and readings.
- More talk about video games. I met N’Gai Croal last night, which is already a highlight of the fest for me.
- Lots of breakfast and dinner meetups. Twitter, Facebook and Dodgeball are facilitating better communication for like groups to hand out and find each other.
More updates throughout the day, including a brief wrap-up of some of Friday’s panels. If you want to see several videos of Interactive director Hugh Forrest talking about the fest as well as stories from today’s Statesman related to the fest, go to our SXSW coverage page.
Permalink | | Categories: Austin, Internet, SXSW
March 7, 2008
SXSW Interactive reading: beautiful Web design
Facing off against the hordes, one of the first readings of the Interactive festival was Jason Beaird, presenting ideas from his book, “The Principles of Beautiful Web Design.”
It was a short presentation and the author seemed a little nervous, speeding through the principles of building an entire Web site in less than a half hour. But Beaird knows his stuff — he quickly sped through the creation of a travel site and highlighted the things a good Web designer must think about: color palettes, texture, supporting graphics, the rule of thirds.
The resulting site was lovely, and if the turnout was any indication — the cafe-style seating of the Day Room was full to capacity, creating a standing-room-only situation in the back — the festival is off to a robust start.
Permalink | | Categories: Austin, Internet, SXSW
The SXSWi Wi-Fi Report: so far, so good
On Friday, there was Internet. And it was good.
Unlike last year’s anemic Wi-Fi at the Austin Convention Center, this year, I’m picking up three robust Wi-Fi networks, called “Internet,” “SXSW2008” and “SXSW2008 5GHz,” for Wireless-N devices.
On my Wireless-N-capable Macbook, the network is flying. Speeds on the iPhone were adequate, not blazing.
Now we’ll see how the three networks hold up once the crush of Interactive registrants start packing like sardines into panels and keynotes. I’d hate to have to run to the Hilton every time I want to post a blog entry.
(Also of note: Badge registration is moving along speedily, as is the picking up of the giant bags full of magazines and flyers. I was badge’d and bag’d in about 15 minutes.)
Permalink | | Categories: Austin, Internet, SXSW
March 6, 2008
Photos from Gamecock's EIEIO at Stubb's
It was muddy, cold and rainy at Stubb’s today where Gamecock Media Group was hosting its all-day (and all-night!) festival for indie games, EIEIO (Expo for Interactive Entertainment: Independent and Original).
The publisher showed off eight video games at various stages of completion, including the Nintendo DS game “Insecticide,” which comes out next week, and at least one game that won’t be released until 2009.
Unfortunately, the weather was smucky at Stubb’s, but people still gathered around game demos and checked out the new titles, which we’ll write about in more detail after South by Southwest. I can’t go into details about the games, but I will say that I can’t wait to try out “Hail to the Chimp,” from the studio that brought us the excellent “Stubbs the Zombie.”
After 6 p.m. today, you can go check it out for yourself as EIEIO opens up to the public. Go see some games!
Here are some photos from the event:
Permalink | | Categories: Austin, SXSW, Videogames
Prepping for South by Southwest Interactive
It’s almost here! Rejoice, Blackberry thumb-typers and XML geeks! Your time has come!
South by Southwest Interactive starts tomorrow and I can tell you I’m already ready for it to be over. But that’s just me. I’ve been working so hard this week working on stories related to the festival that I almost forgot that the best part is actually going to the festival. I’m sure my memory will be refreshed when I’m standing in line for a badge tomorrow and people-watching.
If you’re going to the fest or even the free events related to the show like Screenburn (see today’s XL Ent interview with fest director Hugh Forrest for details), you really should check out some of these amazing resources.
Digging through the festival book and planning your fest is always a bit of a pain, but this year I’ve seen some of the best, most useful applications to make that process easier that you know I have to share.
First off, SXSWBaby, the Web site, has some great updates on the entire fest, but in particular a sparkling guide to Interactive that is longer than the line to get a table at Trudy’s on a Saturday night and just as rewarding.
Included in that story is the great scheduling tool Sched.org, which allows you to pick out your events for the entire festival and export to iCal or Google Calendar, or to share your schedule publicly. Useful! Handy! Awesome!
If you want to see where I’ll be at the fest (I’m double/triple booking some slots in case panels fill up or turn out to be duds), you can find my public schedule here. I’m still working through it, but I should have it all planned out by the time the fest starts. Please, Veronica Belmont, no stalking. I’m a married man. (Delusional, too, it seems.)
If you want the lay of the land, you can check out some videos we shot with Hugh Forrest. We’ll be rolling them out, one per day, and today’s is right over here.
Skipping the panels, but want some after-parties? There’s a nifty map right here.
We’ll be posting panel write-ups, videos, photos and lots of other stuff here, so keep an eye on this space from now until Tuesday (including the very, very long weekend).
See you at the fest!
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: SXSW
March 5, 2008
SXSW Interactive picks, parties for Tuesday
The South by Southwest Interactive Festival runs Friday through Tuesday at the Austin Convention Center. For more details on these panels, visit sxsw.com.
The name of the session may be “10 Ways to Green-ify Your Digital Life” (10 a.m., Room 9), but you’ll probably actually get a lot more ideas than that from the discussions on saving energy at home and work. “Future of Corporate Blogs” (10 a.m., Room A) will address questions that should be relevant to many SXSW attendees.
“A Conversation with Michael Eisner” (11:30 a.m., Room 12AB) features the former Disney head talking about his future plans and debuting his new Web series,” The All-For Nots.” “Visualizing Sustainability” (11:30 a.m. Room 9) explores how video games could help us conceive a more sustainable future. It’s moderated by Jon Lebkowsky, one of Austin’s Internet pioneers. “Independent Success: Bloggers Who Made It” (11:30 a.m., Room A) gives you tips for becoming one of those bloggers yourself.
Jane McGonigal of Avant Game talks about alternate reality games at Tuesday’s keynote ( 2 p.m., Room A).
“Take Municipal WiFi Back” (3:30 p.m., Room 8) covers a topic that always draws interest in Austin.
Producer Marshall Herskovitz has a huge resume in both TV (“Once and Again,” “My So-called Life,” “thirtysomething”) and movies (“Blood Diamond,” “Traffic”). Today, he talks specifically about taking his Web series to television in “Quarterlife: A Wild Journey From Internet to TV.” “Quarterlife” went from the Web to NBC, but after receiving low ratings bounced to NBC’s cable sister Bravo (5 p.m., Room 18ABCD). What will be happening with social technologies in 2025? That’s the question in “Futurists’ Sandbox: Scenarios for Social Technologies in 2025” (5 p.m., Room B). You’ve read about how the Nintendo Wii has brought nontraditional groups like seniors into gaming. Now, “Can Wii Learn? Using Wiimotes in E-Learning” (5 p.m., Room 8) looks at possible uses in education.
Evening events: Media Temple/SXSW Interactive Closing Party. 8 p.m. Venue to be announced.
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SXSW Interactive picks, parties for Monday
The South by Southwest Interactive Festival runs Friday through Tuesday at the Austin Convention Center. For more details on these panels, visit sxsw.com.
Discuss the migration of online talent into traditional media at “Beyond the Blogosphere: How Online Talent Is Being Developed Offline” (10 a.m., Room 12AB).
“True Stories from Social Media Sites” (11:30 a.m., Room A) features Mac pioneer and venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki. Former Microsoft blogger, current video maven for Fast Company and all-time king of Twitter joins Ted Malone to talk about on-demand content at the sponsored pane “Driving the Future of Consumer Electronic Devices” (11:30 a.m., Room 5).
Frank Warren talks about the confessional site PostSecret at Monday’s keynote (2 p.m., Room A; simulcast in Ballroom B and Day Stage Cafe). Pick up some “Judo Moves for Defending Your Reputation Online” (2 p.m., Room 9) from Satisfaction Unlimited’s Thor Muller.
Expect to hear a lot about coworking (independent workers with different jobs who share a workspace) in Austin in the coming year. Get a preview at “Core Conversation: Coworking and the Evolution of the Independent Worker” (5 p.m., Ballroom E). “Bio-Networks: Using Mobile Technology to Impact Healthstyle” (5 p.m., Room 10) features Kate Bauer, who created a wearable fertility-tracking device for women (it looks like a lacy armband).
Evening events: Facebook friends.get party, Pangaea (409 Colorado St.), 10 p.m.- 2 a.m. Request an invitation at facebook.com/sxsw. Phizzpop Design Challenge - SXSW Finale, Maggie Mae’s (323 E. Sixth St.), 7-10 p.m.
Permalink | Comments (1) | Categories: SXSW
SXSW Interactive picks, parties for Sunday
The South by Southwest Interactive Festival runs Friday through Tuesday at the Austin Convention Center. For more details on these panels, visit sxsw.com.
Learn how to defeat “Scope Creep and Other Villains” of Web design from Forty’s James Archer, an entertaining and funny speaker even if you aren’t a designer (10 a.m., Room 4).
What’s the future of Facebook? You could find out from the site’s founder at “Keynote Interview with Mark Zuckerberg” (2 p.m., Room A).
“Brazen Careerist” Penelope Trunk dispenses forthright advice at her book reading (3:30 p.m., Day Stage). A couple of Web stars — Heather “Dooce” Armstrong and Margaret Mason of Mighty Goods — give tips for balancing your interest and readers’ needs on your site in “Content Boundaries, a 12-Step Program” (3:30 p.m., Room B). “Human and Property Rights in Virtual Worlds” (3:30 p.m., Room 8) is a topic you’ll see getting more and more attention. Games writer N’Gai Croal of Newsweek is just one of big names at “Where Are The Black Tech Bloggers? (3:30 p.m., Room C), a panel about race and the Web. Making it even harder to choose what to do at 3:30 is the always engaging Kathy Sierra with “Tools for Enchantment: 20 Ways to Woo Users” (Room A).
A high-caliber panel spanning The New York Times, Twitter and TMZ talks about “Gossip” (5 p.m., Room 12AB), moderated by comedian-writer Heather gold. If you know who Ceiling Cat is and phrases like “Invisible Bicycle” crack you up, “Lolwut? Why Do I Keep Coming Back to the Website?” (5 p.m., Room ABCD) is the story of how the site I Can Has Cheezburger? made all kind of mistakes and still became a Web phenomenon with funny cat pictures and funnier captions. Srsly. K Thx Bye!
Evening events: 11th Annual SXSW Web Awards Ceremony - Presented by Adobe, 7:30-8:45 p.m., Downtown Hilton Hotel, sixth floor (500 E. Fourth St.); Web Awards After-Party (hosted by PopSci.com, 9 p.m.-2 a.m., Emo’s (603 Red River St.)
Permalink | | Categories: SXSW
SXSW Interactive picks, parties for Saturday
The South by Southwest Interactive Festival runs Friday through Tuesday at the Austin Convention Center. For more details on these panels, visit sxsw.com.
With several other panels on the topic, “Catching Up With Accessibility: The Basics Quickly” (10 a.m., Room C) could be a valuable way to start the day. (As defined by this panel description, examples of Web accessibility include making your site more useful for groups ranging from people disabilities and people accessing it on mobile devices). “Kill Your Mouse: Kinetic Computing Arrives Mainstage” (10 a.m., Room 10) features panelists including Kai Huang of Red Octane, makers of the “Guitar Hero” games, talking about the changing ways we interact with computers.
Media analyst Jeff Jarvis and the other panelists will surely have pointed things to say at “The Suxorz: The Worst Ten Social Media Campaigns of 2007” (11:30 a.m. Room C). Sadly, that conflicts with “Top Ten Lessons Learned in E-Commerce” (Room 18ABCD) from Zappos.com’s Tony Hsieh. The shoe site CEO has been an inspiring speaker at fests past.
“10 Things We’ve Learned at 37signals,” from the company’s Jason Fried (3:30 p.m., Room A), attracts us because we’re fond of 37signals products like project management sites Basecamp and Backpack. “The Art of Speed” (3:30 p.m., Room 18ABCD) features Tim Ferriss, whose “Four Hour Work Week” started attracting attention at SXSW Interactive last year, and others talking about accomplishing big things in only a short time.
Go “Behind the Scenes at the Onion News Network”? We’d love to, thanks (5 p.m., Room 6). “Social Network Coups: The Users Are Revolting!” has a timely topic — mass protests on sites like Digg and Facebook — and interesting panelists like Lifehacker’s Gina Trapani (5 p.m. Room 19AB).
Evening events: Dorkbot party, 6-8 p.m., Brush Square Park (across from Austin Convention Center), sponsored by Make Magazine, SXSW Interactive, the International Game Developers Association of Austin and Amaze Entertainment; Google party, 6-8 p.m. Light Bar (408 Congress Ave.); Frog Design/SXSW Interactive Opening Party, 8-11 p.m., Mexican American Cultural Center (600 River St.).
Permalink | | Categories: SXSW
Filmmaking at SXSW Interactive, plus Friday parties
The South by Southwest Film and Interactive festivals both kick off Friday, and a few panels are open to badge holders from both events. Here’s a handful of highlights for filmmakers who want to learn more about how technology is changing their craft. Panels take place at the Austin Convention Center. Each of the sessions listed here is in Room 12AB. For more details on these panels, visit sxsw.com.
Saturday: “Digital Cinema for Indies” (11:30 a.m.) talks about getting your work onto digital screens and the implications of digital cinema. “Video Production for the Web & Mobile Devices” (3:30 p.m.) looks at how to best use these new screens.
Sunday: “Blogs, Buzz, and Buddy Lists” (3:30 p.m.) explores how you can use all of the above to build an audience.
Monday: “ABC’s of DVDs” (3:30 p.m.) looks at how the medium has evolved and where it’s going. “Independent Film Distribution: It Takes an Online Community” covers “creating true cross-platform media brands.” “A Conversation with Michael Eisner” (11:30 a.m.) features the former Disney head talking about his future plans and debuting his new Web series,” The All-For Nots.”
Friday evening events: Friday Night Mix at Six, 6-8 p.m., Six (117. W. Fourth St.)
Permalink | | Categories: SXSW
February 27, 2008
Avoiding Michael Bublé, thinking about tech and 'Rock Band'
Tonight I’m going to a Michael Bublé concert with my wife (weep for me, friends), which is about as un-tech as you can get. Has Bublé even made it over to the 21st century yet? Will I be hearing vocal stylings from 1958, as if through a time-tube?
So I’m trying to cram in as much tech news into my brain as possible in the coming hours so I’ll have plenty rolling around up there while listening to “The Way You Look Tonight.” (Great, incidentally.)
- Blu-ray wins, everyone’s happy, right? Not so fast, movie studios. DVDs in general are on the decline and I think the strategy of releasing portable versions of a movie on a DVD will prove too-little, too-late as people migrate toward downloads and other (potentially not legal) means of getting their movie fix.
- Adobe has blown minds this week with the release of Air, which uses Flash to create a sort of cloud workspace where your Adobe applications and files can live online and… you know what? I’m not explaining this very well. Read the article. Trust me, this is huge.
- It’s a little bare-in-the-cupboard so far, but expect to see a ton of videos related to South by Southwest Interactive on this unofficial site. iJustine has already posted something.
- Speaking of South by Southwest, music genius Jonathan Coulton will be at the fest, and, if we all cross our fingers and wish our hardest, he will probably play the “Portal” hit “Still Alive” for us so we can all go, “SQUUEEEEEE!” In the meantime, you can watch a video of just such a performance. The song will be coming to “Rock Band” soon, which is also positive news of the highest order.
- One of my big pet peeves is people writing about technology and then getting all the wording wrong. A press release for a political site, “HillarySpeaksforME,” makes mention of a couple of people deciding to create a viral video, which is wrong, wrong, wrong. You cannot create a viral video. Viral means people discover it and pass it on. You can’t generate that. “Video organism,” a phrase the press release also uses to describe a living video thingy that people add to, is probably a lot more accurate.
- Local blogger Bill Harris breaks down the potential Electronic Arts/Take Two Interactive deal and it doesn’t sound good for gamers.
And… I’m off to Bublé. Say a prayer for me.
Permalink | | Categories: Applications, Austin, Internet, Movies & DVDs, SXSW, Videogames
Pandora's musical box
I wasn’t able to make it to Monday’s night’s Austin stop on the Pandora.com big bus tour, but Deborah Sengupta Stith writes about the experience on the Music Source blog and it sounds like the company, which offers a free music site for finding music that matches what you like, is making some fans.
There might also be some coverage of Pandora soon in the business section/blogs.
Tom Conrad, CTO of Pandora, will be on a South by Southwest Interactive panel called “FM 2.0: The Future of Internet Radio,” 5 p.m. Tuesday, March 11.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Austin, Internet, SXSW
February 15, 2008
SXSW Interactive schedule out; cloning not an option
The schedule for the South by Southwest Interactive Festival is out and, which means we can finally schedule our March 7-March 11.
Unfortunately, I see one big problem: does anyone else get a little intimidated seeing that there are as many as 16 things going on at the same time in many of these time blocks?
Sure, most of them are designed to appeal to different kinds of festivalgoers (marketers, Web designers, et al.) but I’m almost afraid to look at how many things I’m going to miss by simply choosing one event to attend at a time.
Where’s Calvin’s Transmogrifier/Clone Machine when you need it?
Permalink | | Categories: Austin, Internet, SXSW
February 12, 2008
Tech headlines just for you
I’ll be brief. Here’s the tech goodness you should know about today:
- Auto manufacturers, as you’re probably well aware, are adding tons of distracting electronics and gadgets to the dashboard, as well as plug-ins for iPods, cell phones and even computers. But are they dangerous? Most assuredly. Can we stop using them while driving before laws have to be enacted to save us from ourselves? Probably not.
- Will Wright’s long-in-development successor to “SimCity” and “The Sims” finally has a release date. The evolutionary sim, “Spore,” is expected to ship on Sept. 7.
- Netflix is dropping the HD-DVD disc format while Best Buy and The ‘Flix plan to back rival Blu-ray. This makes my Jan. 4 purchase of an HD-DVD drive for my Xbox 360 feel pretty ridiculous, thanks very much.
- Wi-Fi at Starbucks just got a little AT&T’er. The coffee giant is dropping its T-Mobile hotspots in favor of AT&T Wi-Fi, which jibes with Starbucks getting cozy with Apple and the iPhone. The Wi-Fi will be free for those who subscribe to AT&T’s broadband service or its U-Verse TV service. Starbucks Card holders get two hours of Wi-Fi a day. If you’re not an AT&T customer or Starbucks cardholder, you can get Wi-Fi service for $3.99 for two hours. ZDNet asks, why no free Wi-Fi for AT&T wireless subscribers? Incidentally, when I was recently at a Starbucks located across the street from a very large PC manufacturing company, I noticed a free, open Wi-Fi network was available that wasn’t provided by Starbucks. I used that instead of the T-Mobile with my laptop.
- The pre-SXSW Interactive party last night at Mohawk was a lovely shindig with a large turnout. I arrived a little late and stayed past my curfew, but I enjoyed meeting some folks from Five Runs, Benn Rosales and Lani Anglin-Rosales, and Thom Singer. See you all at the fest!
Permalink | | Categories: Austin, Gadgets, Internet, Movies & DVDs, Phones, SXSW, Shopping, Videogames
February 11, 2008
SXSW announces Web Award finalists
South by Southwest has posted the finalists for its 11th Annual Web Awards, which includes categories like Activism, Community, Experimental and Technical Achievement.
The awards will be presented on March 9 in a ceremony hosted by Eugene Mirman, who happens to be one of our favorite comedians.
On a side note, a separate award ceremony for the “Bloggies,” a set of awards specifically for blogs, will also be announced at South by Southwest in a March 10 presentation at 1 p.m. on the Trade Show Day Stage.
Permalink | | Categories: Austin, Internet, SXSW
January 22, 2008
More Gamecock fighting: Mike Wilson vs. John Romero
A post on Id Software co-founder John Romero’s blog about Austin’s Gamecock Media Group’s upcoming release schedule was met with a scorching response from Gamecock chief Mike Wilson.
Romero and Wilson worked together at Ion Storm, and judging from the ugly, ugly back-and-forth, they did not become BFFs while working on such games as the much-reviled “Daikatana.”
Romero sought to shut down the flame war a few days later, but in the eyes of gamers, this is a train wreck of epic proportions. He said WIlson e-mailed him to apologize, but based on the extremely personal nature of the attacks (warning to those following the links: it gets ugly), we can’t imagine there aren’t some hard feelings left.
We also can’t help wondering whether Romero will make it to the South by Southwest Interactive Festival and whether the two veteran game developers may have words to share with each other.
Permalink | | Categories: Austin, SXSW, Videogames
January 18, 2008
Getting Interviews Done with David Allen; Time Warner's Internet pricing experiment
One of the more exciting things that happened around here this week for me is that I got to interview David Allen, of “Getting Things Done” fame, for an upcoming Life & Arts story about “GTD.”
Allen, who is often called a guru of personal productivity, is very direct and often blunt, even by phone, about how people are using GTD (often incorrectly and inefficiently) and the proliferation of software applications that use GTD as their model (mostly useless and nothing more than glorified to-do list builders, he says).
He dropped some major news that will be of interest to GTD fans, but I’m saving that for the article, which runs in late January. In the meantime, you can hear a quick excerpt from the interview in this MP3 file of David Allen from our Thursday chat.
This story about Time Warner’s experiment in setting high-speed Internet pricing based on usage should be cause for concern for any heavy movie/TV show downloaders or file sharers.
Heck, it should be cause for concern for everybody, coming as it does on the heels of Apple’s iTunes movie rentals announcement. The fees for downloading HD movies and TV shows could be astronomical if you’re paying for the content on top of penalty fees for breaking your bandwidth limit. Suddenly that episode of “The Real Housewives of Orange County” doesn’t seem quite so palatable.
Basing this on nothing so much as gut instinct, I am going to go out on a limb and predict that this pricing idea won’t make it out of Beaumont. With the competition heating up between cable providers, satellite servers and phone companies to deliver bundled services, I don’t think Time Warner will risk alienating its very vocal customers (including me) with what could turn into a pricing nightmare for some.
Even with some sort of “bandwidth meter” to keep track of your data transfers, the last thing Internet users want is to have to continually worry whether they’re downloading too much, especially in this era of readily available music, movies and TV shows. The less customers (especially less tech-savvy customers) have to worry about that sort of the thing, the better for the entire tech industry. You think it’s hard to get grandma online now…?
Did you catch the lineup of South by Southwest Interactive keynoters? As one of my editors said the other day of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, “I wonder what a billionaire 23-year-old does on a visit to Austin.”
Mexican martinis? That’s what I’d do.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Austin, Internet, SXSW
January 15, 2008
Gamecock relocates independent games expo to SXSW Interactive
Score one for South by Southwestern Interactive.
The lovable, fowl-mouthed troublemakers at Austin’s Gamecock Media Group are bringing their Expo for Interactive Entertainment, Independent and Original (EIEIO) to South by Southwest. It’s the second year for the expo, which made its debut at last year’s scaled-down Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles.
The event will be held noon Thursday, March 6, at Stubb’s. I would imagine barbecue will be served (and beer!) as upcoming games from the publisher like “Hail to the Chimp,” “Mushroom Men” and “Dungeon Hero” are shown off. Here’s a list of upcoming titles and when they’re expected to be released.
What’s that? “Pirates vs. Ninjas Dodgeball?” I’m so there.
Permalink | | Categories: Austin, SXSW, Videogames
January 9, 2008
What I learned at Geek Austin happy hour
Going out on a work night has become a luxury for me, a planned, carefully coordinated event that involves more strategy than Hillary Clinton’s push in New Hampshire.
I have a 5-month-old, and I’m in charge of picking her up from day care and driving her to New Braunfels with as little incident as possible. (Remind me to tell you about the flat tire we had one time; mad fire ants were involved.)
So nine times out of 10 I turn down going to happy hours or anything else that isn’t absolutely necessary. It was only because of insistent and very humorous e-mail from Lynn Bender that I gave up quality road time with the baby to RSVP for the Geek Austin happy hour, held last night at J. Black’s Feel Good Lounge (how good? Ask me after two beers.) on Sixth Street. Do you know how long it’s been since I was on Sixth Street? I had to ask a friend whether they still serve liquor there.
Anyway, the happy hour was well-attended and certainly not a waste of my night. It was almost worth coming home, looking into my baby’s face and hearing her say, “I have forgotten who you are. Hope you had fun at your happy hour. Also: Change me.”
Here are a few things I learned from the handful of people I got to meet:
- Lynn Bender is a dude. A very nice, social dude and generous host. It has been so long since I’ve talked to Lynn face-to-face that I had forgotten not only what he looked like, but his gender. So when he and I started talking and I didn’t look at his name tag and I mentioned that I ought to say hi to Lynn Bender for inviting me and he said, “I’m Lynn Bender,” well … let’s just say it was not my best moment. I blame lack of sleep. Darn baby!
- John Melanson of Cirrus Logic Inc. is the nicest hippie-techie I’ve met in a long time. He’s shifting his focus from audio/video stuff to environmental tech and is looking for engineers. If you are an engineer who wants to save the world, one green digital signal processor at a time, you should contact John.
- Twitter friends SheilaS, ATXRyan (a former co-worker at the Statesman) and Jmetcalf27 came up and chatted, and it was nice to have a conversation with them that wasn’t limited to 140 characters.
- Philip Wheat from Microsoft Corp.’s Austin offices gave me the lowdown on the PhizzPop Design Challenge, which will have its finals held at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival. I missed the Austin finals in December (SEE: Baby, Stunted Socializing Caused by — ABOVE), but I plan to see the national finals at the festival.
- Tori Breitling and Julie Gomoll are opening a coffee shop downtown near the Omni Hotel called “Launchpad Coworking” that’ll be mobile-worker-friendly. They plan to open it in early July and couldn’t have been nicer.
- Photos from the event are already up on Flickr.
I’ll plan to be at the next Geek Austin event, babysitter-permitting.
Permalink | Comments (2) | Categories: Austin, Baby-daddy, Food, Internet, SXSW
Want to volunteer for South by Southwest Interactive?
From Joe Gross over on the Music Blog:
South by Southwest is putting out its annual call for volunteer opportunities for the music, film and interactive conferences, which run from March 7 to 16.Jobs range from festival production to conference activities including registration, information, technical support and more. Day and night positions are available.Volunteers must be able to work a minimum of 30 hours or four nights during the event, depending on their crew type.
Applications are available online. Crew selections will take place at the volunteer call from 3:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m Jan. 20 at the downtown Hilton’s Austin Grand Ballroom. Those unable to attend should contact the SXSW volunteer coordinator at vol@sxsw.com or call or (512) 467-7979. For more information, check out http://sxsw.com/volunteer.
Permalink | | Categories: Austin, SXSW
January 7, 2008
Planning ahead for SXSW Interactive
Before you blink, it’ll be Friday March 7, the day South by Southwest Interactive starts.
Last year’s event was the first one I’d attended in a few years (I had my hands full running the newsroom of ¡ahora sí!), and I found the conference to be much refreshed from the doldrums of the early 2000s, when the tech bubble gave way to a digital hangover.
This year looks to build on the momentum of 2007 and I’m already seeing lots of blog posts and Twitter tweets from people planning on attending. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be looking at panels we’re excited about, giving updates on news announcements related to the festival, and helping map out strategies for getting the most out of the fest. If they can get the wireless Internet access fixed at the Convention Center, this might be the best SXSWi ever!
Here’s a few links to get started on the fest:
The meat and potatoes, or if you prefer the protein and starches, of the festival are the panels and keynotes. Here’s the list of confirmed speakers, keynotes and list of panels by category. Opening remarks will be given by Henry Jenkins, co-director of the Comparative Media Studies Program at MIT and writer of “Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide.”
There’s also the popular Screenburn Arcade and presentations and the Web Awards.
If you plan to attend and haven’t registered yet, do it by Friday. Prices go up on that day for all badges.
And lastly, if you Twitter and you’re going to SXSW, add your name to this Wiki page with your contact info. We’ll see you at the fest.
