Doc Searls taking a picture of David Isenberg taking a picture of me taking a picture os Doc.
I’ll add links to their pictures later.
Author: Ruby Sinreich
Separated at birth?
I think Robert Scoble looks like Phillip Seymour Hoffman.
Revenge of the panelists
Today’s SXSW panel “Revenge of the Blogs” – organized by Henry Copeland and featuring me, Markos Moulitsas, and Mike Krempasky – turned out very well. We struck a good balance between talking about the influence of local and national blogs, and some people even began to draw a connection between the two. Judging by the people who came up to talk with me afterward, I think I must have said some interesting and useful things.
I used the issue of red light cameras in Chapel Hill (thanks, Will) to illustrate how Orange Politics has had concrete impact. I also referenced an insightful comment from an earlier conversation with the Independent‘s Kirk Ross to talk about what happens when journalists start blogging. It’s a new challenge for them to suddenly put themselves in the story which they’ve been trained and ingrained not to do as reporters.
One audience member asked Markos what he was doing to help his readers who might live near each other to find each other. He wasn’t very interested in this very good idea, which is disappointing especially considering the great number of free tools which can do exactly this. I think the panel might have been better attended if Markos’ presence had been advertised better (see below) but maybe that’s for the best.
There were lots of good ideas discussed during and after the session and I just have to thank Henry Copeland again for inviting me. I hope it’s not my last trip to SXSW. And now, on to the parties….
Kos is coming
I have seen various descriptions of the panel I will be on this afternoon at South by Southwest. They all list me and Mike Krempasky (RedState .org), as well as our facilitator Henry Copeland from BlogAds.com. But only a few of them listed Markos Moulitsas of dailyKOS.com which has been the movement central of countless thousands of online liberal activists since 2004.
It’s official, Markos blogged that he’ll be there, and he even generously dropped in a link to OrangePolitics.org. Thanks dude! See you soon…
Keep it simple, stupid
Jason Fried’s opening remarks sound just like advice that I often give to visionary friends who are always dreaming up great new ideas but waiting for all the stars to align before they make them happen.
Jason says that it’s great to start thing up “on the side.” This is how 37signals started Basecamp. He points out that obscurity is good for getting started so you can screw up & learn from it before every one is watching.
He says “less” is an asset.
1. Less time. You’ll just waste it anyway.
2. Less money. See above.
3. Less software. Keep it simple “Clever stuff” gets in the way.
Go, Bob, go!
On my flight from NC to TX yesterday (4th plane of the day) I sat next to a guy who happenned to also be going to SXSW. He was from New York, but had just given a talk at Duke. His name is Bob Stein and he works for a think tank focused on preserving books.
He is now sitting on this panel about book digitization, between the guy from Google Books and a woman from Microsoft who is developing a similar service. I’m just very glad he’s there as Bob is the only person up there who seems to not think that corporations making money or even surviving is the highest goal.
Bob is not getting much of a chance to talk, but the moderator Liz Lawley has made some good points as well.
Tag-a-rama
I’m here at my first South by Southwest panel, it’s called “knitting tag clouds for grandma.” There’s a lot of discussion about what it will take for large numbers of people (ie: regular people, not geeks) to use tags and folksonomies.
Someone in the audience made a great point: any one creating folders on their personal computer is making a folksonomy!
View from the south
I am loving Montevideo! I am posting pictures daily on Flickr.
SXSW in my own words
The Austin Chronicle invited some attendees of the upcoing South by Southwest Interactive to write short essays about what they were looking to get out of the event. It was a nice way to let people speak for themselves, and also gave their reporters a break by not having to interview all of us. 😉 Here’s what I said:
Bad timing
Yesterday I was running errands to get ready for my trip(s) and I found that stores were denying my check card, which is a VISA card directly linked to my checking account. This morning I finally went online to check my balance (the usual suspect) and found plenty of money in my account, so called my bank. They informed me that my account number was on a list they received from VISA of credit cards that were possibly compromised by a security breach at a vendor.
They said the security risk was very high or they would’t have cancelled my card without notice. They are said that VISA wouldn’t release the identity of the compromised vendor for “privacy protection.” That’s my privacy. I was also told that I could call VISA directly, but that other customers were not having any luck trying to get information out of them.
So now it’s Sunday and I am about fly to another country in about 8 hours, and I can’t get any cash or use my check card! Apparently they have already issued me a new card which won’t get here for 7-10 business days, a.k.a. two weeks. So that won’t be very helpful in Montevideo or Austin. I might get it before I go to Seattle.
Fortunately, I can get cash from my partner, and fortunately I have another credit card I can use on my trips, and fortunately my bank account was not actually compromised. But the timing of this is very very unfortunate.