One of many, wonderful things I captured on my recent travels...
March 2007 Archives
Just caught this interesting link over on Vitamin...
OpenID is a decentralized system for single sign-on. So it lets you have one user account that you can use to log into lots of different sites. The thing that makes OpenID special compared to, say, Passport or Typekey or other things that have gone before, is that with OpenID you get to decide where your identity is hosted. You can host it with SixApart, or you can host it with AOL or you can host it yourself.
One of the many silly characters that you'd run into on 6th Street in Austin during SXSW...
I was strolling over towards 6th Street from the Convention Center the other afternoon and I ran into the Ice Cream Man. In case you're not already familiar with this truck (and not just ice cream vendors in general), basically, "Ice Cream Man's mission is to give away FREE Ice Cream."
This truck has made appearances at numerous festivals around the country over the past couple years, including Bonnaroo, Vegoose, Noise Pop, and now SXSW.
Ice Cream Man is a grassroots organization that combines the minds, hearts, skills, and resources of a growing team of adventurous individuals who refuse to adhere to the old business paradigm. We were those crazy and confused kids raised in the '80s and '90s with conflicting messages ("Just Say No" vs. "Just Do It"). We believe that right now is the best time in history. With the Internet we are not bound by the constraints of the modern media machine. We can break through all of the hypocrisy and create REAL connections with like-minded people.
"Just Say No" vs. "Just Do It" -- I love it. Where do I sign up?
This being my first time to Austin and all, I'm entirely impressed with the kitschy-ness of all the music venues and clubs down here. The world-famous La Zona Rosa hosted the party with The Rapture on Wednesday night, and I had a huge shit-eating grin the entire time I was there. "Ooooh, look -- lights! A stage I've never seen before! People drinking beer from TEXAS!" I'm such a dumb tourist sometimes. My friends will attest to this considering I just came home from Maui with two t-shirts. Not one. Two.
It really does speak to how amazing it can be to step outside your comfort zone sometimes.
Of all the street performers I saw last night on my way to The Rapture show at La Zona Rosa, this guy probably had the best crowd gathered around. He even played it up a little bit when I whipped out my cameraphone.
And this definitely is a "hipster Mardi Gras," (I wish I could claim that as my own but it was coined by someone else). SXSW Interactive is super uber geek fest, and the music fest probably couldn't be more opposite.
I caught a nice little ditty of a show the other night at the KLRU studios in Austin, TX (otherwise known as the studio where they film Austin City Limits). It was fun.
I'm a fan, what can I say...
I can't believe I missed this...
Bill Paxton's films have run the gamut from 'Aliens,' 'Weird Science' and 'Titantic.' He has worked with such directors as James Cameron, Ron Howard and Walter Hill. He has also ventured behind the lens to direct his own work ('Frailty'). Sit down with film critic Christy Lemire as she speaks with Paxton after his induction into the Texas Film Hall of Fame and his upcoming projects.
I would have asked him about Twister. "So...how do you feel about the fact that you were in one of the greatest movies ever made?"
I just caught that Learning Movable Type has been completely redesigned as a more community-focused site. This was one of the blogs that really taught me a lot about the blogging medium and what is possible using Movable Type. I'm definitely excited to see a redesign and hope to start spending more time back there. I need more ideas on redesigning my own blog and Live Music Blog, and I think it could help...
I'm taking a small break in between panels and lunch to complain about SXSW really quick...bear with me.
This is my first time attending this conference, and I'll be honest -- this is my first time really attending any conference anywhere really. It's being held at the very large and technologically friendly Austin Convention Center, and the conference makes a wireless connection available to the attendees.
That being said, I grossly over-estimated the fact that the wireless connection would actually work. Isn't this a conference dedicated to the best and brightest in the interactive web industry? Wouldn't they assume that every single person here would want to remain wired at all times? I'm finding myself stuck in between panels just to grab a small charge of power and hopefully some working internet connection, and really -- it has hardly worked all week since the conference began.
I'm sure someone is going to stop by the site and comment, "works fine for me," and to that I will simply call bullshit. Every single panel I've attended, the connection has been spotty at best. Every single chillax area built for the conference, the connection has been worse than spotty at best.
To me, this is just ridiculously unacceptable and I don't believe that there should be any technological limitation to this. They know the number of attendees. They know how much hardware and bandwidth they need, don't they? Correct me if I'm wrong, because I'd really love to know.
Last night I put up a post on Live Music Blog about how I'm down here in Austin attending SXSW 2007, a conference mashup featuring the best and brightest from the Interactive Web, Film, and Music mediums/industries.
If you haven't heard of this conference, you're probably not involved with any of the above, and for a long time, that was me. I wasn't directly involved in any of these concepts until I was able to learn a little bit about blogging and start publishing myself, which in turn lead to my entrance at FeedBurner. Now that I'm here, I'm definitely happy with my career moves of late and I hope to keep pushing forward in the right direction.
I'll probably just mention some of the panels once I get a chance to collect my worthwhile notes; to be honest, some of the sessions I've attended thus far aren't even worth mentioning or blogging about for fear that it would actually do some promotional good for the people in charge of said panels. Given that the community chose the topics without necessarily knowing who would be moderating it, I guess that's the chance that this conference took this year.
I'm terribly behind on my SXSW blogging but I wanted to at least get something posted this morning.
I'm having a lot of fun here and I've got plenty of notes and observations as a first-time visitor down here. Stay tuned.
I've hardly had time to sift through my photos from the Maui vacation (see above) and I'm already back to sleeping in hotel rooms for the next week.
I'll be down in Austin, TX for the 2007 SXSW Conference and Music Festival, so please drop me a line if you're interested in chatting about anything FeedBurner or anything Live Music Blog or anything anything. Also, drop by the conference center tomorrow morning at 10am to watch me take part in a panel discussion entitled, "Online Publishers & Ad Networks." I think there's going to be some interesting chatter around the shifting models in online advertising and what FeedBurner can do for publishers that wish to make some money back on the content that they produce. Good stuff...
One of my favorites from the trip so far.
I just flew in from Maui, and boy are my arms tired...
Hope everyone had a killer week because I know I did. Photos and memories to come...
