So, who won?

• News Related Technologies: Storify
• Innovative Web Technologies: Hipmunk
• Entertainment Technologies: Tango
• Social Media & Social Networking Technologies: PopVox

If you're not familiar with these services, all are worth taking note of.

Storify is a useful tool for creating stories using social media. We've used Stofify here at ReadWriteWeb to curate tweets about popular events, for example, including SXSW itself. But you can also make collections that include Flickr photos and YouTube videos, using the service.

Hipmunk is an easy-to-use flight (and now lodging) search service which offers an improved interface for finding, sorting and filtering results. One of its sorting options is called "agony," which the company describes as a way of sorting flights taking into account price, duration, and number of stops, combined. Hipmunk also recently launched an iPhone application that lets you perform flight searches on your phone, then book on your mobile or email yourself a link to the flight you chose.

Tango is a free mobile calling service, that, unlike Apple's FaceTime, works across platforms (iPhone and Android, and others soon). It also works over Wi-Fi and 3G, while FaceTime is currently limited to Wi-Fi-only. Tango hit 3 million downloads in November, and has now just recently reached 10 million.

Finally, PopVox is a service providing real-time information on current legislation. Designed by people who have worked in around government for years, and advised by Tim O'Reilly, founder of O'Reilly Media, the site lets you locate a bill you care about, declare your opposition or support and share that opinion directly with Congress. For politicians, the site provides a number of bill-tracking tools to stay on top of public sentiment.

The other finalists at Accelerator included the Participatory Politics Foundation, a nonprofit promoting civic engagement; DocumentCloud, a tool for journalists that enables publishing public documents to a Web-based catalog; the eye-tracking service GazeHawk; Kabbage, a service providing funding to online merchants; Portalarium, makers of a new social game called Ultimate Collector; Viki, a crowd-sourced foreign-language captioning for the movies and TV shows; CompassLabs, a social media advertising agency; and Neighborgoods, a community that allows you to share items (e.g., a lawnmower, bike, drill, etc.) with your neighbors,

Neighborgoods also got Accelerator's Bootstrap Award for having done the most with the fewest resources.

If 2010 was the year of location-based services, then 2011 is certainly the year of group messaging. With a slew of new group messaging apps dominating this year's SXSW conference in Austin, Texas, the big questions have been why now and why not Facebook or Twitter?

The answer, it seems, could be very simple. Group messaging apps do something that sites like Facebook and Twitter don't - they take away the magic and the guesswork and provide a blunt instrument for communicating with small groups of people using both data and text messaging.

The question, in my mind, then became "Why is it so popular now?" Of course, I like talking with my friends, but don't I have a million tools to do this already? The two most obvious examples of this would be Facebook and Twitter. But both lack in some very specific ways, as do many other services of their kind, that opened up the space for this onslaught of group messaging apps.

How Facebook and Twitter Fail at Group Messaging

In the case of Twitter, we find a tool that is not truly built for conversation. At its core, it was built as a way to update the Web through SMS, so while mobile communication lies at its core, group communication does not. The @reply and the hashtag were user-created functions that tried to solve the issue of communicating with other users. But they only sort of work. If you try to have a Twitter conversation with multiple people, you quickly find that you're running out of space for your message as you tack on new names to include in the conversation. There are still only 140 characters. Twitter is also inherently public and the only way to make communication private is to either send direct messages to other individual users or to close off your follower network entirely. On average, Twitter is best as a broadcast tool and secondly as a tool for one-on-one interaction, not as a group communication tool.

So, Twitter's out. What about Facebook? Facebook is for communicating with your friends, right? There are a couple issues for Facebook in this realm, which the company is likely trying to address with the recent acquisition of leading group messaging app Beluga.

When it comes to Facebook, there are a few distinct ways to communicate with friends and groups. There is the status update, the message (which it recently combined with chat and SMS, to attempt to address this very issue) and then the group-specific update and message. In terms of the status update, there is something very key getting in the way - magic.

When you put up a status update, you have no idea who will see it on the other end. Ask "Anyone want to go out on the town tonight?" in a status update and you're likely to get a response from that kid you knew in high school, your bored friend who lives in another state and your cousin. Facebook also introduced a "Groups" feature last fall to address this issue, but it's more topically-focused and static than most group communication requires. As for messages, Facebook announced an entirely new and entirely confusing messaging system last fall that is supposed to seamlessly connect users across devices, whether laptop, tablet, smartphone or feature phone. Four months later, and still not all users have the new system.

Beyond that, Facebook still manages to confuse its users with the idea of whether or not their friends are online or offline. Never mind the fact the little "online" or "idle" icon seems to have little to no bearing on whether or not your friend is present, but it also seems to indicate that we need to change our method of communication based on what it says. Suddenly we need to consider whether or not the user on the other end is at a computer currently or not, when really it doesn't matter.

Facebook is trying to fix this with its new system, but still it has different words and slightly different definitions for forms of on-site communication that only confuse the issue. Do I want to "chat" or "message" you? Yes. Chatting is messaging, just faster. But messaging can involve multiple people, while Facebook's chat is only one-on-one. Confused yet?

Group Messaging: Interruptive, Mobile & Un-Magical

Enter group messaging apps like Beluga, GroupMe, Kik, Fast Society and slew of other apps hitting the market as we speak. Group messaging apps simply assume that you are engaging in a real-time and asynchronous communication.

Group messaging apps make it simple to communicate with the people you want to communicate with. There is no magic involved. There is no algorithm. You're not throwing a message into a bottle to see who finds it on the other end - you're sending out a message that will arrive as an interruptive SMS or push notification on the phone in all your friends' pockets, wherever they may be. You're quickly creating and reorganizing social circles, on the go, according to the situation. And that communication is as private (or public, as with GroupMe's "joinable" groups) as you want it to be. And even your SMS-only, feature phone toting friends can play along.

Until now, we've dealt with large-scale social networks and the communication within has been largely public and imprecise. On the converse, it has been too precise, only properly functioning for one-on-one messaging or more static, topically focused grouping. Group messaging sneaks in beneath and finds a way quickly into our pockets and our daily lives.

Of course, this realm of new apps has taken off quicker with techies and early adopter types, but get ready for the oncoming mainstream explosion. Last year's location-based apps took explanation and still haven't gone mainstream. Sharing your location with the general public can be scary. Sharing your thoughts and ideas, your location and your pictures, with small groups of friends is the exact opposite. It's natural, it's friendly and it's going to be huge.

Later this week, the madness known as South by Southwest kicks off when thousands of developers, bloggers, social media gurus, founders, venture capitalists and generally geeky folks descend upon Austin, Texas. The nearly week long event, also known as "Spring Break for Geeks" or simply "South by", is a seething mass of parties, panels and folks trying to walk while staring at their smartphones and there are a handful of new apps that could make it that much better.

Each of these five apps helps with a distinctive part of SXSW and we think that showing up without them could seriously hinder your ability to work, party, get interested and have fun. These are the apps we're going to use to rock SXSW and you should too.

Just as a quick note before we begin - we're not even getting into apps like Twitter, Foursquare, Gowalla, Plancast and the rest of them. We're talking about brand spanking new apps to the scene this year that we think could make a difference in your whole SXSW experience.

Beluga

So you just got out of a panel and you're famished. You want to find out if your usual crew is feeling the hanger (that's hunger that's so fierce that it makes you angry) and wants to meet up. But how? Do you send out a mass text and try to coordinate? That could take forever and just gets messy.

Beluga makes it dead simple to coordinate with friends and co-workers, whether they have a smart phone or one of those antique flip phones. Organize your friends into "pods" and get chatting, sharing pictures and even sharing each of your locations on a convenient little map and - voila! - you're ready to meet up at a restaurant in no time.

This one is going to be the indispensible app for many a SXSW-goer, I can tell you that much. After all, it really saved my butt at CES this year.

Hashable

The beauty of an app like Hashable - at a conference full of geeks - is that it organizes your social connections around Twitter. This app might be less useful at a non-nerd event, but at SXSW, you probably don't want to know them if they don't have a Twitter account. So why pocket another business card that you'll never look at again? Just use Hashable!

Hashable, the self-dubbed "ultimate networking app", tracks what you say on Twitter and who you check-in with on Foursquare to create a "dynamic 'relationship book'" of all your connections. If you Tweet that you're "grabbing beers with @marshallk", Hashable can take that and import it into your online contacts. Or, if you get the Hashable app itself, you can even use it to check-in to Foursquare and save the contact at the same time. Heck, it'll even Tweet for you while you're at it. It's also great for trying to introduce folks you should meet, whether by email or Twitter.

The best part is that it only requires a Twitter account. If one of you doesn't have Hashable, you can still make that connection, as it will be on Twitter and for you (you lucky Hashable user) it will become part of your Hashable address book.

LiquidSpace

So far, you've organized a lunch with friends, you've met some folks and stored their contact info using Hashable, but now, alas, it's time to actually get some work done.

Put simply, downtown Austin during SXSW is not exactly the most serene, work-conducive place in the world. Heck, it's bad for Austin, a city full of awesome coffee shops everywhere you look.

Enter LiquidSpace, the Airbnb of office space. LiquidSpace just launched for iPhone and iPad and makes it quick and easy to "find a great space to work - now." Just like Airbnb lets homeowners rent out spare bedrooms, couches or even floorspace, LiquidSpace lets business owners rent out extra office space, whether a private room or simply a desk with some good wifi.

So, if you're between panels and need a place to meet with clients, or maybe a place to work that isn't the hallway of the convention center, open up LiquidSpace, tell it what your looking for when, and it will hook you up with a place to work. Or, you could battle for that one outlet in the Starbucks.

Yeah, I'd rather not either.

Hurricane Party

If you've been to SXSW before, then you know how crammed it can get - especially over recent years. Parties sell out and fill up beyond capacity long before you arrive, leaving you stranded with nowhere to go. What's a quick way to get some friends together or find some other folks that have found themselves left high and dry without a party to attend?

Hurricane Party, a startup out of Austin, Texas, helps its users "find, share and create a party on the fly." And that's really it right there.

If you want to meet up with friends, you can quickly create an event using the app and it will send them invites by push notification or SMS for those without smartphones. Invites can be set to three privacy levels, from invite only to friends only to public, with the former two settings allowing you to broadcast the event on Facebook and Twitter. And Hurricane Party isn't only good for creating parties, but also for finding them.

Oh, and if you like free ice cream, the company has teamed up with Ice Cream Man to give away free ice cream all around downtown Austin. And every time he stops to hand out free strawberry shortcake bars or ice cream sandwiches, he's going to blast it out on Hurricane Party. If that's not enough reason to download the app, then I don't know what is.

This year at SXSW, stop waiting in lines for parties and create your own.

SXSW Go

Okay, so it's a conference. Behind all the partying and dancing and boozing, there's actually some rather interesting stuff going on. For that, we're going to have to recommend the one-stop shop that is the official SXSW app.

If you haven't gotten around to it yet (it's okay, you can't tell us), now's the time to sit down, log on to SXSW.com and flip through the schedule. Make sure to create your SXSW profile first, however, because you're not going to find time to do this twice and you'll want to have that schedule - no matter how loosely you follow it - handy wherever you go. The official SXSW app does that and more.

The app got a full makeover this time around, not only including your full, personalized schedule, but much more. This time around, the apps makers seem to have heard some feedback and come back with a much more full-featured experience. You can search through all panels, whether for Interactive, Film or Music, all official parties and book readings and mark them down on your schedule. This time around, the app even shows you who is on each panel - a big thing missing last year. And once you're at a panel or event, you can tweet about it, share it by email or on Facebook and even check in on Gowalla. You can view a map of the various SXSW venues in downtown Austin and tap on each one to see what's happening there next.

Last year, we recommended anything but the official app. This time around, we have to go with SXSW Go. It's a definite must-have.

That's what Lokast, the self-described "disposable" social network lets you do - carry your throw-away lifestyle over into the digital world.

Disposable? Yes. That means unlike Facebook which is friends and family, this app is about finding random people in close range and being able to share and see parts of their public digital profile including downloading their public-share videos, music and pictures. The best part, is that after you're in that close range, you may never see them again. IE: Disposable.

According to the press release, the name is short for "local casting", as opposed to broadcasting, and "aims to eliminate the need for physical media sharing, thereby eradicating physical CDs, plastic cases, video DVDs or waiting to get back to a PC computer to share and experience content."

We have to agree that SXSW seems like the perfect venue for this type of app and we'd say why not give it a shot? We haven't made it all the way downtown yet to be close enough to give it a full whirl, but it looks more than capable from toying with it.

Now, the thing is, we can't see a lot of people using this outside of big, hi-tech cities or conferences. Where does this fit into our day to day life? Are we really going to run around town staring at my screen trying to see if someone else with the same app is nearby? We don't think so. For now, though, we'd say give it an install and run around collecting some demos and see what people are listening to.

Google Buzz: Privacy Fail

Looking at the example of Google Buzz, which she called a "privacy fail," Boyd argued that Google didn't do anything technically wrong when it release Buzz. Instead, Google made a number of non-technical mistakes that interrupted a set of social expectations its users had.

Google's mistakes:

• Building a public system in an environment that most people consider to be private (their email service). A lot of users actually believed that once they started using Buzz, Google would expose all of their private emails to the world.
• Google assumed that users would simply opt out if they didn't want to participate. A lot of Google users, however, thought that they would cancel their Gmail accounts if the opted out of Buzz.
• Technologists assume that the optimal solution is the best and forget about social rituals. Boyd noted that users expect to be able to choose their friends, for example, a social ritual that Google interrupted when it automatically populated its users Buzz accounts with people they tended to send a lot of emails to.

To explain these issues, Boyd distinguished between articulated networks (address books, Facebook, Twitter), behavioral networks (based on common behavior, location, etc.) and personal networks. According to Boyd, people don't necessarily want to bring all of this info together (which Buzz did). Instead, they want to be able to separate different groups.

It's also important to remember that private and public are also not always clear binary opposites. While technology often makes it looks like this, in real life, things tend to get a lot messier. If you are out in a café, for example, you are in a public space, but you expect a certain community to be there - while you don't expect others to be there - and you still expect a certain degree of privacy while you are talking to your friends.

Facebook's Privacy Fail

Users generally don't handle change well, which can have serious privacy implications. When Facebook asked its users to reevaluate their privacy settings a few months ago, the default choice was "everyone." People encountered the Facebook popup with a notification about these changes, however, clicked through without reading it and suddenly all of their data was public. According to Facebook, only about 33% of users made changes. As Boyd noted in her talk, most Facebook users simply didn't understand the privacy settings.

Public by Default, Private by Effort

By default, most conversations on social media services are now public, while making them private takes a conscious effort. By and large, teenagers, according to Boyd, are more conscious about what they can gain by being public, while adults worry more about what they could lose. That, however, can lead to shortsighted decisions and have serious consequences - something developers need to think about as they create their social media applications and especially aggregators.

The Public-By-Default Environment is Not the Great Democratizer

Just because something is publicly accessible, for example, doesn't mean that people want it to be publicized. The launch of Facebook's news stream, fore example, caught users by surprise as it broke the social contract on Facebook. While the data in the news stream had always been available, aggregating it violated the privacy expectations of most users. Developers, according to Boyd, have to ask themselves how the people whose content they are remixing and aggregating would feel if all of this data was suddenly available in one place.

What Can Developers Do?

• There is no magical formula: privacy exists in social contexts and these contexts are complex and change constantly. For technologists, this is what makes it so hard to deal with these problems. Developers, said Boyd, have to learn to navigate these complexities and interact with their users. Developers also have to consider that privacy slip-ups can have real-world consequences for users.
• Developers have to ask themselves how they would feel if this information they aggregate would be disclosed. Just because you can see somebody, doesn't mean they want to be seen.
• Wanting privacy is not about having something to hide, but about control and creating space to open up.

Using AR to promote vehicles with 3D models is nothing new, but this is one of the first versions to reach consumers on their phones. The automotive industry has been one of the leading areas pushing desktop webcam-based AR experiences that have allowed users to interact with 3D models of cars from their homes. This new promotion from Chevy is unique in that it allows customers to have the same experience on their iPhones.

According to the App Store, AR iPhone application developer acrossair has produced the application for Chevrolet. The interesting thing about this experience is the way it blends the dichotomous features of mobile and webcam-based AR. The 3D model manipulation we are used to seeing on the desktop is wisely mixed with the location-based map info seen in most mobile AR applications. By taking the best of both worlds, acrossair and Chevrolet have opened the door to a new breed of mobile AR advertisements.

Augmented reality isn't the only emerging technology Chevrolet is experimenting with at SXSW; quick response (QR) codes, which are like a technological cousin of AR, are a large part of the company's promotions as well. When investigating Chevrolet's latest cars, users can photograph QR codes placed strategically on the cars to learn more about specific parts of the car. A QR code placed on the hood, for example, will launch information about the car's engine. Christopher Barger, Director of Global Communications and Technology for General Motors, is excited about the future of QR codes and AR for the automotive industry.

"Imagine using Quick Response Codes to download the price and options for a vehicle on a dealer lot right to your cell phone. Or, imagine using augmented reality to virtually preview different colors of the Camaro in your own driveway," Barger says. "We are just scratching the surface of what's possible with mobile technologies and social media applications."

Chevrolet is also teaming up with Gowalla to provide location-based advertisements to people checking in at SXSW. One promotion they are offering is a shuttle ride from the airport in one of their new cars to select users that check in at the airport, so don't forget to fire up Gowalla when you land in Austin. For more information about mobile and desktop AR advertising, be sure to check out our report on the subject coming soon!

We're excited about location too; see our enthusiastic write-ups What Twitter's Geolocation API Makes Possible and The Era of Location as Platform Has Arrived. But it's getting a little ridiculous. We offer below a few thoughts to consider about all this location madness.

Imagine the Future, It's Going to Be Different

If location based services ever become popular with the mainstream, every urban area might end up looking like the Foursquare map of downtown Austin this weekend. That means services are going to have to come up with creative and interesting new ways to make that data usable day-to-day and not overwhelming.

Likewise, when you think about the future, imagine Facebook being a player in this market, because they are going to be soon. It's possible that Facebook and Twitter could be where all these other services meet-up. Brightkite has different features than BlockChalk but we can see what our friends are doing across any of these apps on Facebook, perhaps. And Facebook is where your mom checks-in, if she's not an early adopter.

Finally, will location tracking be persistent? Loopt right now uses mobile carrier tie-ins to track your location constantly and expose it to a circle of trusted friends. Is that something that all services will enable in the future? Gowalla CEO Josh Williams told us "no way" does he think that will be the dominant model, but Adam Duvander, author of the forthcoming book Mapscripting 101, says he agrees with Loopt: that the value in persistent location tracking will be so compelling that everyone will end up going for it in the end, once proper privacy settings are figured out.

What do you think, do you think persistent location tracking is the future of location based services?

These are some of the things I'm thinking about location this week.

]]> Discuss]]> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/location_analysis_sxsw.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/location_analysis_sxsw.php Location Thu, 11 Mar 2010 17:00:52 -0800 Marshall Kirkpatrick Twitter launched lists in October 2009 and this feature has quickly become an essential part of the Twitter ecosystem. The power of lists isn't just in their ability to organize your followers, they also provide an an insight into how other users use Twitter. The number of followers an account has might show its popularity, but the number of lists called, for instance, "most influential" or "essential", that it appears on reveals just how important that account is.

Today, we're using lists to unscientifically analyze what we think are some of the some of the most influential Twitter accounts. We used a variety of lists to identify 485 accounts and then ran those names through Tableau's data visualization tools.

]]> Editors Note: This post is the second of a four-part content series ReadWriteWeb is producing in partnership with Tableau Software, where we examine interesting data sets relevant to technology trends today. You can use Tableau Public to create interactive visualizations like this and publish them to your own blog, Web sites, or anywhere online. You also can embed this (or any other Tableau Public) visualization on your own site.

Our List

We generated our list of Twitter influencers based on the lists that the RWW team follows and lists that some of the most influential people on those lists have created. We only used lists that were aggregating accounts that the list creator had called, for instance, "most important", or "most influential". After removing duplicates, we ended up 485 Twitter accounts. This list includes people, companies and breaking news feeds. By using lists instead of just follower counts we added an important filter, as many of these lists were created by Twitter users outside of the RWW team.

The Data

Powered by Tableau

What it Means

Many of the conclusions are unsurprising: Influential accounts have between 100 to more than 1 million followers. While there are some relatively new accounts in our list, the vast majority has been on Twitter for over a year. When it comes to influence on Twitter, being an early adopter clearly has some advantages.

Most of the users who appear on a lot of lists and have a lot of followers also tweet a lot. Given that some of these accounts are from news organizations, this number makes sense, but there is also a group of users like Anil Dash, the Gates Foundation and Outside.in's Steven Johnson who don't tweet a lot, but still have a large number of followers based on their reputation.

It is interesting to note is that there seems to be a group of users that has a very large number of followers, but doesn't appear on an extraordinary large number of lists. This group includes a surprisingly large number of Twitter employees, including Cheryl Palarca (Twitter HR), Alex McCauley (Twitter business operations) and Kevin Thau (mobile products and partnerships at Twitter).

Lastly, it's obvious that a large number of power users - those with a high number of followers and who appear on a large number of lists - were early adopters; SXSW 2007 and the months leading up to it is when a significant number of influencers signed up. However, while the sign-up rate of those influencers has significantly dropped over time, new influencers continued to appear right through the end of 2009. Twitter early adopters may have moved on the next big thing, but users with prestige haven't stopped signing up.

]]> Discuss]]> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/analysis_influencers_still_signing_up_followers_dont_equal_lists.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/analysis_influencers_still_signing_up_followers_dont_equal_lists.php Analysis Mon, 08 Mar 2010 13:30:00 -0800 Frederic Lardinois Last year, Foursquare was called the break-out mobile app of the conference by more than one tech journalist.

This year, a new contender has appeared - Austin's native Gowalla. And Brightkite is still hanging on to the LBS community,

if only by a thread of loyal users - but they still offer more features than some of their better-known competitors.

Which do you use now? And when your attention is at a premium during one of the year's most popular geek conferences, which app or apps will you use to collect badges, connect with friends, and find out where the party really is?

]]> Gowalla's main weakness might be that they haven't yet developed an Android or Blackberry application. WordPress Bible author Aaron Brazell noted that while many see the iPhone as the "Jesus phone," that doesn't change the fact that "any company who has a business model built around... iPhone is nucking futs."

While many of us use the mobile version of the site and patiently wait for a native app for non-iPhone devices, Foursquare's been our go-to check-in service for quite some time. And their response to us on Twitter suggests they may see themselves as a comfortable incumbent at this point.

Both of the services we've mentioned also have special, built-in incentives for users at SXSW. Gowalla in particular has announced an interesting promotion. For their flagship "Tiki Room" event, the app will "be scattering hundreds of Tiki Room Digital VIP Passes around downtown Austin. The only way to get yours is to check in with Gowalla at other Austin venues and SXSW events."

Last year, Foursquare also had special badges for SXSW, such as "Panel Nerd", "Karaoke RV" and "Porky" (for BBQ lovers, in particular). They even made a custom badge for attendees of Digg's party and Diggnation live show.

And while Brightkite may not have the game mechanics and rewards of other apps, it does give us the ability to upload photos in addition to text when checking into various locations - a tool we've found very handy when screening new venues for ambience.

So, which app or apps will you be using during SXSW? Vote in the poll, and let us know the "why" of your choice in the comments.

]]> Discuss]]> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/what_location-based_mobile_apps_will_you_use_durin.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/what_location-based_mobile_apps_will_you_use_durin.php Mobile Sun, 28 Feb 2010 19:18:51 -0800 Jolie O'Dell SXSW Interactive is just around the corner, so it's time to make your party plans for Austin, Texas! ReadWriteWeb's SXSW party - in partnership with PBS, NPR, and others - is happening on Sunday, March 14, from 9pm at KLRU's legendary Austin City Limits Studio. There will be shuttles to and from the Austin Hilton.

We invite you to enjoy some tex-mex, margaritas and live music with us! Also you'll network with the smart, cool people attending SXSW from ReadWriteWeb, PBS, NPR, Frontline, ITVS and Futurestates. This event is free to attend for all SXSW Interactive or Film badge holders.

You can register your interest at the event Facebook page.

]]> Who's Playing

Nicole Atkins & The Black Sea

Band of Skulls

SXSW attendees, calendar this event and let everyone know you are coming on Facebook and on Plancast.

When, Where and How to Get There

When: Sunday, March 14, 2010 at 9:00pm until Monday, March 15, 2010 at 1:00am
Where: SXSW, Austin City Limits @ KLRU Studios

Shuttle buses will run throughout the night between the Austin Hilton (5th street entrance) and KLRU.

]]> Discuss]]> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/readwriteweb_co-hosting_sxsw_party_with_pbs.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/readwriteweb_co-hosting_sxsw_party_with_pbs.php Admin Wed, 24 Feb 2010 13:10:14 -0800 Richard MacManus Mike Rohde was named the official "sketchnoter" of the South by Southwest Interactive conference this month in Austin and his sketches are the only form of note taking we've ever wanted to spend time going through after an event. Panel discussions at conferences are notoriously disappointing, but Rohde has done the dirty work and made it easy and fun for all of us to learn the lessons that speakers like Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh, web standards guru Jeffrey Zeldman and many others came to Austin to share.

]]> We love this way of learning from sessions we didn't attend and can imagine any conference having people offer visually grounded summaries of talks. Who wants to read through pages and pages of plain text notes? Check out the highlights of SXSW, according to Mike Rohde's pen.

It's really hard to create content while at a conference. Doing it in real time, artistically, is very impressive.

Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.]]> Discuss]]> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/missed_talks_at_sxsw_learn_visually_with_sketchnot.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/missed_talks_at_sxsw_learn_visually_with_sketchnot.php Publishing Services Mon, 23 Mar 2009 10:08:51 -0800 Marshall Kirkpatrick PeopleBrowsr, the online dashboard which tracks updates across all your social networks, has just launched a version of their application designed for the folks who will be attending the SXSW Festival later this month. With the customized application now available at sxsw.peoplebrowsr.com, you can track parties, SXSW-related hash tags, and you can even see where people are tweeting from using Google Maps.

]]> South by Southwest (commonly abbreviated as just "SXSW") is a huge music, film, and web conference that takes place every year in Austin, Texas. A week-long event, the festival has become one of the top destinations for internet geeks thanks to its numerous panels and sessions on all things tech. It's also well known for its numerous parties...err...networking events, where like-minded people get to interact with each other face-to-face, out from behind their respective keyboards.

But because of its massive size and scope, keeping up with all the activities and events at SXSW can be somewhat overwhelming, even for seasoned attendees. That's where the Peoplebrowsr application can help. With the special SXSW edition of this online dashboard, you have a customized portal that comes pre-configured with a number of features that attendees will surely love.

Ten Reasons to Check Out SXSW.Peoplebrowsr.com

1. You can view all conversations and content related to #SXSW on Twitter, Facebook, and other popular social networks in one dashboard.

2. You can create Twitter groups (like you can in TweetDeck) to listen to a specific subset of people - like those attending SXSW for example.
3. You can see all the SXSW parties in one master list without leaving your PeopleBrowsr dashboard.
4. You can follow the buzz about the conference and parties - check out who's going where, what's cool, and what shouldn't be missed.
5. You can find and follow new people and trends based on both popular and yet to be discovered hash tags such as #SXSW, #techset, #allhat, #bloglounge. This feature is especially useful for newcomers who may not know which hashtags are related to SXSW events.
6. There's an embedded map for visually tracking where friends are tweeting while in Austin. This can help power the SXSW flash mob mentality made popular by last year's @garyvee (Gary Vaynerchuk) party by visually seeing where people are tweeting from during the conference and parties.
7. You can check out the statistics and word clouds for the most popular tags and words used during the conference.
8. You can learn more about the people attending the conference. For example, when you see an interesting tweet, you can click on that person to see their other IDs and profiles across the social web, including pictures and videos. And to find out if that person will be at a party, you can check the parties stream or perform a Twitter search (e.g. +party +Friday) in that person's stream.
9. You can analyze Twitter activity by reviewing a number of integrated reports. PeopleBrowsr lets you keep track of activity such as who's re-tweeting you, who's re-tweeting your friends, who recently followed you, among many other things.
10. You can share the results of Twitter searches you do in the application with your friends - and in just one click.

Bonus: The SXSW edition of PeopleBrowser also lets you spread something they call "PBLove," which is a feature they implemented for Valentine's Day. With this, you can share public but anonymous tweets of adoration for other festival attendees, secret-admirer style! That certainly allows for a nicer back channel than we've seen in previous years.

For more info on the features of sxsw.peoplebrowsr.com, check out the video below.

If the SXSW edition of Peoplebrowsr proves successful, the company plans to launch other customized editions of the application in the future.

]]> Discuss]]> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/peoplebrowsr_launches_custom_app_for_sxsw.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/peoplebrowsr_launches_custom_app_for_sxsw.php Product Reviews Mon, 09 Mar 2009 10:40:32 -0800 Sarah Perez If your team is spread out over a wide geographic region, online collaboration tools are key to getting everyone on the same page. Something that dispersed teams haven't had much opportunity to use use are whiteboards, which can be really useful in brainstorming sessions. But now, with Twiddla, this year's winner of the Technical Achievement award at SXSW, comes a team whiteboarding service that offers a no-setup, online meeting web site for team collaboration.

]]> Twiddla can be used to mark up web sites, graphics, photos, or even start brainstorming on a blank canvas. Users can either sign up for the service by creating an account, or can just start using it in "guest mode." A public sandbox is also available if you just want to check it out to see if it would work for you.

If you do decide to use it to set up your own meetings, you can set them as either "public" or "private" and email invitations to your intended participants. Meeting participants are displayed in Twiddla's sidebar and with just a click, you can start chatting with them using an audio chat feature that utilizes your computer's microphone and speakers to take the brainstorming session from a chat session to a live conference call.

Image from the Twiddla blog

The whiteboard tool in Twiddla lets you draw freehand, insert shapes, insert text, and insert media. You can use Twiddla's built-in shapes or upload files from your own computer. Text can be entered in directly or can be placed in a text bubble or on a post-it note. A box at the top of the screen lets you enter in a URL of your choosing to pull up any web site on the internet. You can then overlay your drawings on top of the web site that is displayed.

But I think the Twiddla team sums it up the best. When I clicked over to their "features" page, only two items were mentioned: "Kicks A**, Doesn't Cost Anything."

I'd like to add to that list: Works.

Twiddla is now in public beta.

]]> Discuss]]> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/team_whiteboarding_with_twiddla.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/team_whiteboarding_with_twiddla.php Web Office Tue, 11 Mar 2008 08:00:47 -0800 Sarah Perez I'm back at SXSW as one of the RWW contributors covering the interactive festival. This afternoon I attended Jason Fried's presentation on "Stuff We've Learned at 37 Signals". 37 Signals is a software company headquartered in Chicago, IL that started as a interactive design company and has since become one of the leading software companies for personal productivity software.

]]> Currently over one million people and businesses use their productivity applications (including RWW, which is a paying customer of Basecamp). They also are responsible for creating and then open sourcing the popular web developer language Ruby on Rails. Jason Fried is the company's founder. As a company I've long respected, it was interested to hear him discuss some of the things he's learned developing 37 Signals.

Lesson 1: Ignore The Great Unknown

Jason started his presentation talking about "the great unknown," which he defined as the things that hang over every entrepreneur's head when they are starting a company. For example, "what about when we have 1M customers or 100 employees." Jason encouraged people to ignore these concerns and focus on the now. He pointed out that often as entrepreneurs, we worry about the impact of our decisions rather than just making the right decision. He asserted that this is crazy, because decisions made today don't have to last forever - we "must optimize for today."

Lesson 2: Watch Out for Red Flags

The next point was about interpersonal dynamics in the workplace and watching out for what he called 'red flags.' Red flags are basically words or phrases that end up causing problems in communications. For example, at 37 Signals they learned to be careful with the words: need, can't, easy, only, and fast. For example saying, how easy someone else's job is or that they can't ship a product without one feature.

Lesson 3: Be Successful and Make Money by Helping Other People be Successful and Make Money

He talked about the powerful reaction people had to Basecamp when they first released it (Basecamp is a very lightweight project management tool). They realized this was because the tool was helping other people do their job better. This has become part of their philosophy, looking for opportunities in the marketplace to "spot chain reactions and be the catalyst" around helping others.

Lesson 4: Target Nonconsumers and Nonconsumption

This is actually a concept that Jason borrowed from Clayton Christensen (a famous professor at Harvard Business School) in the books Innovators Dilemma and Innovators Solution. The idea is that there exists an entire market of nonconsumers, or people who have a need but existing players aren't targeting these people. The advantage of targeting this segment is that you minimize the chance for competition from entrenched players.

Lesson 5: Question Your Work Regularly

At 37 Signals, Jason reported they are always asking questions to make sure they are doing the right things. Internally, this list of questions includes:

• why are we doing this?
• what problem are we solving?
• is this actually useful?
• are we adding value?
• will this change behavior?
• is there an easier way?
• what's the opportunity cost?
• is it really worth it?

Lesson 6: Read your Product

Given the firm's background, this was a lesson I found particularly interesting. Jason claimed that the "Biggest sin on the internet right now is bad copywriting ... paying too much attention to pixels and not enough attention to words." Beyond this he pointed out that words are actually less expensive to correct and improved copy will make doing the design second result in a stronger design.

Lesson 7: Err on the Side of Simple

As surprising as I found the last lesson, this one was probably the most obvious given 37 Signal's business. Jason pointed out that you should always "start with the easy way." The interesting and non-obvious point was that he extended this beyond product issues. For example, he recommended people start a company by setting up an LLC, until they need a C Corp.

Lesson 8: Invest in What Doesn't Change

Jason said that this is the "best business advice he's gotten in some time." It interesting because this isn't something that is intuitive, when you think about tech companies which tend to be focused on what is new and upcoming. However, Jason pointed out that principals can last. For example at 37 Signals, he said they anticipate in 10 years "simple, affordable software" will still be worth investing in.

Lesson 9: Follow the Chefs

Jason called chefs the smartest business professionals. He explained this is because they are aware that you become famous and successful by giving knowledge away. For example, chefs have cooking shows and write cook books. Yet it doesn't stop their restaurants from being successful. In fact, he claimed they are probably more successful because of their sharing.

Lesson 10: Interruption is the Enemy of Productivity

Originally David Heinemeier Hansson (Jason's partner) and Jason didn't live in the same city. They eagerly awaited David moving to Chicago and being able to get even more done. Interestingly, when David arrived they actually found productivity decreasing. At 37 Signals, they have come to believe that this was due to the increased interruptions; and so they ended up favoring passive communication like email versus things that are more instantaneous but also interrupt your workflow.

Lesson 11: Road Maps Send You in the Wrong Direction

When talking about business plans, financial projections, or features for products 37Signals believes road maps are bad, because "they lock you into the past." The only exception is APIs, because people are counting on it. Instead he said your expectation should be "do the right thing at the right time."

Lesson 12: Be Clear in Crisis

At the beginning of this year, 37 Signals had some infrastructure problems that resulted in a few hours of unscheduled downtime. This was widely discussed on the internet. They quickly posted about what had happened and during the technical problems kept they the homepage updated with status messages. Through this experience, it reinforced their belief that people love you even more if you are open, honest, public and responsive during a crisis.

Lesson 13: Make Tiny Decisions

Rather than trying to make major decisions, when possible, Jason encouraged entrepreneurs to break problems down to the atomic level. In web properties, this is especially powerful because they've been able to break features down to the atomic level and then launch them one at a time. This is good because the team can gain momentum and celebrate little launches. However, it's also good because "when you make tiny decisions, you can't make big mistakes."

Lesson 14: Make it Matter

Jason ended his presentation by encouraging the audience to make sure their work was significant. He talked about how meaningful he felt the products they were creating were for individuals. Before opening it up for questions, he said that "everything you do should matter."

Conclusion

One of the things I love most about SXSW is the transparency with which so many leaders share about their business. At last year's festival, two of my favorite panels were: Web App Autopsy and The Figures Behind the Top Web Apps.

We'd love to hear any good case studies or lessons you've learned running startups or in business. Please share them in the comments below.

]]> Discuss]]> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/sxsw_lessons_learned_at_37signals.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/sxsw_lessons_learned_at_37signals.php SXSW 2008 Sat, 08 Mar 2008 21:34:53 -0800 Sean Ammirati South by Southwest Interactive is beginning today and Twitter is liable to be at the center of communications there for many people. Presuming that Twitter can stay up the whole time, two problems remain. First, how can new users tune in to the hottest conversations on Twitter quickly? Second, how can all the people not participating in the week long event still enjoy their beloved Twitter if it's overrun with SXSW references?

Never fear, RSS filtering is here! Below are instructions for some simple ways you can accomplish either of the goals above. See also our post on the apps most likely to break out for the first time at SXSW. Update: Tweetpeek just launched and takes care of much of this functionality.

]]> Tuning in the the Top Twitter Conversations at SXSW

In talking to people who are going to SXSW for the first time and who haven't used Twitter very much, I realized that it could be helpful to create an easy way for them to follow the messages of the defacto leaders of the Twitter community. Enter the Discuss]]> http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/how_to_ramp_up_or_filter_out_the_sxsw_twitter_experience.php http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/how_to_ramp_up_or_filter_out_the_sxsw_twitter_experience.php Events Guide Fri, 07 Mar 2008 11:39:04 -0800 Marshall Kirkpatrick