Let me first start out by saying I haven't been to a SXSWi before. I scored 2 free day passes for my and Cousin Smokey (aka Rickey) and we thought we would check it out today. We went over there around 3 and figured 3 hours was enough time to spend going through the kiosks, booths, and sundry. It was. Walking around the place I got an immediate feel of a current flowing through the aisles. There was a new shift in focus this year. From what I heard, last year was about the basic web 2.0 emergence. Basing all your productivity software and other programs on the web instead of hosting it on your own system. This year it was about coalating all your web sources into one portal. Your Myspace, Facebook, Twitter, Pownce,and so on. You can blog, message, and send files through one portal. Several folks offered their sites as the new way to do it all on one site. The first guys I met offering this were:
Now I like their interface and the idea is interesting. A site that will update you on flickr posts, facebook, and so forth. Problem is it isn't very interesting to look at. Handy, yes. You can post to any of the sites you've added onto the socialthing! roster and see frequent updates, but this should be up in a corner window of my screen, not a whole site. Better off as a widget for now. Granted this is still in Beta so I'll hope for a more immersive site to be developed. Still very useful for social network collator. if you want in on the beta use this invite code: the cake is a lie
The next note-able booth was:
I loved this concept and plan on using it a few times this year. Blurb is about desktop publishing, in a more literal sense. You download their free software, that has a very light footprint, and you build your book with your own pictures and text. You can do all the layout work and choose what format the book will be. You have them publish the book for you. Order one copy for yourself or 10 to give out as gifts. You can sell your book on their site for whatever cost you want and they will only take out the cost of publishing. They sell it for you and ship it too. I have a few ideas rolling around in my head already.
There was a site I already use:
I made this for the Digg Party:
I think you get that this makes awesome random slideshows to music. Pull your photos from your desktop, your flickr, picasa, whatever... and it will build it for you. You can arrange photos and tell it to feature some more prominently than others. They even give you the code to post it or will post it for you to a frined's myspace comments, Facebook, and the like. Too easy. This is a 30 second example. I plan on having a full one from my SXSW musical adventures up by the end of the week.
Another booth touted the ability to post Text, Pictures, & Video from your cellphone to the web.
Utterz
Simple to use, free as well. I don't see a downside to this service. As soon as I upgrade my phone from the Honk Kong Fooey that it is to a pic and video sending device I will use this a lot. I recommend. It's not in beta, either. Fully ready to rock and roll.
I went downstairs towards the end of the day and found:
These folks were offering a demo of their custom laser engraving. I watched for a bit and decided to get my Samsung P2 engraved. Ricky and I worked on a design while waiting in line. He talked to them about submitting new designs for their catalog. The lady behind us was pushy, antsy, insistent, and rude. All for a free offering. I almost yeled at her for being an old tit bag.
Here is the process of the etching.
And the finished Product:
These folks have only been in business for about a month or so. If you like this visit their site I linked to and ask them for a quote on some work for yourself. When my new Notebook comes in this week I will start figuring out the design. Hot stuff!
We killed some time over at Jackalope and worked on my business card design. We got the front part worked out we are waiting on me to reg a website to host me genius on.
We swung by the Gawker/io9 party but it was too crowded and we could chat with anyone. We ended up at the super secret Blogger party at Club De Ville
where we got booze, gloves and stickers. As shown here.
I chatted with a gent from Clearspring, they make widgets, who's name is on a card I don't have on me right now. [Add in later]. We talked about Twitter, and what widgets were doing to change web functionality, as well as cluing him in on some functions of Google he didn't know about. Score one for me!
It was a nice spread of food and it wasn't too crowded.
We left after about 2 hours or so. Rickey had to be at work in the AM and had to get all the way back to Blanco. It was very productive and I walked away with a new purpose.
This was the main reason why I decided on buying a new laptop. I want to continue doing these web things but don't want to be a shut in. So I will be outside more but still as web 2.? as ever.
