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Close Encounters of the Tech Kind 1

We saw some impressive products while at South by. Most staggering was the diversity. Despite all the talk of “Location Location Location” not every new app focused on your mobile whereabouts. One was a nifty new open source Content Management System, Concrete5. The product differs from better known systems like Drupal and Joomla most notably [...]

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mini: Niche

The world is made of up of niche markets – people looking to consume unique things. According to Jeremy Gutsche, popular is not cool. Popular is what was once unique but went viral. I learned from Jason Fried of 37signals and Gutsche that big companies build things for big markets. Masses of consumers, hordes of [...]

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Noise and Exhaustion

I was overwhelmed today. I say this to somewhat admit my own failings (I was exhausted and therefore asocial) and to offer a metaphor/piece of advice. South by Southwest is much like the Internet itself in that there is so much content, you have to create your own filters and on occasion, step away from [...]

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The Value of Blame

Blame gets a bad wrap.  Blame can bring down an otherwise successful venture, or can derail a project if improperly placed or delivered.

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About Us

Three Syracuse University iSchool students escape the wintry confines of Central New York in exchange for sunny Austin, Texas and the nexus of the technology world. What will they find? Who will they meet? What will they learn? Stay tuned here to find out.

Noise and Exhaustion

Kate | March 15th, 2010 | SXSW | No Comments »

I was overwhelmed today. I say this to somewhat admit my own failings (I was exhausted and therefore asocial) and to offer a metaphor/piece of advice. South by Southwest is much like the Internet itself in that there is so much content, you have to create your own filters and on occasion, step away from [...]

The Value of Blame

shaycolson | March 14th, 2010 | SXSW | No Comments »

Blame gets a bad wrap.  Blame can bring down an otherwise successful venture, or can derail a project if improperly placed or delivered.

SXSW Downside

Kate | March 13th, 2010 | SXSW | No Comments »

Ok so I’m going to be a downer for just a moment, but there’s a happier side to this note. I mentioned earlier that some of the journalism posts are blase, featuring journalists who don’t understand their users and are stuck in a place where you say “well, duh, you’ve been talking publicly about that [...]

A great, and very topical, discussion took place today at one of the most interestingly titled panels at SXSW: “Unsexy and Profitable. Making $$ Without the Hype.”  What did they decide?  As usual, it depends.

Crowdfunding Journalism

Kate | March 13th, 2010 | SXSW | 1 Comment »

There are so many panels I want to attend here and I started narrowing them down by eliminating the ones Shay and Andrew were really interested and focusing on the ones that only I would be: Media and Journalism panels. Unfortunately, these are also the panels where I have yet to hear a lot of [...]

Oh the Networks…

Kate | March 13th, 2010 | SXSW | No Comments »

Shay posted earlier about the sheer volume of content coming out of SXSW and from professional videographers recording all the panels for podcasts, to attendees blogging, recording, and photographing just about everything, a savvy internet user could probably stay in their hotel room and still know what’s going on. Yet, they would be missing the [...]

SXSW and Content Creation

shaycolson | March 13th, 2010 | SXSW | 1 Comment »

There are lots of talks going on about creating content – how to do it better, tools that make it easier, services that help you spread the message, etc., but perhaps the most interesting aspect of content creation at SXSW is the sheer volume of content that attendees are putting out.

Master Jack

Kate | March 12th, 2010 | SXSW | No Comments »

The panelists at Jacks of All Trades or Masters of One dance around a point frequently articulated in Susan Dischiave’s database class: know the back concepts so that you can apply the hot new tech trend to it. A fellow sxsw attendee from a brand new program out in Colorado sitting next to us brought [...]

Let’s Get Ready to Rumble

shaycolson | March 12th, 2010 | SXSW | No Comments »

I am coming to you live from the Austin Convention Center, or ACC a people here are calling it. We are settled in for our first panel, fittingly entitled “How to Rawk SXSW.”. A first time attendees, we need all the advice we can get. As the festival begins in earnest, it’s amazing how many [...]

Sunshine

shaycolson | March 12th, 2010 | SXSW | No Comments »

The weather in Austin is a great metaphor for this conference.  It’s illuminating, comfortable, invigorating, and sustaining. The Austin Convention Center was buzzing with excitement when we got there.