SXSW 20 is in Austin. A nice place and time to launch a blog.
As always, SXSW is inspiring. It’s a guilty pleasure to roam the halls and soak in all of the energy. Here’s some of what I heard and learned…
Regarding the open source/web logging community: Don’t think in terms of professionals versus amateurs. Instead of amateurs, think of enthusiasts. The Internet is about discovery. Create your audience. The Web is the product manual. Power is in becoming the place that others reference. Don’t be afraid of “free.” Read John P Barlow’s “Death from Above.” The community of blogs has made mothering a less lonely job. What source can you trust more? Reputation is paramount. Technorati. Blog measurement from Buzzmetrics, but remember to measure occurrence AND tone. We’re all authors of each other
Regarding app development via standards versus “getting it done”: Sometimes there’s no other way to get things done than via hacks. For example, to make server push work with Google chat required a combination of IE Active-X internals, tricks with Firefox and other non-standard hacks to “get the job done.” How about using Flash for UI? Examples include – Video: Odeo. Rich type: Newsmap. Embedded widgets: Myspace. Coming soon: the Google Page Creator. Code validators are a means, not an end. But, at the end of the day, know which rules you are breaking & why. If you don’t, then you shouldn’t be use hacks.
Regarding Criag Newmark and craigslist: There are only 19 people in the organization. Craig is Customer Service Rep and Founder. He claims to speak with about 200 people per week. What he loves about wikipedia is that no longer is it the case that only the winners get to write the history books. The biggest challenge to craigslist is staying out of the way of the community. Much of recent “customer service” is sorting out the dis-information. Unfortunately, crooks are early adopters of technology. Fortunately, most of the web seems to work accoring to the “golden rule.” Places where Craig finds truth: OhmyNews, The Guardian, Jeff Jarvis, Jay Rosen, Dan Gillmor, Phil Meyer, Onevoice, Factcheck.org. Where Craig gets his news: The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, The Onion. Oh…and Craig is very proud of the job that President Bartlet is doing.
That’s it for SXSW Interactive this year.
Good night, love you, see you next week!
The BroadBrush Update 