Internet Geek Girl

By now, most of my fellow SXSW Interactive attendees have made it home and unpacked. Hopefully you have caught up on your lack of sleep and have warded off the SXSWsars (unfortunately I didn’t – can you hear my sniffles and scratchy voice?). If you’re like me, you’ve been digging through your email and reviewing the huge stack of business cards you collected in Austin. Processing all the information and inspiration takes time, especially for a show which overflows with both.

Unquestionably, SXSWi was a qualitative and quantitative success. There was a reported 25% increase in attendance year over year and the blog posts, tweets, and Facebook updates show nothing but love for this ritual “geek spring break.”

For me, the highlight of the trip was obviously the honor of co-hosting the TechSet Blogger Lounge with my co-founder @BrianSolis (and our event partners at Tokita Bethune, Inc.) The lounge and party were sponsored by Windows Mobile. The Windows Mobile team provided a great service to the community of bloggers, developers, marketers and influencers that set up shop in The Austin Suite. With great bandwidth and great company, the Windows Mobile lounge was THE PLACE to be every day (especially during our tweet ups from 4 – 6 pm – thank you AMD and Zappos). Plus, check out the videos that a bunch of well known geeks made in the lounge – Can you say Fantasy App? We were even lucky enough to have live entertainment one day from Paula Nelson (Austin native and Willie’s daughter). Big thanks to 1938media and John Rosenfelder (@earbender) for putting that together.

On the social front – I enjoyed going to Stubbs for the Diggnation event, The Salt Lick, Gueros, and of course, attending the many parties. “Best in show” include, Alltop, Facebook, Mashable and of course, The TechSet. The best pictures from the entire week come from Laughing Squid, Brian Solis and Wm. Marc Salsberry. Huge shout out to Joie de Vie salon and all the ladies from there that helped make me pretty every day (thanks Amanda, thanks Erin and the other Jerseygirl Steph).

For the last few years the Geeks have taken over the town before the music festival swings into full force. If you stay for part of the transition time, it’s funny to see the difference. My cab driver summed it up best – “the geeks are way more quiet and they are always playing on their phones.” He just doesn’t realize we’re making a ton of noise online and talking to our friends (who are sitting next to us in RL) on Twitter!

If you missed the show or like me, were too busy to attend most of the panels, here’s a short list of some recommended recaps:

• BlogWorld Expo Radio Podcast with yours truly and Jim Turner!
• The very awesome Nicole Jordan on her blog, Kicking Sand. She captures the style and substance.
• Nothin’ but SocNet’s Zena Weist has a great list of other recaps in addition to her insightful musings. She doesn’t just chat about social media – she lives it.
• Omar Gallaga from the Austin Statesman has a bunch of good stuff (with a local spin) on Austin360, with individual panel/party/videos here. Omar also did an NPR segment last Monday which was very cool.
• Pamela Lund on Massively Networked reviewed some very cool panels, which included tidbits of advice from: Thor Muller (Get Satisfaction, Inc.), Patrick Moorhead (Razorfish), and Ben Rigby (Mobile Voter), Barrett Fox (COCO Studios) and Jeroen Lapre (distant-galaxy.com).
• Jeff Beckham’s SXSW Scorecard looks back at the 19 panels/talks he attended, and he ranked them.  Very good stuff.
• RJ Owen of O’Reilly’s InsideRIA had at a great take on parties and panels!
• The ever-good-spirited @technosailor shares his journey and musings. Love the shout out to the Blogger Lounge!

BTW – David Carr wrote a nice piece in the NYT today that tells the story of the founding of the entire festival and it’s impact on the town. Plus his insights about the THRIVING Austin Chronicle, which has fueled this multimedia event since its inception, are especially intriguing given a market where many newspapers are failing.

All I can say is….keep Austin Weird and Geeky!

I’ll leave you with a video from my friend Guy Kawasaki that he did from his Kirsty-Alltop Party. Ya gotta love Texas (especially once / year in Austin)!

It’s been a week since the Affiliate Summit Social Media bus rolled from Boston down to NYC.  I’ve just recently recovered from the experience.  If you missed Gary Vaynerchuk’s u-streaming of the bus ride I recommend you check it out (and have a good laugh).

Big thanks to everyone who joined in for the Affiliate Summit Social Media Bus and Blogger Lounge.  It was a fantastic event. There are some great round-ups out there including on Affiliate Tip,  5Star Affiliate Programs, and my favorite: the Tris Hussey Flickr shots!

One of the highlights of the show for me was the Cory Booker Keynote! It set the tone for a substantive and productive conference. You can catch excerpts here! Be sure to follow Shawn Collins on Twitter as he will post the full video and MP3 of Mayor Booker’s speech as soon as it goes up.

** ADDITION TO POST: Here’s the full keynote!

Personal thanks going out to Gary Vaynerchuk for his participation!  Also, big thanks to Social Spark and Market Leverage for their sponsorship support.

Missy/Shawn – as always, you put on a wonderful event.

And finally, a big shout out (and some link love) for all my bloggers peeps who stopped in the lounge. You guys RAWK!

Ari Greenberg

Ashley Edwards

Carsten Cumbrowski

Charles Ngo

Chris Brogan

Content Robot

David Fisher

Jay Berkowitz

Jeremy Johnson

Jim Kukral

Joe Garraffo

John Chow

John Hasson

Jonathan Dingman

Mark Wielgus

Maria Thurrell

Michael Buechele

MLTV

Oz Sultan

Peter Glaeser

Rick Burnes

Sally Chow

Sam Harrelson

Shawn Collins

Selina McCusker

Steve Hall

Ted Murphy

Tris Hussey

Trisha Lyn

Zac Johnson

During my visit to Orlando, Florida last week, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Ted Murphy at Izea headquarters. As Ted’s shirt insinuates, he likes “creating chaos.” His business ventures have a tendency to do just that. PayPerPost caused quite a stir in the last year, and his new company is getting loads of attention – for different reasons.

SocialSpark is Izea’s newest attempt at creating a marketplace between bloggers and advertisers. This time around, Ted has gotten it “right” (according to many – including Jason Calacanis) with policies that include: 100% disclosure, 100% transparency, 100% real opinion, 100% no follow. If you’ve got content, creativity and influence – check out SocialSpark and jump into the marketplace.

I have to give a quick shout out to Ted’s web2.0 reality TV show, RockStartUp. Ted and the team share their start-up journey with the world. As someone who has worked at quite a few start-ups, I’d have to say the show is spot on!

Don’t forget to check out my interview with Ted back at @sxswbloghaus in March.

Rock on Ted!

Taking the show on the road! And stay tuned, b/c there is much more in store.

@StephAgresta and @BrianSolis cordially invite you to join us at the Hotel Roosevelt next Wednesday, April 9th, at 8 pm. This is an informal celebration of The Techset, the people who are actively contributing to the evolution of the social economy. The Techset is everywhere, online and offline. In essence, the Techset is you.

If you’re local or if you’re in town for the party, please RSVP here and we’ll see you in Hollywood!

Date: Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Time: 8 – 11 p.m

We look forward to generating lots of content with you.

Lisa Nova and Danny Diamond blew thru the SXSW BlogHaus. Her YouTube Channel is one of the hottest out there. As I write this, the stats on the site are as follows:

Style: Variety

Joined: June 05, 2006

Last Login: 3 minutes ago

Videos Watched: 10,173

Subscribers: 87,705

Channel Views: 6,232,103

These two are quite the YouTube Team! I grooved on their energy and expertise. I also liked it when Danny grabbed the mike out of my hands. Thank goodness, he improved the shot.