If you ever have the inkling, definitely go.  It’s an incredibly creative city.

Philly is known for it famous murals:

and the general artsiness…

… maybe even their sweets (Oh those cupcakes and canolis!)

.. but who knew about the bathrooms?

You may be thinking, “where are the cheesesteak photos?”.  Mm, well, I will give Pat’s one vote but to be fair to the rest, we didn’t make it to Geno’s nor Jim’s.  Next time.

It was a blast! Everything was an adventure and the weather was hot and humid and yet I miss it.

While there, we went to Bangkok and stopped by Chinatown. And what kind of trip would it be if it didn’t involve some craftiness?! Behold, BUTTONS! :)

Panel: Keynote with Mark Zuckerberg
My notes: “Sucked”
All I remember from this talk was Zuckerberg saying “platform, efficient, community” and Lacy just crossing and uncrossing her legs while twirling her hair. I left 15 minutes before the end. Apparently, the crowd went a bit crazy when it was Q&A time towards the end. The best part was when it as mob rule and they gave her a lashing. Ah well.

Panel: Human Rights in Virtual Worlds: discussion about whether or not you own what you make in a virtual game
- there is no such thing as group rights as of now. There’s still work being done for individual rights online
- ULAs (User Licence Agreements) are not always as liberal as marketed

Should you own what you make? If it’s on their server, perhaps it doesn’t fall into “your” possession. Curious what the gamers in the audience think of this one.

Panel: Icanhascheezburger
We were promised free burgers. While we were inside the room, passersby ate our burgers :( I still can’t believe the company staffs 9 full time employees – all off ad-based revenue from funny cat pictures!

Sunday was the most partied out night of all of them. Went to a pre-party for the Adobe Web Awards. Then the awards show hosted by Eugene Mirman. Lots of laughs. The ‘ask a ninja’ guy came out to receive awards for participants not present. Went to the Etsy/Threadless/Moo party – which sucked. It was crowded, hot and no movement space since there were 3 pool tables with active games going on at the time. Gawker party at Emo’s: Met John Coulton who sings “Code Monkey”. Bumped into Eugene Mirman there who let us know of his comedy show the following night. Then went to Blogger party and met Cheeseburger from Icanhascheezburger. Partied hard.

Most memorable moment at the Blogger party: Met an Irishman and asked where I should go when I visit Ireland some day. Instead of the usual way of making a list, he drew out an accurate map of Ireland’s coastline and pin pointed the cities I should see. I love the geek way and not the ‘normal’ way :)

I don’t want to bore you with all the details and I’m sure you can find long, well written explanations of the panels on professional blogs. Here, I’ll just note what I found interesting from the ones I attended.

In true slacker fashion, I will write up the first day. More to come.

Panel: Horrible Ads: A panel with Jeff Jarvis and others discussing last year’s worst advertising campaigns
- Rules #101 : When making an ad, make sure your audience can remember your brand name
- Don’t mess with Wikipedia because you will be found out
- Don’t make up socialibility where it doesn’t exist (The Cisco “human networking” example)
- Vespa: Started a blog and let it die after a few entries. If you start it, finish it!
- Whole Foods CEO: Don’t lie about your competition
- Whatever you do, don’t insult your audience’s intelligence

Panel: Steven Johnson & Henry Jenkins: An optimistic view on collective intelligence
- How is it that people find the time and devotion to fan sites?
- Most pink collar workers need high levels of expertise to get the job. Once they have it, they are only required to use a small portion of their knowledge at work. They then seek out respect and a reputation outside of the office – this is possible in an online space. Hence, the motivation for hours spent creating online communities
- Harry Potter has enabled kids to seek out larger text to read as well as learn about the legal process and fair trade when they try to publish their own works.
- There’s a shift from “I” to “We”
- A large reason why Barack Obama is popular amongst younger voters: he is the stub in the Wikipedia entry and we are all filling out the entry together (interesting wording that caught my attention)

Panel: Voting
- “miracle of aggregation”
- In a betting market, there is a cost to be wrong. If there’s something at stake, does a voter with a ‘wrong’ vote stay quiet?
- If you don’t know enough about a subject, don’t vote! (brings up the question of how informed are we as a society about the current issues and our presidential candidates’ take on them)

Panel: Worst. Website. Ever: A complete riot. Some of the most hilarious moments at SXSW. Loved it.
- What makes a horrible website? It is: Inane. Derivative. Evil.
(derivative example: Facebook for Senior Citizens. Threadless for Pants – Pantless)
Sites presented: Presca.st, Flockd Up, HappyNetBox, Sickr, Mmomerce, PeopleIPO.

After this, we’d gone to Spaghetti warehouse. Because where do you eat the best Italian food? In Texas, of course. And how do you know it’s the best? Your food has a tiny plastic Italian flag on it to remind you of the cuisine in case you’d forgotten.

Good times on 6th street afterwards. Got a cowgirl hat. :)

I got to see 2 great comedians, Eugene Mirman and Mike Birbiglia, on Monday night at Emo’s on Red River Street in Austin. They were so funny that I nearly peed myself and my friend laughed so hard that he felt his dinner coming up. Such great times.

This was a clip Mirman showed the crowd:

And after much chanting for it, Birbiglia did the “Cracka” skit:

Notes on the panels, parties and sites coming next! :)

This is what was waiting for me when I got back to my desk Wednesday morning… thanks Ulina for the cute welcome :)

Upcoming posts:
- A “best moments of Austin SXSW 2008″
- Podcasts review
- Lifehacking: cutting down on time spent online. (in response to Haasome’s latest post)
- who knows what else.. stay tuned!

Btw, I’ve never bought KnitPicks yarns but this ad from Ravelry is making me both hungry and craving something sweet.. like a yummy shade of alpaca yarn.. :-p

Catch ya soon dudes and dudettes.

.. if you view the last page, you’ll a photo of Avani, myself and Vickie Howell! I was so stoked to have met her in person. Not sure if she was creeped out that I nearly followed her for a minute to get a picture haha.