Anton Olsen.com

Monday 2pm - Growth of Microformats

An interesting talk about something I didn’t understand because it’s just too simple.  I’ve always wondered: “Isn’t this just a pile of attributes on html elements?” and yes, that’s all it is.  There’s nothing to understand, it’s that easy.

All that being said, it’s simply a way to publish information (that you already publish) in a machine readable way.  Even if the data’s there you still need a client to handle it.  Check out the”Operator” plugin for Firefox for some cool gadgets.  If you run across a site with a hCalendar entry for an event the Operator plugin can toss that event over to google for you.  It can also add contacts to various applications and with some help it could send someone’s number to your phone via bluetooth.

I’ll be adding my own hCard here soon.

Moderator: Tantek Çelik Chief Technologist, Technorati

Frances Berriman Volume
Michael Kaply IBM
Glenn Jones Creative Dir, Madgex
Tantek Çelik Chief Technologist, Technorati

Monday 11:30am - Being a Coppola in the “Brookers” Era

I didn’t pay much attention to this session. I was more intent on catching up on some email and feeds since I was finally able to get a reasonable connection on my table. Mark took some notes so hopefully he will post something when he gets time to process it all.

I did like the attitude of Joe Swanberg when he was asked about YouTube and the like. His only concern is that people see his work and he thought it is great that the web enbales more people to see it.

Moderator: Ryan Ritchey Producer, The Flux

Ryan Ritchey Producer, The Flux
Alexandra Delyle Managing Editor, The Daily Reel
Mary Hodder CEO, Dabble
Joe Swanberg Dir, Hannah Takes the Stairs

Monday 10am - Getting Girls Into Games

The only panelist that I was familar with was Jane Pinckard and that’s only through occasionally reading her articles. This session appealed to me because I have a 10yo daughter who’s into gaming and I was interested in understanding her attraction to the games and hopefully help me pick appriopriate games in the future.

I’ll just jump in and expand on what they talked about and tie it in with what I observe about my daughter.

RPGs are like paper dolls! Well, not exactly, but they provided a good argument that playing games like WOW are similar to playing with dolls. Most of your actions are directed at attaining stuff. Better armor, better accessories, better weapons. I really see this with the Wii. My daughter and son have spent countless hours designing Miis for all their friend.

Men learn by diving in and poking buttons. Women tend to watch for a while and won’t jump in until they understand how the game is played. I’ve seen this already with my kids. Travis jumps into a game, bashes around a while and stomps off mad when he can’t figure it out. Hannah will hand me the controller and watch until she’s satisfied that she can play and then proceeds to enjoy the game.

More girls would enjoy FPS if the female avatars weren’t nerfed, hypersexual or ugly. I’ve seen this before. The male characters get a choice of 5 or 6 burly avatars and the females get a large breasted amazon in chainmail. Simply spending some more time on artwork and building a few more female characters would open up a significant market.

They also talked about the number of women playing male avatars in a game and the number is so low it’s not worth paying attention to. On the other hand a large percentage of men play female avatars, especially in games like WOW and Second Life.

Overall it was a good session and I learned a bit about what to expect as my daughter matures. Hopefully it will help me make good choices when picking games for her Christmas stocking.

Moderator: Fiona Cherbak Chair Dev Committee, Women in Games International

Fiona Cherbak Chair Dev Committee, Women in Games International
Sande Chen Lead Producer, Boonty
Gano Haine VP of Prod Dev, LimeLife Inc
Jane Pinckard Editor, GameGirlAdvance
Sheri Graner Ray Sr Designer, Sony Online Entertainment

More to post tomorrow.

I’ve got 7 more sessions to post about and will try to get them finished up tomorrow.

Sunday 5pm - Sex and Computational Technology

I went to this session solely because it had the word “teledildonics” in the description. Maybe also a little because the rest of the sessions in that time slot sounded very boring by contrast.

There really isn’t a lot to say here other that it was interesting. Kyle showed off some interesting toys and Violet Blue is just as hot in person as she is on her blog.

SXSW07.INT.2007.03.11.SexAndComputationalTechnology.mp3

Moderator: Amanda Williams , University of California at Irvine

Amanda Williams University of California at Irvine
Violet Blue Blogger, Open Source Sex
Johanna Brewer University of California at Irvine
Kyle Machulis Engineer, Nonpolynomial Labs
Cory Silverberg Author & Educator, Come As You Are & About.com

Sunday 4:00pm - Startup like Ghengis Khan

Sorry, but this was my least favorite session. It had some great potential but Kevin spent way too much time on the history of Khan and not enough time tying in the details to running a startup or project.

Someday I’ll have to do my own version of this idea as a blog entry.

Moderator: Kevin Hale Co-Founder, Infinity Box Inc

Kevin Hale Co-Founder, Infinity Box Inc

Sunday 3:30pm - Las Vegas Design

I thought this was mostly fluff, but the speaker was interesting.

Many of the most popular and interesting cities and web sites weren’t really designed, they just happened.  MySpace wan’t designed, it just sort of grew out of an idea and became popular despite it’s often garish appearance.  MySpace, like Vegas has abandoned Pure Form and stepped into a world full of mixed media where everything has it’s place and everywhere is that place.   Less is a bore.

Familiarity that is a little off is strange and revealing.  A lot of familiar things are ignored, yet when it’s altered slightly it becomes interesting again and even tells us a bit more about the reality.  For example the half sized statue of liberty with a roller coaster in the background somehow brings more meaning to the real one sitting in New York harbor.   (Don’t ask me how though, I’m just repeating what Dan said.)

Now for the part that made sense to me.  Vegas is organized around a pattern of activities.  The designers spent a great deal of time and money watching people interact with the environment and organized everything to fit that pattern.  Pay attention to the minute details and the customers will have a better experience (see what what was said about the water here.)  Each level of a great experience should provide a positive enjoyable feedback.

Moderator: Dan Saffer Interaction Designer, Adaptive Path

Dan Saffer   Interaction Designer,   Adaptive Path

Sunday 11:30am - Short Attention Span - Big Dividends

Wow, this session rocked. Jim and Brendan did a wonderful job of talking about leveraging a short attention span to keep things interesting and productive.

Do things because you can do things. This was the reoccurring theme in this talk. Just do it because you can. Of course, that isn’t to say that you should do everything you can. Just realize that you don’t need any more reason than because you can.

Continual evolution of design and business. Don’t think your design can’t change or that your business has to do the same thing over and over. Switch it up and follow the needs of your customers.

Chase the shiny things. Many times the shiny things bring us to new places, new situations or new relationships. Do everything as well as you can for as long as you can and don’t be afraid to do something half way and leave it.

Dividends are not always monetary. Practice, experience, ideas, reputation and connections are just a few of the dividends that may end up being worth more than money.

Keep a book or store of ideas. Half thought to half finished, keep track of the ideas and projects that you don’t have time or the will to finish. Even if you don’t pick them up later they can be a great inspiration for more ideas that you will finish.

Do it just because you can.

Jim Coudal Pres, Coudal Partners
Brendan Dawes magneticNorth

[update]

The podcast is available here:

SXSW07.INT.20070311.ShortAttentionSpanBigDividends.mp3

Sunday 10am - Using RSS for Marketing

Not as interesting as I’d hoped, but there were some good nuggets of information.

Some of the basic points they made are: Consistent updates, Use RSS to inform your customers, Don’t be too stingy with information, teach your users how to use RSS and update frequently.

Tom Markiewicz CEO, EvolvePoint
Emily Chang Co-founder, Ideacodes
Bill Flitter Chief Mktg Officer, Pheedo Inc
John Jantsch Owner, Duct Tape Marketing
Greg Reinacker CTO/Founder, NewsGator Technologies Inc

Saturday 5pm - Ghost in the Machine

This was a very good session that explored the realm of religious blogs and why the authors write about their beliefs.

I’ve been reading RLP’s (Real Live Preacher) blog for about a year and had just recently heard of the Velveteen Rabbi so it was a real treat to get to hear them talk and say hi.

My only complaint was that the moderator let a couple of he questions run too long, even after it became apparent that they weren’t questions. Other than that it was a good session and I learned a bit about two bloggers in my feed.

I encourage you all to check out the blogs and read a little into each person’s faith.

Moderator: James McNally Proprietor, Consolation Champs

James McNally Proprietor, Consolation Champs
Rachel Barenblat - Velveteen Rabbi
Kevin Lawver - UltraNormal
Hussein Rashid - islamicate
Gordon Atkinson - Real Live Preacher