Hello.

Every year, a squillion online startup geeks (plus people who would like to be startup geeks, the sort of people who sell things to them, ever-ubiquitous social media gurus, and all manner of peripheral marketing and PR people) congregate in Austin to eat barbecued food and pretend to attend tedious panels. You don't need me to tell you that the best bits happen in between the sessions. This year, SXSW seems to have brought us a few interesting things, including...

Weathermob: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/10/sxsw-weathermob-a-social-network-around-the-local-forecast/

-> http://itunes.apple.com/gb/app/weathermob/id463729367?l=es&mt=8

"the attention economy provides fertile ground for the culture of fear"

http://allthingsd.com/20120311/at-sxsw-danah-boyd-says-social-media-makes-the-world-more-fearful/

Plus one quite incredible announcement from BBH, which looks a tiny bit like something Charlie Brooker might write. 

"This year in Austin, as you wonder between locations ... you’ll notice strategically positioned individuals wearing “Homeless Hotspot” t-shirts."

http://bbh-labs.com/homeless-hotspots-a-charitable-experiment-at-sxswi

"The digital divide has never hit us over the head with a more blunt display of unselfconscious gall. ... Honestly, anyone worried enough about connectivity at SXSW enough to pay someone on the street for it has a longer list of problems than first-world guilt. But this conference is so hugely, expensively over the top as a monument to the privilege of Internet access that I didn't think it could top itself. It just did."

http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/sxsw_in_a_nutshell_homeless_people_as_hotspots.php

Meanwhile, outside of Austin...

Awkward Family Photos

http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com/

ASCII pie chart in SQL. This is rather impressive.

http://code.openark.org/blog/mysql/sql-pie-chart

Yours sincerely  

Roo

Roo Reynolds  

@rooreynolds  

http://tinyletter.com/rooreynolds