i’m clearly a SXSW n00b. Lots of people have techniques for keeping track of who’s business card belonged to who. Some jot down notes, location, etc directly on the card (mine is tricky being double sided AND glossy). Some take your photo with you holding the card (I’m being SO bad at taking pictures. I’ve taken like…4. Luckily over 1000 new photos go up on flickr tagged SXSW every hour or so.)

So my idea. I’ve got this stack of cards, most of whom i remember having a conversation, or a face, or what they do(beyond the title on their card)…but not necessarily all of them.

I’ve started searching flickr with first and last names on the business cards. As more people tag (and accurately), this tool will get more useful.

I’m thinking it would be handy to have a tool that I can snap a photo of a business card, upload it, tag it with things i remember about meeting that person…and then have the app search flickr, technorati, etc for those tags…pulling back what it finds. I can at a glance see if the info is correct, relevant, or not, and mark it as so. Obviously, the more people providing and tagging content, the quicker and more accurate this can become.

I spent a good portion of yesterday with Jacob Patton, the guy who whipped up Conferenceer earlier last week. Since we’re likely going to be working together on some other stuff in the near future (i love this kid…just a sharp conversational mind, with good ideas and great execution), I’m probably going to bug him to give me the rails intro I desperately need, and I’ll use this little hack-up to test out my new chops. If you’re interested in helping/helping teach me too, that’d rock.

in other news, while staying up til 7am with me and Rob Colin started hacking at tagoops, the reverse search engine as he and rob coined it. the idea is for you to search for a term, and it return the results for the opposite of that term (as provided by other users…). You can only imagine the chaos this can cause. and thats what we’re about my friends. causing chaos. stirring it up. having fun. :-)

that, and drinking for 14+ straight hours at barcampaustin yesterday was just out of control. HUGE thanks to whurly and all of the attendees, organizers, and tab sponsors. i promise I did my part to consume the provisions.

I met a ton of my internet heroes yesterday, and after getting to speak a bit about independents hall, hopefully becoming someone else’s hero. If i can motivate one person half as much as this conference has motivated me so far, then I’ve done my job.

enough mushy shit, i need to get to the conference.

peace

Tags: sxsw, barcamp austin, business card tagging, people finding, conferenceer, ruby on rails