I just stumbled across this link through the halls of Twitter this morning; the link is a wiki where someone who will be attending SXSW in a couple of months can post their twitter account.

I could be totally off my rocker, but this seems totally silly since last year, nearly EVERYONE was on Twitter already and that was before twitter exploded into an international phenomenon. Now, a year later. The small percentage of people who fell behind last year will likely be caught up, and the ones that aren’t will figure it out pretty fast when everyone is walking through the halls of the Austin convention center, looking down at their iPhones, muttering “f*%&ing twitter!”.

Which brings me to my next series of thoughts:

First, is twitter ready to handle the onslaught of this year’s SXSW twitteratti? I have seen all kinds of speculated numbers of growth, and talked to Alex Payne a couple of times in the last year about the hardware that’s powering twitter and it’s various interfaces (jabber, SMS, etc) and several months ago it was an absurdly powerful cluster of hardware. In order to handle SXSW08, they’re going to need some sort of miracle server.

My second thought is more about us, as users. Last year Twitter ruined the battery in my Treo650 and prompted the purchase of a blackberry. This was, of course, before the advent of m.twitter.com. Another thing to remember was that I was mostly adding new people throughout the conference and checking in on them. I didn’t have a ton of followers or people I was following.

This year…I’m a) on an iPhone that doesn’t have a changeable battery and b) following a few hundred people before I even touch down in Austin. Sounds like trouble to me.

Is Twitter going to be nearly as effective this year as last, or will it become too chatty and therefore, ineffective for conference-going uses?

A couple of ideas to resolve the issue:

1) Twitter does a proper implementation of groups, complete with shorthand.

While I realize this isn’t likely, it’s also not impossible and they have been talking about it since LAST year in Austin. Groups would let me message only the appropriate group of people, or the people that care. This would also leave the people who couldn’t come to the conference out of the line of fire when twitter gets really rowdy at the nighttime social events. :-)

2) Hashtag adoption

A close second to the groups implementation, a follow hashtag/track hashtag feature would help. Since I’m not using twitter over SMS, track doesn’t help me in the least. I really wish it did, because I’d love to use it. Hey guys, make track work on my personal timeline, not just via SMS.

If I was to include the hashtag “#SXSW” and other relevant variants (”#OpenIDMeetup”, “#WordPressMeetup”, “#BarCampAustin”, etc), in tweets (which would be annoying, but doable), it could resolve some of the firehose. It’s still a hack, and has lots of holes and opportunities for missed messages, but hey…Twitter drops messages all the time so we really should be used to that by now.

3) Extra Phone/Twitter Device

If Twitter sold a Twitter-enabled device, I’d not only buy it but I’d probably pay a service fee. Sure, most of the time, I use my phone but in heavy-use cases (read: conferences) I’d be willing to carry something else to make sure that Twitter wasn’t killing my cell phone’s battery, and that I got optimum performance out of twitter.

Something like the Amazon Kindle, without the shitty design, but with the built in EVDO device so I didn’t need to be at a WIFI hotspot. Like I said, I’d pay for the service. Maybe not EVERY month, but I’d pay for a week-long pass during conference periods, and I’d probably pay upwards of $30-50 for that week-long pass - IF the battery life didn’t suck and if the message delivery was stable.

Since there PROBABLY won’t be a Twitter-handheld in the next 60 days, I may resolve to getting a cheap-o 2nd line on my ATT plan, with very low minutes but unlimited text messaging. I’d get a phone that was not only small, but had a changeable battery. It doesn’t even need to have a WAP browser, I can use my iPhone for that. This phone will be for TWITTER ONLY!

I really hope that Twitter usage is still viable for SXSW because it really enhanced the conference experience for me last year. Do you have any grand plans for how to make Twitter work for you this year?

Sometime in the next couple of months I need to do a re-vamp and re-post of my “How to Survive SXSW” post, since I’ve learned more about conference going in the last year.

Tags: twitter, SXSW, SXSWi, SXSW08, mobile devices, hashtags, battery, group interactions

our comcast modem took a dive this afternoon, leaving us with a couple of open wifi networks that barely provide enough bandwidth to check email. luckily, my blackberry pearl can be a bluetooth tethered modem for my macbook pro, providing me with a slow but stable internet connection, surprisingly better than the wifi that I was on.

Until the iPhone can do this, I’m going to have a really hard time making it my primary phone. I still want one, though :-).

I’m watching my newsreader this morning, and it looks like microsoft is getting swept into the shadows once again. With the impending release of the Zune, Wii, and Playstation (in that order, if i’m no mistaken) the gadget with the most realistic chance of being able to touch RIGHT NOW is getting the least press.

Not that I’m particularly excited for the release of any of the holy trinity, but if I had to pick, I’d say the Wii is gonna be pretty cool (maybe I’m just a sucker for Zelda).

Tags: zune, wii, playstation 3, zelda

ive got 3 of them on my desk right now.

coolest obnoxious toy ive owned to date.

Ok, so it wasnt intentional, but at least I felt like i was getting a new toy on WWDC day 1. Do I want a Quad Xeon 64 bit mac pro? Not really. But i want a developer copy of Leopard SO bad. Time machine, now that’s the shit.

I now have 2x 512mb OEM apple memory chips for any new intel-driven mac(mini, imac, macbook, macbook pro) for sale.

Im admittedly almost a week behind in watching diggnation, however, last week Alex mentioned his love for a “magic bullet” that a viewer sent him.

I just wanted to state publicly, that I totally understand.

First off, for clarification, the “magic bullet” in question is NOT the one that can be found in sex shops all over America. At least, mine isn’t. And since Alex talked about making margaritas in his, I’ll assume the same for him. The magic bullet i’m talking about is a wonderful blending system found on late night TV infomercials. It’s because of this product and my inability to resist impulse buys that my girlfriend has banned me from watching infomercials any more. Nearly a year ago, i was watching late night/early morning TV, saw the infomercial for this product, and couldnt resist the BUY ONE GET ONE FREE deal they had. So for nearly $100, i ordered not one, but TWO of these systems. They were delivered to my work, where I proceeded to take one home and use it about a dozen times before it found a comfortable spot in my cabinets. The other one was left at my old place of employment with a friend/co-worker, and it’s whereabouts are still unknown to me.

So, Alex, let me know if you come up with anything inventive to make in your bullet. So far my favorites are omelettes. Mixed drinks don’t work as well as advertised, unless you get the ice/liquid ratio JUST right. And, in reality, I think thats the big reason I bought the whole shebang in the first place.


-phile or -phil

suff.


If its not already clear, which might be possible for those who don’t know me that well yet, I am both of the things referenced in this definition. I just made an interesting realization while doing dishes…thats right, dishes. My realization was that i have a huge affinity for ANY utility, tool, gadget, etc that makes a job easier. Obviously everyone likes things that makes their job easier, but I really think I’m obsessed. In the case of dishes, it was one of those hollow-handled scrub sponge things that you can fill with soap. I think this is going to sound completely ridiculous, but the addition of a handle for leverage and the constant flow of suds made doing dishes…well…almost enjoyable! Unfortunately the model I bought seems to have been built cheaply and the sponge started coming off of the holder by the time i was almost done with the dishes, but nonetheless…now that i realized how much this tool can help a task that I was never a huge fan of, I’ll try to find a stronger-built version.

Besides my utiliphilia, I’m also starting to come to the realization that I am an infophile. I know that I’m not alone, and this might be a generational thing, but I know that the extreme amount of information that I have funneled into my brain in a daily basis through everything from RSS news feeds and pod/vodcasts, to daily blog reads, newsgroups, and my biggest addiction ever, digg spy. I’m pretty sure that the vast majority of the information isnt even toroughly digested at time of recieving…but stored for a later time when I am reminded of something that i read a clip of. My desire for bleeding-edge information is huge…and obviously this gives me an edge in being a useful, productive, and knowledagble professional and general human being. Neato.