Speakers in the News »

10/14/05
JOHN D'ADDARIO

John D

Realists often point out that pornography has been the driving force behind new technology, citing the influence of bare skin on the rapid adoption of everything from books in the Middle Ages to VHS players in the mid-1980s. To this end, the good folks at Fleshbot have been consistently hammering home the theme that erotica will play a huge role in selling Apple's new line of video-enabled iPod devices. In today's edition of the popular blog, the site links to an online guide that shows users "How to Put Porn of Your iPod." Meanwhile, a couple of days ago, Fleshbot linked to a risque, sex-heavy mock-up of the Apple home page. Fleshbot editor John D'Addario (pictured above) spoke on the "Turning Pink Into Green: The Online Business of Pleasure" panel at the 2005 SXSW Interactive Festival. CAUTION: Some of the links listed above may fall into the "NSFW" category: not safe for work.

3:39pm CST | +

10/13/05
DAVID HORNIK

Everyone is talking about it, but no one really can put a finger on what precisely it is. So,what is your definition of web 2.0? That's the question posed by venture capitalist David Hornik (pictured above), who spoke on the "New New Economy: Is 2005 the New 1997?" panel at the 2005 SXSW Interactive Festival. Among the new media notables who provide interesting answers to his query are SXSW alums Caterina Fake, Stewart Butterfield, Anil Dash, and Evan Williams.

4:38pm CST | +

10/12/05
PETER MORVILLE

An excerpt from "Ambient Findability", the new book from information architecture pioneer Peter Morville, appears in the October 10 edition of the popular design blog alistapart.com. According to the author, "Findability is one of the most thorny problems in web design. This is due in part to the inherent ambiguity of semantics and structure. We label and categorize things in so many ways that retrieval is difficult at best. But that’s only the half of it. The most formidable challenges stem from its cross-functional, interdisciplinary nature. Findability defies classification. It flows across the borders between design, engineering, and marketing. Everybody is responsible, and so we run the risk that nobody is accountable." Morville is slated to talk about findability at the 2006 SXSW Interactive Festival. He will conduct a book-signing after his presentation.

4:42pm CST | +

10/11/05
HART BRACHEN

Although his beloved Red Sox were swept out of the baseball playoffs on Friday, the life of the ever-mysterious Hart Brachen isn't all misery these days. Brachen, who pens the brilliantly satiric fan site Soxaholix, is featured in a glowing profile in the Leisure Section of today's edition of the Wall Street Journal. This lengthy piece describes his website as "part Doonsebury, part Bill James, part graduate seminar in literature . . 'The Soxaholix' is part of a counter-movement, much of it online, to reclaim the team for its true fans. In thick Bahstin accents, the clip-art characters disdain the romanticization of the Red Sox and fans who jumped on the bandwagon. They are statistically savvy and swear a lot. While nothing matters to them more than the team, they also slyly recognize that baseball isn't life and death." Brachen was a finalist in the "Best Blog" category at the 2005 SXSW Web Awards. He is scheduled to speak on the "Non-Traditional Blog Content" panel at the 2006 SXSW Interactive Festival.

4:43pm CST | +

10/10/05
SHELLEY POWERS

Shelley Powers

A lot of wonderful buzz came out of last week's Web 2.0 event in San Francisco. Yet, not everyone was positive about the event -- particularly some of the more prominent women of the web, who wondered why panels at the gathering were so dominated by males. The comments of Shelley Powers (pictured above) are particularly stinging with regards to this lack of female speakers: "How many conferences has O’Reilly put on that have had a woman in charge of speakers? How many conferences has the organization even had women on the selection committee? I’m not talking about the women involved in administrating the conference–I’m talking about those directly involved in choosing speakers. Let’s go even further: how many times do you see women referenced in the O’Reilly weblogs? Even when the topic of conversation is social software, which does have a significant number of women? Good lord, look at the O’Reilly sites and the writers and people: we can only hope that some of the critters represented in the colophons are female." Powers is set to speak on the "Why Are Women Invisible on the Web: Whose Butts Should We be Kicking?" panel at the 2006 SXSW Interactive Festival.