Speakers in the News »

12/09/05
HEATHER KELLEY

Want a little more sex and a little less violence in your video games? Then check out the newest creation from Heather Kelley, a free downloadable project called Lapis. As notes a report on canada.com, "this prototype teaches how to reach orgasm by simulating the affect of pleasurable sensation on the cartoon. Players tickle, touch, tap, and stroke Lapis using the touch screen of the Nintendo DS, a hand-held video game device. They can also talk, sing and blow on the bunny's fur using the device's built-in microphone. The more they stimulate the bunny, the happier he becomes until eventually he begins flying through the air. But Lapis is also an unpredictable creature who needs a variety of sensations. Sometimes, no amount of stimulation is going to work." Comments the designer, "Sex is a perfectly natural part of the human experience and there has to be a way to handle it meaningfully and tastefully in games." Kelley spoke on the "Play to Learn" panel at the 2004 SXSW Interactive Festival. Speaking of games, stay tuned to the SXSW Interactive website for information on the first annual ScreenBurn Beta Festival, a consumer-oriented expo which is set to debut at the 2006 event.

10:01am CST | +

12/08/05
BEN BROWN

Austin's loss is San Francisco's gain (or is it Austin's gain is San Francisco's loss?) as Ben Brown has decided to re-locate to the West Coast. Motivation for this move is the rapid growth of Brown's tag-based online dating site Consumating.com. As he writes in a December 5 post on the site's blog: "We lucked out in a big way, and are very happy to announce that Consumating is now becoming part of CNET Networks - also home of Metacritic, Gamespot, MP3.com, and Webshots. We know! We thought they only worked with web sites that started with C too! From now on, Consumating will no longer be the flipper baby of our work day. We are moving all of our junk to San Francisco, hiring a kick-ass developer to share the coding work, and, OMG, we will be working on the site full-time. Consumating doesn't need a bib anymore, mom. She can feed herself!" Alas the respite for Lone Star residents is only a temporary one. Brown will return to Austin in March to participate on the "New Startup Cultures" panel at the 2006 SXSW Interactive Festival.

08:28am CST | +

12/07/05
D KEITH ROBINSON

Need some common sense advice about usability? Read the insightful essay "Power to the People" by D Keith Robinson posted late last week on A List Apart. He writes, "Really taking the time to understand the needs and problems of people is the first step to an elegant and powerfully simple solution. Often I feel that the reason web applications and web sites fail is because we’ve never taken the time to actually understand what people are wanting and then we overcompensate with features, visual elements and hyped techniques. Not understanding the core needs, problems and desires of your customers is a recipe for disaster on the web and no number of 'killer features' will get you around that. Focus on the core needs or problems and deal with them first. Don’t be blinded by technology or your own assumptions." The Creative Director of the Seattle-based design team BlueFlavor, Robinson will lead the "Design Eye for the List Guy" session at the 2006 SXSW Interactive Festival.

12:49pm CST | +

12/06/05
DL BYRON

DL Byron

A recent article in the Technology section of the New York Times takes note of the growing power of blogs in Corporate America. According Louise Story, "After beginning as a vehicle for anti-establishment, noncommercial writers, many Web logs have laid out welcome mats for corporate America in the last couple of years . . .Businesses have noticed the growing readership and influence of these Internet postings and are spending $50 million to $100 million this year on blog advertising and marketing . . Recognizing that blogs have become more mainstream, companies are paying for advertisements or mentions on blogs, courting blog writers with public relations efforts and inviting writers to come blog on one of their corporate sites." The report sites the emergence of the annual Blog Business Summit as evidence of the growing influence of this form in the corporate world. Founders of the Blog Business Summit include 2006 SXSW Interactive Festival speakers DL Byron (pictured above), Molly Holzschlag, Robert Scoble and Jeffrey Zeldman.

10:56am CST | +

12/05/05
SUSANNAH GARDNER

Susannah Gardner

The proliferation of blog-related events, conferences and festivals continues at full-steam as we enter the first full week of December. Les Blogs runs today and tomorrow in Paris: speakers include SXSW alums Jason Calacanis, Marc Canter, Rebecca MacKinnon, Robert Scoble, David Sifry and Ethan Zuckerman. Meanwhile, generating somewhat less noise in cyberspace is the eclectically-titled Blogs and Dogs, a combined social networking / dog-sledding event that began yesterday and continues through December 8 in Alberta Canada. Among the organizers of this gathering are Susannah Gardner (pictured above), author of the book "Buzz Marketing With Blogs for Dummies". At the 2006 SXSW Interactive Festival, Gardner will lead the "How to Make $$$ With Your Blog Design Skills" panel.