Betsy Devine: Funny ha-ha and/or funny peculiar

Stealth startup Ookles is no longer a secret. Scott Johnson tells all, in a podcast interview with Greg Galant.

Congratulations to my hard-working former boss, who also made the top story on Scripting News this morning. (thanks, Dave!)

So, what is Ookles? I’m a bit out of the loop now, so I should let Scott tell you but I’d describe it as a tool for families who are currently going crazy figuring out how to keep track of and share all the gorgeous digital photos that could help them not lose the memories of the children, trips, parties, etc. if only they had Ookles to help them do it.

Hey, let Scott explain it. But, as an example of a photo you’d want to share and not lose, here’s a little boy just thinking about the universe.

My bid was already the eighth, and no wonder!

Wouldn’t you love to acquire these items all on offer in the same eBay auction?

• Item: an unlocked Motorola Razr quad-band phone, the jetset special, donated by Cory Doctorow of BoingBoing. Zoom camera, polyphonic ringtones–and unlocked, so you can pop in a simcard for any carrier or any country you choose.
• Item: A first-edition of Eastern Standard Tribe, the Locus-finalist new novel written by Cory Doctorow, signed by Cory Doctorow, and donated by Cory Doctorow.
• Item: The satisfaction of know that your pounds sterling go to Suw (of Chocolate and Vodka) to be used for the benefit of the Open Rights Group, London-based cyberactivists who are trying to stop bigcos from planting an evil Broadcast Flag in Europe.

As the great Omar Khayyam might have remarked,

A book of sci-fi underneath the bough,
Some chocolate, some vodka (mmm), and thou
Beside me chatting on a Razr cellphone
That once belonged to Cory Doctorow…

In short, please point all your blog readers right over to eBay!

Just how emblematic is this of blogging?

I imagined my focus was on the world outside me–in this particular case, on a hermit crab.

In retrospect, I now see a much clearer focus on…my blogging self.

Leaving you to unpack that thought, I have to go re-pack my life into a suitcase. Frank and I are leaving for home in about an hour.

Thanks to CERCA, Lawrence Krauss, and everyone else for this opportunity for Frank to confront gravity and for me to forget real life.

Just a few quick soundbites from Monday’s SXSW keynote, where communitymeister Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia interviewed communitymeister Craig Newmark of Craigslist:

Jimmy: “The biggest conflict we see at Wikipedia is not between left and right, but between good guys and jerks.”

Craig: “Yes! The biggest, most vicious conflict we see on Craigslist is not political. It’s in the pet forums.”

Craig: “Crooks are early adopters of technology. As more and more technophobes start coming online, the vast majority of them are good people. So, more and more, good people outnumber the bad guys.”

Craig: “When you talk about the wisdom of crowds–you must also be worried about mob rule. You have to be careful.”

More juicy outtakes (Hillary Clinton fetishes?) at Will Pate, Frank Gruber, and a very close transcription from Auscillate. Me, I should be packing!

…even though some of my favorites are running against others of my favorites:

• Heather Champ’s FlickrBlog
• …and Flickr itself
• Josh Schachter’s Del.icio.us
• Cory Doctorow’s BoingBoing
• Matthew Mullenweg’s WordPress
• Jason Kottke’s Kottke.org
• Joshua Micah Marshall’s Talking Points Memo

Uh oh, here they come–the Bloggies!

Blogger beat Flickr and Delicious and WordPress? :-(

FlickrBlog won. Heather Champ, 2004 Lifetime Achievment winner, picked up the prize and said, it’s also the blog of Stewart and Caterina Fake…

BoingBoing won! And it won again! (Lifetime Achievement) Cory Doctorow isn’t here, but David Pescovitz accepted…

Weblog of the Year (and winner of other awards): PostSecret.

Breaking: Bloggiemeister Nikolai Nolan, after wowing the crowd with “I’m in love with Stacey’s blog,” let this fan forrestgump into his song as its (nonexistent) drummer. Wow.

Julie Leung

We make masks when we blog. We choose which sides we want to reveal. We choose which sides of those we love we want to reveal.

Lisa Williams

My husband and I met PGE, in the Pre-Google Era. Now there is so much info out there, encouraging you to evaluate the other person. But tthat assumes you know what will make you happy. I know that I don’t.

Jeneane Sessum

I will out anything about myself that I choose to. But the blogworld has changed a lot since I started blogging.

George Sessum

I read her blog and say, “Oh, that’s what’s going on.” And we get a lot done speaking on the telephone. Face to face–well, there’s our daughter Jenna.

Derek Powazek

(On having inadvertantly turned down a packet of Sweet N Low with Heather’s URL on it) Is there a bigger insult than to refuse schwag at a conference? Once I found out, I begged for that packet of Sweet N Low!

Chris Pirillo

We met online–at Match.com. She asked me, “Are you one of those guys who is going to send me pictures of your naked chest?” I did a double-take. Then I pointed her to RentMyChest.com.

Ponzi Indharasophang

Funny is hot. Funny is very hot.

Heather Champ

I got email from France, attacking me for robbing the cradle when I married Derek.

p.s. Lisa introduced George Sessum as “probably the only person in this room who has played music with Chuck Berry.”

Laura Moncur:

After my plane-sick stomach was full of beef barbeque, we took a twilight walk around the area. The air was full of a thousand bird calls. Every bird call you have heard was coming from the trees behind the Austin Convention Center. They were full of grackles. The flocks flew past us, singing their stolen songs. We didn’t dare stand under the trees.

I love the way Laura sandwiches poetic vision inside wholegrain slices of reality…

• “The natural history of becoming rich” from Jared Diamond (yes, as in Guns, Germs, and Steel.)
• Mary Hodder got the best Halley-Suitt-pink-convertible photo of anyone.
• Lisa
  Stone liveblogged “We got naked, now what?”
• Laughing Squid is Flickring SXSW!
• Met Liz Henry, who blogged me as “funny ha-ha”–I’m going to read that blog now: “badgerbag: messy, surly, full of books”
• Getting ready to Oprah “Bloggers in Love” Lisa Williams blogs excellent advice to panelists, e.g. “The best panelists are the sharpest listeners.”

Off to be a good listener!

A couple of great quotes from this morning’s SXSW panel on tagging (Actual title: “Beyond Folksonomies: Knitting Tag Clouds for Grandma”)

Liz Lawley

The best technology is created to solve a problem we already have. Flickr was invented because Caterina Fake and her friends had a problem with sharing photos. Del.icio.us was created because Joshua Schachter had a problem with managing bookmarks.

Building new software “because we can” and then looking for a use for it…

Mary Hodder

Get your stuff out there and test it with people who never heard of Flickr.

Bonus link: Mary Hodder’s ground-busting study of how people actually use tagging: Tagging by Bloggers.

More in-depth panel coverage from Tony Walsh and Chat Clussman.