Last Day in Austin (updated with links)

Last Day in Austin

I can’t believe how quickly this has gone, yet I am completely overwhelmed by the amount of information that is in my head right now. I will summarize some of the stuff now, but need to process all the information for a few days to accurately write about it.

The Suxorz: The Worst Social Media Ad Campaign of 2007 The winner of this award at SXSW this year was HP Pay-Per-Post. This is how not to get your brand on the internet (click for more)


Jane McGonigal – Keynote Speaker: If you are not familiar with her, she is a game developer that is trying to bring game design into the real world. Most recently she developed World With Out Oil, which has gotten much acclaim. A game she brought up that I found interesting is ChoreWars. Once a kid completes a real chore, they log in and claim it as their own. It is a motivational tool that gives credit for the chores completed in a virtual world. She also mentioned a similar type of game for the office where you have to pay your coworkers (in virtual $) to do things for you. With this type of system it will become apparent quickly who is the most valuable employee based on who has the most points. Imagine running the metrics on something like this! (I can’t remember the name of the game – anyone know?)

During this time I have met some real interesting people doing some great stuff. Here are some links I collected from them:

Fun Site: Bitstrips.com

Cool stuff from Make Mag Fair: bleeplabs.com

Nice Interactive Designer: Emma Welles

Producers from Beautiful Losers: Black Lake Productions

Another Great Movie: Not Your Typical Bigfoot Movie