Anyone else planning to go to BarCamp San Antonio?

You don’t get to kill my cow. (via Instapundit)

My daily link posting was getting out of hand and was certainly hiding the occasional posting that I do here, so I’ve decided to give the links their own blog.

From now on, this blog will contain only content produced by your truly.

I thought this was going to be about going over the success and failures of a particular web app, but instead, this was a discussion of the numbers of income, users, servers, support calls, etc. for several different sites. Represented were:

• Blinksale
• FeedBurner
• RegOnline
• ParticleTree
• Icon Buffet

Universally, December is the worst month and January/February the best.

The presentation can be found here.

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Originally uploaded by markmorga.

Saturday morning came awfully early after being out so late Friday night, but I managed to meet Anton on time.

The first session of the day was “Why XSLT is sexy”. I was curios about this since I had mostly written off the suitability of XSLT as a means of making good presentation of XML. It just always seemed like there were easier ways to solve the problem. My notes were:

Notes:

• First slide: Putting Lipstick on a Pig


• Joe Orr, Lindsay Simon


• XSLT running on XML DOM parser in browser


• Unlike CSS can add new elements to the page


• XSL is a functional language - not procedural


• Fast processor in most browsers (Safari lagging)


• ActiveWidgetGrid


• bandwidth saving advantages - dl the XSL once, process many XML transactions (like AJAX ezchanges)


• AJAX-S


• XML Binding Language


• Freja and Formbuilder: MVC for Javascript, XSL is a View


• Sarissa: presents same syntax for all browsers


• AspectXML


• BrowserBasedXML.com


• detects browser w/ XSL engine and transfers only the appropriate XSL file - easier to keep browser specific XSL separate)


• GRDDL: part of the semantec web project


• simile.mit.edu/welkin
• The functional programming aspect of XSL is the big deal - productivity wise - don’t write the code as though procedural.
• Screenbook maker
• IE crashed on the presenter (oops)
• Uses Xalan, XSLT, XPath
• LEO - Literate Editor w/ Outline (written in Python) - seems like it would be cool for CSS editing also - good code block folding capabilities
• MyTimes.com
• Custom widgets - looks like an alternative to Java Portlets
• Speed advantages compared to quirks mode in the browser
• Michael Kay
• www.screenbooks.net/sxsw

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Originally uploaded by markmorga.

The second session was one on how your vlog can save the world. This one was more interesting. The panelists were knowledgeable and passionate about the topic and had good information. When we talked with them after the panel and again later at the ze Frank opening night party, we found them to be really cool people also.

• Media with no boundaries


• swajana.com


• momentshowing.net


• ryanedit.blogspot.com


• www.freevlog.org


• ryanishungry.com


• poor video quality driven by download and video start speed

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Originally uploaded by markmorga.

The first session we attended was the Snakes on a Plane discussion. It was moderately interesting, but a little light on insightful commentary. Ultimately, I agreed with one panel member - the biggest problem with SoaP was that it was released too late after the hype peaked - people lost interest in what was otherwise a perfectly entertaining little genre disaster movie.

Notes:

• User generated content was added to the film (dialog, situations, etc.)


• sods50.org (suspension of disbelief) - had an event based around viewing the film ala Rocky Horror


• Crowds smell marketing a mile away


• Timing was an issue in underperformance


• How to get people involved?


• Permitting Mash-ups: no lawyers cease and desist letters, no one sued


• Additional 5 days of filming for fan additions and replacement of real snakes with CGI snakes


• Similar to Blair Witch Project in building an Internet audience


• Potential for Internet success with minimal budget - Ok, Go video for example


• Movies can embrace the Mash-up and remix culture

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Originally uploaded by markmorga.

My next few posts will be collection points for my notes on the SXSW 2007 Interactive conference I went to last week. For the most part, the panels were interesting and informative, but more than anything, SXSW was fantastic as an idea generator.

Anton and I carpooled up to Austin from New Braunfels most days - I stayed with my parents. The SXSW experience for us began on Friday.

We arrived a little after noon and spent a little over an hour waiting in the registration line. Not too bad. After getting our badges (I loved the warnings: badges can be replaced for the cost of walk-up admission, badges are void if removed from the badge holder), we walked up to sixth street and the Iron Cactus for some lunch. Good food. Great margarita. Really bad waiter.