SXSW Scene: Who’s the dude playing four square?

Koz and I were leaving the Austin Convention Center tonight and saw these guys playing four square right outside the doors. We stopped to watch and take a few pictures.

While other up-and-coming brands are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to get their buzz on at South by Southwest Interactive, this simple game (which cost about $5.99 in sidewalk chalk) had people lined up to play.

Busy Working on a Bunny Project

It’s been a while since I’ve posted, and I know everyone says it, but I really have been super busy lately.  I’ve been studying for an insurance exam – which I passed today – and have had several projects going on.  The one that’s been, without a doubt, the most fun is this one…. enjoy and tell me what you think!

News via Social Media

Well, I just found out – via a friend’s status update on Facebook – that there was a U.S. Air plane that crash landed in the Hudson River (about an hour ago). I first turned to the usual places, CNN, NBC, etc. and thought I’d see if there was anything on Twitter. Sure enough, I found a person on twitter who was actually on one of the Ferry boats going out to rescue people(http://twitter.com/JKrums) and had taken a picture with his (I assume) cellphone and also posted it to Twitter. Not only did “JKrums” photo posting to twitpic.com seemingly shut down the site (due to heavy traffic), but I watched as his Twitter “followers” grew from around 500 to nearly 1000 in the last 15 minutes or so (that guy’s email must be insane with Twitter notifications of new followers… although he seems to be responding as the number of people he’s “following” seems to be growing almost as fast). It’s a sign of the rise of citizen journalism and by being in the right place, at the right time, with the right equipment can make you an instant “journalist.”

UPDATE: In the time it took for me to write this, JKrums added an additional 150 followers (he’s up to around 1100) and is now following that many more people as well.

UPDATE 1/16/09: JKrums is up to over 2700 followers now and twits that he’s making appearances on Good Morning America and other shows.

UPDATE 1/16/09 approx. Midnight: JKrums now has over 3100 followers.

Quickly Produced on the Web

I’m constantly amazed at how quickly people can produce funny, sometimes high-quality, but always relevant content for the web.  Less than a couple days after the Iraqi journalist hurled his shoes at President Bush, here’s just a quick sample of things that have popped up on the web…