I received a beta invite to Bitstrips today, and I thought it would be a good opportunity to break into the web comic world. I’m kidding, of course (we’ll leave that to the people who actually have talent, like Scott) but this new social network and comic drawing site is a lot of fun to play around with. You can create characters (the customization is really good) and save and share your strips for other users. I don’t actually have any friends on there yet, but it seems as though people can also edit your comic (instant collaboration!).

I wish there were more ways to embed the comic, but maybe I just haven’t found that option yet. I’d like to be able to show all three panels at once instead of scrolling through panes. You can save a jpeg version of it, and then post that image, but that’s kind of a workaround. The site is in private beta right now, but they’ll be going live during SXSW (and also “comic blogging” the event, which should be hilarious).

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If you missed my Rock Band skills at the Jonathan Coulton show, fear not! Casey McKinnon has assembled a super group of female talent to rock SXSW this year! Here are the details:

Vocals – Casey McKinnon
Bass – Leah Culver
Drums – Bonny Pierzina
Guitar – Me

Location: Next New Networks/Tumblr Party (Facebook link)
Date – Monday, March 10, 2008
Time – 9pm
Location – Cedar Street Courtyard, 208 W. 4th Street, Austin, TX 78701

Oh, and while you’re at SXSW, come check out the panel I’m moderating:
How to Rawk SXSW: Achieving Geekgasm
Room 19AB
Saturday, March 8th
11:30 am
w/ Ariel Waldman, Casey McKinnon, Ryan King and Glenda Bautista

Image courtesy of Casey’s Flickr

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Anyway, I’m happy to be home from Austin. SXSW had it’s ups and downs, but I’m not sure that our audience is really into the things that were covered there, at least not the people that are on CNET TV. Maybe they’re more gadget-oriented, and SXSW Interactive is more… bloggey? Web 2.0? Too industry? I don’t know. And the music stuff didn’t really seem to strike a chord (You like that? Heh!) with people either. Well, it was a good experiment, but maybe next year I’ll just go check out the panels.

I spent the night making TivoToGo work on the MacBook Pro, and trying to figure how to make Nabaztag connect to the WiFi again. But for now, I’m going to eat these Oreos, drink some WalFlu, watch more back episodes of AskANinja and call it a night.

Oh, Ryan and I have been talking for a while now about doing a podcast together… I’m guessing the subject matter would probably center around, oh I don’t know, technology, but if anyone has any ideas let me know!

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Click To Play

The other band that I saw was called What Made Milwaukee Famous, and they were phenomenal. I’ve seen so many good bands since I’ve been here, I don’t even know where to start! Yesterday I hung out with Kurt Woolf from Download.com, and we were to a few different venues on 6th Street. We saw a band called Office (I saw James Iha in the crowd and I totally freaked out), and then we went to go see The Silos play down the street.

Later, I met up with Cameron, Tantek, Ryan K. and Sarah, and we headed over to Zona Rosa for another show. The Pipettes were playing when we got there, and I think we all fell in love with them a little. Go check out their site, and you’ll see why. Then as we were getting a drink, I heard that The Rapture were playing next, who I love! That was a nice surprise.

OK, gotta head back downtown. More later.
CNET TV Report Day One
CNET TV Report Day Two
LonelyGirl15 Interview

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Click To Play

I’ve been here a few days now, and it’s been a lot of work — but still exciting. The Dan Rather keynote yesterday was interesting (journalists should be “watchdogs, not lapdogs”) and Chris and I spent most of the day taping and editing.

No sense in talking about the parties too much, as they’re all very… similar. But it was fun to hang out with Tantek, Jasmine, Nicole, and everyone else. I’m staying in tonight, I think. Too tired, the rain will not relent, and I’ve got stuff to work on. More soon! Oh, check out this photo of me and Nicole, we’re doing our best “emo kid” faces.

photo by Scott Beale / Laughing Squid

Also, I’m entering this in the Vloggies SXSW video challenge. Woohoo!

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First off, when Chris (my producer) and I got to the hotel (which is about 5 miles away from downtown) I realized with total horror that my Internet wasn’t working! We were running late for dinner with Tom and some of his TechTV friends, but yet I refused to leave my room until their IT people got me online. Finally, it was running. Then we took off for 6th Street, which is where all the bars and venues are located. I’ve never seen so many bars on one street! We shot some video, and then ran into Nicole Lee. She was heading to dinner with Jesse (from Webshots) Ted R, Molly Golightly, and some other folks. Basically, you can’t turn a corner without running into someone you know.

The Ze Frank performance was that night, about a 20 minute walk from where we were at the moment. Chris and I drove down there, only to be turned away at the door because I hadn’t yet received my SXSW badge. WTF! But it was all ok, because I returned to Jesse and friends to head over to the 8-bit party. This was probably one of the most fun parties I’ve been to in a really long time… here’s photographic evidence:

I’m making a little video clip of the trip so far, so hopefully that’ll be up soon. Gotta hurry though, because it’s almost time for the Web Awards. More later!

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