As I stated before, I was most excited to see Facebook.com Founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, give his keynote talk. I wrote a post about my experience on my company’s blog called, The Infamous Mark Zuckerberg Keynote at SXSW. It was quite the keynote with a unique audience reaction.

I was also surprised to learn just how many people out there are using Twitter. If you are not familiar with Twitter, it is basically a mini-blog with 140 character posts similar to an IM away message. Without being a member of the site, I always thought it was a waste of time. However, seeing its incredible popularity by SXSW attendees of all ages, I think it might play a pivotal role in the future of communication. Check out my other LevelTen article, Is Twitter the Future of Communication?

I also learned in one panel called “The Female Takedown of Casual Gaming,” that more women are playing “casual” games than men. The term casual game, refers to desktop, mobile and internet based games; basically any game that is not played on a console unit. Females prefer to play games on computers and 62% of the PC casual only gamers are women. I had never considered myself a “casual gamer” before, but the fact that I was one of the women who purchased the 6th most popular game of 2007, Diner Dash by PlayFirst.com, made me realize that I fall into this category. Yes, I can admit this.

So the issue now with many of these companies that make casual games and market them to women like PlayFirst.com, is how to get more women designing, producing, and programming the games. At one point Pogo.com, whose users are 60-70% women, had absolutely no women working there. At PlayFirst.com, currently 26% of the designers and producers making the games are females but there are no female programmers.

Another interesting statistic for virtual worlds, is that half the avatars are women but it turns out that only 10% of the actual users are female. I never would have guessed that so many men like to play with female avatars, but I guess that is why games like Laura Croft Tomb Raider do so well. The attractive female character.

The panel believes that this female market is not just a trend. Females will continue to drive this casual gaming market especially as it becomes more social with chat boxes and forums integrated into the games.

Here are a few photos from the trip:

This was at Club de Ville.

Here I am hard at work, blogging and chatting with other participants in the SXSW Meebo chat rooms. (Photo taken by Stephanie Norsworthy)

This was the Lego play area, not only for kids.

Some of the LevelTen girls and myself.

Stephanie and I at the Google Party.

Beautiful downtown Austin (taken by Stephanie Norsworthy and edited by the creative Alice Noyes)

This Friday, some fellow LevelTen employees and myself will make the trek down to our capital of Austin, Texas for the South by Southwest Interactive Festival. This 5 day event includes many educational panels and keynote speakers from industry innovators and leaders. In addition, there are nightly parties for those who are looking forward to experiencing Austin’s famous downtown nightlife.

I will be blogging about my experiences on the LevelTen Design blog and will hopefully learn some new things while I am there. The highlight of the trip for me will be to hear Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook.com’s Founder and CEO, give his keynote talk on Sunday. Check out the entire panel schedule on the SXSW website to see all the daily events.

And for those who are attending, check out this online scheduler to help you keep track of the events on each day.  It has some great features and gives descriptions of each panel or event. I thought it was also easier than looking up all the panel descriptions on the SXSW website.

I believe Super Bowl advertising is on a downhill trend. We are bombarded by hundreds of advertising messages each and every day and while many people look forward to seeing the Super Bowl ads each year, I don’t believe the advertisers messages are making a real impact. Sure, they get headline news for one day after they air, but whether people remember the product they are trying to sell is key and is something isn’t always happening.

While I think some commercials may have missed the target (enough with the cavemen already) one commercial in particular did the best job getting the actual product benefit across. The Tide To Go “Screaming Stain” commercial not only showed the benefit of using the product at a crucial moment, but was also entertaining. That crazy screaming stain got quite a few laughs. Tide To Go has also create a mini site around this promotion which the chance to win prizes daily or become famous by creating your own spoof of the commercial. By the way, this was Tide’s first attempt at a Super Bowl commerical.

Check out Yahoo’s top five Super Bowl commercials and tell me what you think. Who did the best job of getting their product message across?

**Originally published on LevelTen Design Blog.

A recent turn of events involving a blogger and Facebook, have brought about a very important question regarding the ownership of information that is available on social networking sites.

As reported by MediaPost, Wednesday night blogger Robert Scoble was kicked off of his own Facebook account for using a new feature of Plaxo to gather the names, e-mail addresses, and birthdays of his 5,000 Facebook friends. The ever popular social network claims that running this type of script to collect a large amount of data goes against the site’s Terms of Use. A recently created Facebook group that is campaigning to get Scoble’s account reinstated has more information on the matter.

While I understand that preventing scripts like this from running on Facebook is a necessary way to keep out spammers, I am left wondering why Facebook feels they have the right to stop you from collecting your friends’ information. If an individual creates a Facebook, MySpace or LinkedIn profile complete with their name, e-mail, sometimes address and phone, they are making the conscious decision to put that information in a public domain. I know you are probably saying to yourself that you have “privacy” settings, but your information is still in a public area (the world wide web=very public). But the real question that is likely to be debated heavily this year is when you put your information on a profile, does it become the property of the website/social network?

In my opinion, the answer is no. That’s the whole idea of the Web 2.0 era: websites with content generated by the users. It is the user’s content, not the network’s. Social networks would be blank pages without the information provided by the users. Facebook certainly shouldn’t think they have the right to own that information and do with it what they want. I know they do share some of the resonsibility to safeguard their member’s information, because otherwise people would be aprehensive about joining and creating that content. However, the information is not theirs, the do not own it and they cannot simply use it for their own advertising purposes (as it was recently thought they might).

So, what’s the moral of the story? Social networks need to respect the users who generate their content and realize it’s not their property, while users need to safeguard themselves and not put information on the web they don’t want the world to see.

**Article originally published on LevelTen Design Blog.

If you read my previous blog on Global Warming, you know that I am very passionate about energy conservation. Not because I share the same political views surrounding global warming, but because I think Americans are very wasteful with their energy. Whether it is keeping all of your electronics plugged in around the clock or leaving the lights on when you are not even at home, it is all very wasteful.

Remembering to unplug your phone chargers or laptops when not in use, can not only save you some money on your electric bill, but also help the environment. Especially turning off your heating and air conditioner when you are not home. According to wikipedia, space conditioning accounts for 44% of your household energy consumption. So in the summer, try using more fans and not blasting your AC at all hours of the day. A little conservation can go a long way if we all make positive changes together.

Next Monday, October 15, 2007, I will be participating in Blog Action Day. It is a day for all bloggers to give their opinions about one topic, the environment. Currently, there are over 8,000 participating blogs. All you have to do is write one post, how easy is that? So if you blog, I highly suggest joining the effort. You don’t have to agree with someone else’s opinion, just share your own. Check out their website for more information or to sign up your blog.

It will be interesting to see the impact so many blogs can have from discussing one topic in a single day.

This video has a great explanation:

The movie has been accompanied by several unique and inventive types of promotions. The 7-Eleven Kwik-E-Mart promotion was introduced in early July, shortly followed by the JetBlue Flight Log promotion. While it appeared that both promotions were film funded, 7-Eleven announced that they footed all the costs. No doubt that they benefited from the extra sales of the pink donuts and Squishees, but this was truly a creative and monumental promotion. The JetBlue promotion also had a great viral aspect to it, with Mr. Burns taking over the CEO’s blog. It was surely emailed around offices nationwide. So what was the next planned promotional attack for this highly anticipated movie? Why, appeal to the fashion industry of course.

The entire Simpsons clan is featured in the upcoming issue of Harper’s Bazaar, modeling the latest couture fashions in Paris with supermodel Linda Evangelista. It was interesting to see Marge in something besides her green dress and even letting her hair down in one spread. The drawings do a fabulous job of imitating current fashion trends and fashion designers such as Karl Lagerfeld and Marc Jacobs.

After this unique promotion, released only shortly before the movie’s debut, I am left wondering, what else do they have planned? Maybe a Krusty the Klown take over of the television airways? Or did Sideshow Bob already do that on a Simpsons episode?

Excerpts from the article:

“Even some of Moore’s fans worry that he partially stages scenes, undercutting the value of his own work.”

“But amid the glad-handing, one awkward question is being whispered: could Michael Moore be running out of steam?”

Read Rapaport’s article in its entirety here.

Several announcements from Apple, such as Tuesday’s announcement that Apple would be releasing a software development kit for the iPhone, have already disappointed industry insiders. This announcement, although expected, was especially disappointing because developers will only be able to write Web applications for the iPhone using the devices on Apple’s Safari browser. Industry leaders believe that by limiting the development to Safari, which currently holds a 5% market share, innovation will be stifled. Since Web applications are believed to be the future of software, it is especially disappointing that the iPhone won’t be opened to third-party software. Read the full article on Wired.com.

Another caveat is that all future iPhone users must have an iTunes account in order for the phone to work “as promised”. In a recent article on paidContent.org, writer Staci Kramer stated that, “In update emails Tuesday, Apple and AT&T warned prospective users the expensive phone they lust for won’t meet expectations without an iTunes account.” While most people who have their hearts set on getting an iPhone are probably already iPod and iTunes users, the small group of non-Apple product users, will be in for a surprise. AT&T has also been slow to confirm whether or not their standard 30-day return policy will apply to the iPhone as well as whom, Apple or AT&T, will be handling the iTunes customer support issues. AT&T customers will also have to agree to a 2 year contract with the iPhone, something that was not previously standard procedure.

While there is still a little over two weeks for AT&T to get its act together, it will be interesting to see if there is a mad rush on June 29th or if consumers will be waiting a few weeks for all of the issues to be worked out. I’m still waiting for Sprint to announce they will be carrying it, yes? I won’t hold my breath.

Blackle is just a search page, but instead of having a white background like Google, it uses a black background with grayish font. Although it may be slightly more difficult to read, Blackle claims that “a black version of the Google search engine would save a fair bit of energy due to the popularity.” A blog entry titled Black Google Would Save 750 Megawatt-hours a Year, goes more in-depth into these claims.

But I can’t help but wonder how energy use will influence web design in the future. Will designers opt for a more energy friendly predominately black page? Or will readability and the love of creative and colorful design win out? My guess is that just like energy efficient cars, it will take a while before function wins out over good design.