It looks like the honor of "First SXSW Post" will fall to me, by virtue of being horrendously bored during Saturday's keynote address (the 37signals/Coudal crew, of whom I have a longstanding and very well-founded dislike). Oh, for those of you who don't know, SXSW is a big tech conference in Austin that's playing host to a number of us at EchoDitto.

Last night when we were all drinking margaritas and adjusting to the 88-degree weather, Tim asked us what our goals were for SXSW. I have some very complicated goals involving rethinking the binaries we use to talk about folksonomies, tagging, and how we classify information. Those ideas, however, require my full attention if I'm to do right by them, so I'll start simple. more

I just wanted to say thank you to Frommers.com, which has unobtrusively become the best first-stop travel site on the web. Most travel websites are either far too specific (TripAdvisor concentrates almost exclusively on lodging), or give only superficial overviews (Rough Guide, Let's Go).

Frommers.com is not an obviously high-tech site. There aren't user reviews of everything, or tagging and sorting and Technorati links. It just provides great content, for free--something that I feel like I see less and less of these days on the web. more

Being as how when I get home, it's all I can do to cook dinner (and by "cook dinner" I mean "mix 2/3 cup of water with cheese powder and add to macaroni"), I'm always amazed at how much STUFF other Dittos manage to do in their spare time. This is the first blogpost in a short series about some of their extracurricular activities, from building websites for friends to helping out on campaigns and causes.

Lauren Kranich
Lauren, the newest team member, is a born organizer. In a matter of weeks, she's streamlined our staff meetings, corralled Nicco, AND helped to set my best friend up on a highly successful date (never mind that he lives in Vermont). So I guess I shouldn't be surprised that even her parties have a purpose. Several weeks ago saw a Wal-Mart Watch party, where close to 40 people stopped by her Dupont apartment to drink, play flip-cup, and talk about Wal-Mart's violoations of workers' rights. According to my sources, the party went on well past midnight--and every attendee gave their email at the door. more

I can't believe it's been over a month and I still haven't blogged about the coolest project I've been involved with all year (no offense to our clients). My mom, Kristi Andersen, is running for Town Board in my hometown of Cazenovia, New York, and I've been helping with her campaign.

Her website is at Caz05.com. more

So I found myself watching Fox News at 11:30pm and was surprised to see a Very Special O'Reilly Factor about The Worst of the Web...looking deep into the dark heart of websites that are out to DESTROY people with whom they disagree!

First of all, I'm almost certain that the stock film they use of hands typing (and, if you listen to the narration, apparently engaged in DESTROYING innocent conservatives using the Power of the Internet) are using the exact same keyboards that EchoDitto just bought.

BASIC PREMISE:
Evil zombie bloggers will do anything to harm those with whom they disagree. more

Last week, I headed out to San Francisco (my first time ever in CA!) to speak on a "Politics and Technology" panel at the Young Democrats of America convention. Many of the leaders there were just beginning to learn how to effectively use the internet to organize on the ground. I spoke about email--the first and best weapon in any online organizer's arsenal. What follows are my (somewhat condensed) remarks.

It's true that EchoDitto compulsively reads techno-geek websites like O'Reilly Radar and go nuts for the Google maps API. But at the end of the day, all of us are practicioners. We use the internet to effect real change for our clients. And more often than you'd think, that means convincing them to STOP worrying so much about their website. more

It's summer, which apparently means "intern season" here in DC. Although I find that term vaguely disturbing, I am excited that EchoDitto is going to be joined by some smart, awesome young people over the next month or so.

We're still on the lookout for an Online Organizing/Communications intern. The job description is below: more

You check your RSS feeds compulsively. You think Kottke has really gone downhill since he went pro. You had a Flickr account long before Yahoo bought them. Your del.icio.us inbox is overflowing. You know way too much about Google API's. Does this describe you? If so, then you have a shot at totally rocking the new Yahoo/O'Reilly Buzz Tracker contest.

You buy shares in words you think will become buzzwords, or used more often (as measured by Yahoo searches). Think podcasting is the next big thing? Buy shares! Think it's destined to fail? Sell, sell, sell! Good luck... more

At 10:56am today, I sent an instant message to a colleague in DC. It said "Holy cow, I am at a panel about podcasting."
Why were my whereabouts such groundbreaking news? Well, because in our company, I'm not generally known as a fan of podcasts. I'm an organizer at heart, and it's hard for me to see why EchoDitto, a firm that specializes in building online communities, is spending energy on what's basically a broadcast medium. I mean, no matter what you call these things, you're still making a radio show, right? What's new about that?
I'd gone to EchoRadio and downloaded the mp3's. They were interesting, but a bit time-consuming to download and then listen to. Then, last night, things changed. I was going through my RSS feeds when suddenly, music started coming out of my computer. Christian music. I assumed it was a tab I'd left open in Firefox and started madly clicking through. Nothing. Finally, it stopped, and I went back to Newsfire. I started reading Colin's blogpost on the new Todd Solondz movie. Then I looked more closely--in the bottom of my Newsfire was a little play button. The music was coming from my RSS reader!. I didn't have to press any buttons or drag anything into iTunes. It just started playing. more