The Google tool's been used

Tom Galloway — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 19:27:00 -0700

The Google tool's been used for over a year now, both for all-hands (although that's a bit more recent) and for submitting questions to Tech Talks (particular from remote sites) and major visitor talks such as the Presidential candidates (for the latter, the top-ranked were passed on to the interviewer, rather than being asked by proxies at the mike). It also allowed you to comment on a question, although those were only visible if a user chose to make them so.

One problem with it, at least for the version being used when I was last there, was that there was a definite advantage to submitting your question early on, since more people would then see it and have a chance to vote on it. If you submitted something right before (or during) a presentation, you probably wouldn't get enough votes to break into the top tier. I did suggest to the person working on the next version that perhaps something could be added so that if you'd voted, you'd get a reminder email N minutes before the event's start to go back and vote for any newer questions that'd been submitted since your vote.

Twitter didn't cause the SXSW audience revolt

brad — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 10:13:05 -0700

While it’s stupid that the biggest story to come out of South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive was the gossip over the interview of Mark Zuckerberg by Sarah Lacy, the one “hook” that has kept the story going is the suggestion that it was the use of twitter, in particular snide comments on twitter, which turned the audience against Lacy, the interviewer from Business Week.

There have even been comments (from those who weren’t even there) suggesting witch hunts and misogyny. Other bloggers used hyperbolic terms like “train-wreck” and “career-ending” which are serious exaggerations.

Short summary. In a “keynote” interview, Lacy, who has just finished a book about Facebook, was on stage to interview Zuckerberg. Zuckerberg was, as usual, a difficult interview subject, but for a variety of reasons the character of the interview changed as the audience turned against Lacy, cheering criticism of her. Most agreed they had not seen somebody lose an audience like this in some time.

Brad Ideas - Twitter didn't cause the SXSW audience revolt - Comments

The Google tool's been used

Twitter didn't cause the SXSW audience revolt