Flavor of the Week: Interactivity
Who is Sarah Lacy, again?: How I wish I could have seen the SXSW audience turn on BusinessWeek columnist Sarah Lacy for asking Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg lame questions. After hearing the reports, I finally caught a few bizarre clips, where she definitely sounds like a bitchy sixteen-year-old (hearing the dissent brew is priceless). But then I found this video of her defending herself, post interview. Okay, she comes off as a little whiny, but I was prepared to stick with her until she said this: “I’m one of the only women reporting on tech. I get this constantly.” And that’s when I and the other millions of women reporting on tech simultaneously turned our backs on her forever.
Kottke turns 10: The world’s oldest continually-updated blog is, well, old! Hard to believe Jason Kottke was talking about his feelings online when I was still relying on the powers of AOL. But hey, even the alpha blogger didn’t make it to SXSW this year. Now I don’t feel so bad for missing so many panels.
The kids are alright: Teens everywhere should write furtive but heartfelt emails of praise to the talented Amy Goldwasser. She not only published the first legit book of teen essays, Red: The Book, she stumps for for teens’ overall intelligence in light of that ghastly thing called the internet in this essay for Salon, “What’s the matter with kids today?” (Answer: Nothing.)
Craft or die: A controversial presentation “DIY, Websites, and Energy: The New Alternative Crafts” seems to have ignited a craft blogosphere firestorm. Andrew Wagner, the editor at American Craft surveys the dissent in light of what he presented that same day, a treatise on why craft is punk. Seriously, the whole craft subculture thing is blowing up to very non-subculture proportions; even Etsy’s marketing guy Matt Stinchcomb, who I met this week, seemed to be genuinely shocked by all the attention—he was still glowing from an appearance on Martha!
So what does it mean if you buy this book?: Speaking of DIY, I got my grubby hands on a preview copy of Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are by my estranged identical cousin Rob Walker. Lots of Handmade 2.0 in there, and whaddaya know, chapter 2 is all about Beautiful Losers.
One more song: I had to go back to a place where I wasn’t defined by the amount of laminated plastic around my neck, but my dear friend Jeff Miller will continue to peel apart the sweaty, beer-humid layers of SXSW through Sunday. Stick with him over at Esquire as he’ll be navigating the scene just for you. More on that later…
In the spirit of interactivity, I give credit to the entire internet for this Flavor of the Week.