SXSW Day Four

Filed under: Internet, Web services, Social Software, web 2.0

SXSW Day Four

by Brad Linder Mar 11th 2008

Day four and we've lost track of which hurt more, our livers or our feet. After yesterday's Facebook keynote revolt, we planned on a day of exceptional interviews and kept our tightly packed schedules close at hand. As they often warn, life is what happens when you're making other plans.

We did manage to hook up with the folks at Twine for a fantastic interview which really explained what's behind their beta mode invite only fortress. After that the guys from Five Runs stopped by to talk about their fantastic new app for monitoring your Ruby on Rails server, a piece that's sorely needed in the modern web services space. Shiv Signh from Razorfish then met up with us to talk about how social media can work for large corporations, and some of the hurdles they face in adopting healty social marketing practices.

The bad sprits Zuckerberg left in the event hall yesterday were still floating heavy in the air. Around 2pm the word came down that there would be a rematch. Zuckerberg a mulligan, a do-over in the vernacular of the playground, this time off site, and the inter-conference grapevine was douced with gasoline and set ablaze. There would be blood, someone's milkshake would be drank, and the whole thing was going down at 4pm.

The Facebook Developer's Garage session going on down the street from the venue was Zuckerberg's chosen territory. We high-tailed it down the street to get a good spot for the carnage. The room wasn't as packed as we'd expected, but it was still hopping way to much to be a simple developer summit, so we waited. Zuckerberg was greeted with a tempid reaction from the audience. He seemed relaxed, and far more comfortable than the day before. After offering that this would be an open forum, and that everyone would be welcome to ask whatever they wanted, Zuckerberg went on to field the early questions with a string of non-answers. After being burned by Zuckerberg's lousy performace with Sarah Lacy in the giant ballroom, there was no way we were being hoodwinked in this tiny but classy off-beat venue. Mid-shelf liqour or not, we decided to leave.

By the numbers:

Times we've mentioned the Zuckerberg fiasco while being interviewed: 2
Internet celebrities who've blown us off: 3
Times we've been able to use hotel Wi-Fi in the last 24 hours: 0
Number of free sodas in the bloghaus today: 0

We've given up on Mullenweg. We know, you're just not that into us. Maybe one day we'll be able to sit down over a drink or dinner and talk about what might've been. It's obvious, it's just not working out. We'd probably both be happier if we cut our losses and admitted to ourselves that we're happier when seeing other people. C'est la vie.

Tags: facebook, five-runs, razorfish, ruby, sxsw2008, twine, zuckerberg

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