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	<title>Personal Revelations of the Magnificent Megan M. &#187; sxswi</title>
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	<link>http://worldmegan.net</link>
	<description>(worldmegan)</description>
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		<title>SXSW P-PSA</title>
		<link>http://worldmegan.net/2009/03/sxsw-p-psa/</link>
		<comments>http://worldmegan.net/2009/03/sxsw-p-psa/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 15 Mar 2009 20:55:41 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Megan M.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Blog]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Jonathan Coulton]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sober advice]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sxswi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sxswi09]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://worldmegan.net/?p=2407</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[	If you&#8217;re going to drink a gallon of green juice before your long-awaited marketing panel, DO NOT paint yourself into a tight corner with a mob of people between you and the door to the restroom.

	Even if there&#8217;s an electrical outlet right next to your chair.

	So you see, there&#8217;s nothing I can do&#8230; but seek [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p></p>	<p>If you&#8217;re going to drink a <i>gallon</i> of green juice before your long-awaited marketing panel, <span class="caps">DO NOT</span> paint yourself into a tight corner with a mob of people between you and the door to the restroom.</p>

	<p>Even if there&#8217;s an electrical outlet <i>right next to your chair</i>.</p>

	<p>So you see, there&#8217;s nothing I can do&#8230; but seek comfort from the internet.</p>
 ]]></content:encoded>
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		<item>
		<title>Trapped in the Land of Awesome</title>
		<link>http://worldmegan.net/2009/03/trapped-in-awesomeness/</link>
		<comments>http://worldmegan.net/2009/03/trapped-in-awesomeness/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sat, 14 Mar 2009 15:30:10 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Megan M.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Blog]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[300]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Braveheart]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[challenges]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gauntlet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[naomi dunford]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sxswi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sxswi09]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://worldmegan.net/?p=2393</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[	Yesterday was a rockin&#8217; day.

	I was (delightfully) trapped in a moving vehicle with the one and only Naomi Dunford... for&#8230; wait for it&#8230;

	Five hours.

	Yes, I DO recognize that it shouldn&#8217;t have taken five hours to get back from Houston. But considering the situation, I could not possibly have had better company. (Except maybe someone with [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p></p>	<p>Yesterday was a <i>rockin&#8217;</i> day.</p>

	<p>I was (delightfully) trapped in a moving vehicle with the one and only <a href="http://ittybiz.com/">Naomi Dunford</a>... for&#8230; wait for it&#8230;</p>

	<p><i>Five hours.</i></p>

	<p>Yes, <span class="caps">I DO</span> recognize that it shouldn&#8217;t have taken five hours to get back from Houston. But considering the situation, I could not possibly have had better company. (Except maybe someone with an iPhone. Speaking of which, I&#8217;m taking recommendations on iPhones.)</p>

	<p>There&#8217;s something about running the gauntlet that deeply, viscerally inspires me. Three hours to Houston International, an hour or two at the scanning faces game, five hour drive home and a leisurely ramble through &#8220;lost in the middle of nowhere&#8221; to boot&#8212;another few hours at dinner and then downtown again to (pitifully) try to catch <a href="http://wednesdaynightdinner.org/pasties/index.html">Pastries &#38; Pasties</a>, even though they wrapped up an hour early and we got there <i>spot</i> on the final &#8220;Goodnight!&#8221; That was my day. It sounds mundane and harrying&#8212;not like <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0416449/">battling the encroaching Persians</a> or <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0112573/">freeing your countrymen</a>. But it&#8217;s also strangely appealing <i>just</i> because it&#8217;s hard.</p>

	<p>That&#8217;s a pretty amazing realization for a girl who&#8217;s had to work consciously to combat her own laziness!</p>

	<p>Pushing my own boundaries has gotten addictive. Making the decision to put myself in new challenging situations gets easier every time. I look forward to it more&#8212;I relish knowing the ending. Can I make boundary-pushing <i>even more</i> addictive? What bigger, better thing can I do next? Getting to keep moving forward is the chocolate avocado icing on the raw nuts-dates cake. (Delicious, by the way, if you want the recipe.)</p>

	<p>So my first day of <span class="caps">SXSW </span>Interactive was unorthodox, but incredibly awesome. I wouldn&#8217;t change it&#8212;not even to catch every single panel I missed because of my drive. The challenge and the company were too spectacular for me to even think of complaining. I could not have had a better day.</p>

	<p>Okay. Maybe if we hadn&#8217;t gotten lost.</p>

	<p>But other than that. ;}</p>
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		<title>The Magnificent Megan M.&#8217;s (Unofficial) World Domination Summit @ SXSW Interactive 2009</title>
		<link>http://worldmegan.net/2009/03/the-magnificent-megan-ms-unofficial-world-domination-summit-sxsw-interactive-2009/</link>
		<comments>http://worldmegan.net/2009/03/the-magnificent-megan-ms-unofficial-world-domination-summit-sxsw-interactive-2009/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 12 Mar 2009 22:31:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Megan M.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Blog]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[brilliance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dinner]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[meet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pow-wow]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sxswi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sxswi09]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[world domination]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://worldmegan.net/?p=2383</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[	Going to be in Austin this Saturday the 14th? Read this post!

	If you&#8217;re attending SXSW Interactive and/or if you have the mad absorptive brain of a cosmos-conquering world-changing people-loving entrepreneur-o-saur, I want you to meet me for dinner!

	On Saturday, we&#8217;ll be sitting down for the first ever M.M.M. (Unofficial) World Domination Summit @ SXSWi 2009! [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p></p>	<p>Going to be in Austin this Saturday the 14th? Read this post!</p>

	<p>If you&#8217;re attending <a href="http://sxsw.com/interactive/"><span class="caps">SXSW </span>Interactive</a> and/or if you have the <em>mad absorptive brain of a cosmos-conquering world-changing people-loving entrepreneur-o-saur</em>, I want you to meet me for dinner!</p>

	<p><strong>On Saturday, we&#8217;ll be sitting down for the first ever M.M.M. (Unofficial) World Domination Summit @ <span class="caps">SXS</span>Wi 2009!</strong> (See how credible it looks when I use caps lock!)</p>

	<p>We&#8217;ll talk about what we&#8217;re working on and what we&#8217;re learning this weekend; we can share problems and find solutions, and just generally have an awesome hour or two connecting over yummy food and drinks. Please come with an open heart and a voracious mind!</p>

	<p>I have five confirmed so far, so please let me know as soon as you can whether you&#8217;ll be able to make it. Our reservation isn&#8217;t set yet, but we&#8217;ll be in downtown Austin.  If we meet very far from the convention center, I&#8217;ll give people rides in my back seat (or my trunk. Limited space and availability! If you don&#8217;t call dibs quickly enough, you&#8217;ll have to take a taxi). We won&#8217;t meet any further north than 16th or so&#8212;so it should all be easy breezy. Respond fast so I can count you in before I call the restaurant!</p>

	<p>If you want to join us, <a href="http://twitter.com/worldmegan">tweet me</a> or <a href="mailto:worldmegan@gmail.com">email me</a> ASAP! I want your brilliant brain at the table, and it promises to be a blast.</p>

	<p>Your adoring friend (and huge fan),</p>

	<p>Megan the M.</p>

	<p>PS. If you see this later than you&#8217;d like, get a hold of me anyway &#8211; we might have an extra spot at the table for you!</p>
 ]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>SXSW Interactive &#8212; Again!</title>
		<link>http://worldmegan.net/2009/03/sxsw-interactive-again/</link>
		<comments>http://worldmegan.net/2009/03/sxsw-interactive-again/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 12 Mar 2009 19:08:44 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Megan M.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Blog]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[connecting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[meganpreneurship]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sxswi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sxswi09]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://worldmegan.net/?p=2346</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[	Two years ago I attended SXSW Interactive for the very first time, and I liveblogged the hell out of it. I had a great time, met some nifty people, but at the same time, I was by myself most of the convention. I didn&#8217;t know anyone else who&#8217;d be interested&#8212;or rather, anybody who was interested [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p></p>	<p>Two years ago I attended <a href="http://sxsw.com/interactive/"><span class="caps">SXSW </span>Interactive</a> for the <i>very first time</i>, and I <a href="/tag/sxswi07/">liveblogged</a> the <i>hell</i> out of it. I had a great time, met some nifty people, but at the same time, I was by myself most of the convention. I didn&#8217;t know anyone else who&#8217;d be interested&#8212;or rather, anybody who was interested <i>and</i> attending.</p>

	<p>So I got myself on the bus every morning and hauled my laptop downtown for the day, typed like a madwoman, learned a ton of awesome things, and generally had a lovely (and very hardcore) time.</p>

	<p><span class="caps">THIS YEAR</span>, I get convention buddies! Not only is <a href="http://martinwhitmore.com/2009/03/sxsw-interactive/">Marty</a> joining me at <span class="caps">SXSW</span> this year (oh man, I cannot tell you in how many ways <span class="caps">THAT</span> promises to be interesting), but <a href="http://paceandkyeli.com/">Pace and Kyeli, the really-truly mavens of awesome communication</a>, will be there too&#8212;and I have a ton of people I want to meet and/or connect with, like <a href="http://www.chris-allison.com/">Chris Allison</a>, for instance, who was one of my fellow final interviewees for <a href="http://www.squidoo.com/Alternative-MBA">Seth&#8217;s Alternative <span class="caps">MBA</span> program in New York</a>, and Naomi Dunford, who is <a href="http://ittybiz.com/">queen of small business fu</a> in far more ways than I can enumerate to you in a single blog post, and <a href="http://tinynibbles.com/">Violet Blue</a>, who has long been my favorite sexuality expert and righteous porn blogger, and <a href="http://fluentself.com/">Havi Brooks</a>, who I missed in Austin before (curse you, birthday!) but don&#8217;t intend to miss meeting again. Not to mention a <i>slew</i> of others who I&#8217;ve been in touch with, or have no idea who I am, etc. ;}</p>

	<p>All in all, I suspect we&#8217;ll have a grand time&#8230; so if you&#8217;re going to be in town, tweet me <a href="http://twitter.com/worldmegan/">&#64;worldmegan</a> or call me (512-364-0045) or <a href="mailto:worldmegan@gmail.com">email me</a>, or just walk up and say hi. Really!</p>

	<p>And yeah&#8230; I&#8217;ll probably be liveblogging. A little. (Brace yourself!) ;}</p>

	<p>What are <span class="caps">YOU</span> doing this weekend?</p>
 ]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>Attract Your Ideal Clients</title>
		<link>http://worldmegan.net/2007/03/attract-your-ideal-clients/</link>
		<comments>http://worldmegan.net/2007/03/attract-your-ideal-clients/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 13 Mar 2007 20:04:38 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Megan M.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Blog]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sxswi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sxswi07]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[worldhacking]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://worldmegan.net/index.php/2007/03/13/attract-your-ideal-clients/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[	[X] 02:00PM How to Easily Attract Your IDEAL Clients (Ballroom F)

	Today we&#8217;re going to talk about the Attraction Method!  Carlon Haas is involved in direct response marketing combined with web 2.0 technology.  Jen is a law of attraction coach; she works with small businesses and teaches them how to build relationships on the [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p></p>	<p><i>[X] 02:00PM <a href="http://2007.sxsw.com/interactive/conference/panels_schedule/?action=show&#38;id=IAP060172">How to Easily Attract Your <span class="caps">IDEAL </span>Clients</a> (Ballroom F)</i></p>

	<p><div style="color: #33c;">Today we&#8217;re going to talk about the Attraction Method!  Carlon Haas is involved in direct response marketing combined with web 2.0 technology.  Jen is a law of attraction coach; she works with small businesses and teaches them how to build relationships on the internet.  Within the last year she&#8217;s built and sold an internet business, she says, which is something I&#8217;m very interested in.  Steve is involved in something he calls the ripple effect&#8212;maybe they&#8217;ll tell us more about that.</p>

	<p>Jen wants to cover universal attraction based marketing.  I think my brain is fuzzy because of my sinuses, but I&#8217;m following as best I can&#8212;and recording too.  What do you want to accomplish?  How many clients do you want to attract?  What&#8217;s the purpose of your marketing plan?</p>

	<p>Carlon says you need to know what you want before you can have it.  <i>Paris Hilton,</i> he says, is a marketing genius.  This woman never promotes herself.  She&#8217;s always dropping <i>other</i> names.  She can&#8217;t help herself&#8212;the liquor she&#8217;s drinking, the clothes she&#8217;s wearing.  The less she promotes herself, the more others are drawn to her.  This is what&#8217;s happening today in marketing, by promoting others, similar services, similar points of view, you can reap the rewards of that.  It&#8217;s like karma!  By Digging other people&#8217;s stuff, you get more traffic.  Jen says, the most popular blogs out there are often promoting other people&#8217;s products and services&#8212;they&#8217;re not necessarily just self promoting.  In this way you build a community and other people want to start promoting you, because they like you.</p>

	<p>Tarket: I don&#8217;t know what this thing is.  Pinpointing one person.  Volvo has one person, one profile they try to attract, a 32 year old mother of two&#8212;she takes her children to ballet and gymnastics and they built their car around this specific model.  They built a tarket, they focused on one person.  This person wants to pay you more than your fee, this person wants to do generous things and offer testimonials, your <i>biggest fan</i> is your tarket.  Work <i>just</i> with this kind of person.  The <i>best</i> client possible.</p>

	<p>I can&#8217;t have spelled tarket right.  I&#8217;ll have to check up on that later.</p>

	<p>The shotgun approach doesn&#8217;t work, Steve is saying.  It comes up ineffective, especially if you don&#8217;t understand who your target market is.  Carlon gets blank stares when he asks about the target market&#8212;too many of us don&#8217;t know who we&#8217;re marketing to.  But maybe&#8230; maybe we do know who we want to work with.  I know who I want to work with!  At least, I think I do. ;}</p>

	<p>You need to know your target market so you can pinpoint their psychological hot-buttons.  Listen to all these funny words!</p>

	<p>You want a client who is a good fit for you; if this client isn&#8217;t, they&#8217;ll complain, they&#8217;ll want refunds, you won&#8217;t make them happy and they won&#8217;t make you happy.  Carlon has his clients fill out a massive questionnaire because that 80% of your energy that goes to dealing with these people should be going to good customers who will be customers for life, who really appreciate the attention.</p>

	<p>If you aim low you get low.  If you aim high you get high.  If you work with people who are always dragging you down, you&#8217;ll never have energy&#8212;work with the people who bring you up.  When you put these boundaries in place, people want to come to you, want to be liked by you.</p>

	<p>Once you identify who you want, Carlon says, you need to craft a message that hits your tarket&#8217;s psychological hot-buttons&#8212;they should be nodding their heads saying Yes, that&#8217;s me, that&#8217;s what I want.  Carlon is a direct response copywriter; he writes advertisements.  Direct response marketing includes a call to action.  Ninety percent of the websites out there suck.  Welcome to X Company.  We are a solutions based company that offers solutions where our solutions are great solutions to those problems.  Nobody gives a crap about how great your company is.  They want to know <span class="caps">WHAT</span>&#8217;S <span class="caps">IN IT FOR ME</span>?  How does what you do benefit me?  Make me money?  Make my life easier?  How does it solve the problem I have.  This is the message you want to craft.  Direct response&#8217;s call to action calls them to action.  It&#8217;s necessary to tell them what to do, so they can do it!</p>

	<p>I just looked it up.  It&#8217;s definitely tarket, it&#8217;s target market condensed and focused!  That makes an insane amount of sense.</p>

	<p>You don&#8217;t need to be all things to all people.  You need to be everything to the people you <span class="caps">WANT</span>.</p>

	<p>Always put emphasis on value, not price.  Price-conscious people will line up (none of us wants that).  We want value-conscious people lining up.  This is important.</p>

	<p><i>Take a look at&#8230;</i><br />
~ unstuckmarketing.com (Jen Blackert)<br />
~ bravenewmarketing.com (Carlon Haas)<br />
~ ripplecentral.com (Steve Harper)</p>

	<p></div><i>Further notes&#8230;</i><br />
Met David just before this panel&#8212;he works with <span class="caps">IBM</span> and is so friendly and interesting!  He has my card, and has promised to email. ;}  And&#8230; I hate to admit it&#8230; but I left this panel halfway through because my sinuses were just so unbelievably uncomfortable that I had to go blow my nose and then&#8230; you guessed it&#8230; catch a bus home.  I ended up walking three blocks in miserable rain, but I got home by five.  This panel, however, was excellent &#8211; I&#8217;m going to do some research on all three panelists and hope for a podcast later, see what else I can learn.<br />
<br />
</p>
 ]]></content:encoded>
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		<title>Show Me The Money! (Part 3)</title>
		<link>http://worldmegan.net/2007/03/show-me-the-money-part-3/</link>
		<comments>http://worldmegan.net/2007/03/show-me-the-money-part-3/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 13 Mar 2007 19:15:15 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Megan M.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Blog]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[meganculture]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sxswi]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sxswi07]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[worldhacking]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://worldmegan.net/index.php/2007/03/13/show-me-the-money-part-3/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[	[X] 10:00AM Making Money From Independent Video Content? (12AB)

	Amanda says she doesn&#8217;t worry about what her advertisers want, but she can imagine self-censorship.  They knew what her brand was coming into it, so they were more open to what she wanted.  Violet says that speaks to something that&#8217;s important to her &#8211; Why [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p></p>	<p><i>[X] 10:00AM <a href="http://2007.sxsw.com/interactive/conference/panels_schedule/?action=show&#38;id=IAP060219">Making Money From Independent Video Content?</a> (12AB)</i></p>

	<p><div style="color: #33c;">Amanda says she doesn&#8217;t worry about what her advertisers want, but she can imagine self-censorship.  They knew what her brand was coming into it, so they were more open to what she wanted.  Violet says that speaks to something that&#8217;s important to her &#8211; Why are we doing Indie media instead of mainstream media?  We can say things that mainstream media can&#8217;t or won&#8217;t say, because they&#8217;re beholden to their advertisers.  This is a big question.</p>

	<p>Mike says this is significant in terms of where you&#8217;re going to <span class="caps">PUT</span> your video&#8212;if you want money you&#8217;re making different videos than if you&#8217;re pushing out a message.  Some people have successfully done both, some people have successfully done one or the other&#8230;  Alive in Baghdad is a wonderful show, Brian Connelly puts them online once a week; &#8220;This week&#8217;s car bombing brought to you by Toyota&#8221; is the running joke in the Blip office.  Mike hasn&#8217;t had a lot of advertisers ask for a <i>change in content</i>, though they have felt less comfy with the content of some shows than other shows.  We&#8217;re at a stage in the market where they&#8217;re making a brand association decision.  The Air Force is very protective of its brand&#8212;worried about being too near incendiary content.</p>

	<p>Irina asks, Whose job is it to warn the advertiser?  About sexual content, etc., is it our job to warn our advertiser that this content will be included, to say, maybe you don&#8217;t want to do this?  Especially in cases where the advertiser is so conservative, like Irina&#8217;s.  Nate does this; there&#8217;s a facility for being able to turn off ads for certain kinds of content, this comforts the advertisers, but ultimately it&#8217;s also up to the content host.  Plus, it&#8217;s up to the people making the shows.  Focus on making a good show first, worry about that stuff later (or let someone else worry about it).  We all have to worry about it a little bit, our content is personal and these models aren&#8217;t worked out yet.</p>

	<p>We&#8217;re running out of time now; we&#8217;re building long term relationships with these advertisers.  The buys are scattered, some money is being spent, but if we&#8217;re going to maintain this burgeoning field we need to maintain long-lasting relationships with these folks.  Don&#8217;t scare off a million dollar account for many creators because of one video&#8212;the money could dry up and go back to <span class="caps">NBC</span>, hell!  Violet: Blip is making commitments to the advertisers but also to their content creators, which although not standard practice is wonderful.</p>

	<p>Fifteen minutes left in the panel; whole areas haven&#8217;t been touched on yet!  <span class="caps">CPM</span>: Cost per thousand.  <span class="caps">CPC</span>: Cost per click.  One may make you more money in one case, opposite in the other case, Mike thinks most people look for CPMs, but Nate says that will always be changing.  Different networks are good for different things.</p>

	<p>People pay for television shows on iTunes; there are a couple of successful video shows out there (Red vs. Blue, ha ha ha, where you can subscribe and pay for eps in advance, they have a huge fan following and are living off of this production + merchandise&#8230; there&#8217;s another one that sounds French, I didn&#8217;t quite get it?).  In both cases they really worked on their content and built the community first.</p>

	<p>Here&#8217;s a dude that made a <span class="caps">DVD</span> on home-brewing beer, but got really sick of making calls to stores asking them to carry it.  He started an audio podcast, then videocasting, with a product he wanted to get to consumers.  Powerful medium, niche content, connect with the people you want to connect with. Home-brew stores are now calling <span class="caps">HIM</span>, he&#8217;s selling thousands of DVDs, and he&#8217;s building relationships with his audience, and trust, on a one-to-one basis with email, etc. that&#8217;s driving sales of the <span class="caps">DVD</span>.  His content is SO targeted and he&#8217;s a big fish in a small bowl.  Basicbrewing.com, radio, video.  With specific content you can find your audience and build loyalty with them on a one-to-one basis, this fellow is saying.</p>

	<p>Mike is talking about selling sponsorships for broad audiences OR for very focused audiences&#8212;there are perfect audiences everywhere.  Violet says, you&#8217;re not creating the market, you&#8217;re validating that the market is there, which is excellent.</p>

	<p>Mike is saying, Some advertisers <span class="caps">JUST</span> want their logo there, and that&#8217;s all they care about.  At Coke.com, there&#8217;s nothing there&#8212;but that&#8217;s all they want, is that presence.</p>

	<p>Amanda things, along with Bre, if you&#8217;re looking to make money with your videos that&#8217;s not where you should <span class="caps">START </span>- start with what you&#8217;re passionate and excited about.  Build your site and viewership and fanbase before thinking about monetization, because monetization is <span class="caps">BASED</span> on your viewership, on your show.  Bre says, it&#8217;s all evolving and there&#8217;s so much we haven&#8217;t talked about that could come up, so it&#8217;s big territory.</p>

	<p>Violet says, Make your media, don&#8217;t change your voice for your advertisers.  Work with great companies like Blip and the companies on this panel that care about creative content.  Nate concurs.  Focus on the content, the audience; talk to them; be really consistent!  Folks with success have been really consistent, do what you <span class="caps">SAY</span> you&#8217;re going to do.  People will come back expecting something, and you&#8217;ll lose them if they don&#8217;t find it.  Drive more traffic, advertising will come, other ways of making money will come.</p>

	<p>Violet says also, Don&#8217;t forget because this is such an emerging thing, we&#8217;re all doing this without a map.  We&#8217;re a community, and we need to learn from each other!  We&#8217;re all figuring this out and bringing the rest of the world along with us.</p>

	<p>Mike&#8217;s parting thought: Everyone at this table and the successful content creators have been at it a really long time, and it takes time.  You hear stories about people making money, but it takes years.  You have to build a brand and an audience and everything else comes after.</p>

	<p>Mike Hudack is awesome.  Blip.tv is awesome.  The consensus is astounding.</p>

	<p>When Mike had a blog, all his money was made through Amazon.com and click ads (I think he said) and he did perfectly well.  It&#8217;s perfectly reasonable to do it this way.</p>

	<p><i>Take a look at&#8230;</i><br />
~ <a href="http://www.tinynibbles.com/">Violet Blue</a><br />
~ PortableFilmFestival.com &#8211; A dude who asked a question.  Does all kinds of stuff.<br />
~ Cooking with Rockstars (cute chick!)</p>

	<p></div><i>Further notes&#8230;</i><br />
Sleepy but fabulous!<br />
<br />
</p>
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		<title>Show Me The Money! (Part 2)</title>
		<link>http://worldmegan.net/2007/03/show-me-the-money-part-2/</link>
		<comments>http://worldmegan.net/2007/03/show-me-the-money-part-2/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 13 Mar 2007 19:14:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Megan M.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Blog]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[meganculture]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://worldmegan.net/index.php/2007/03/13/show-me-the-money-part-2/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[	[X] 10:00AM Making Money From Independent Video Content? (12AB)

	A nice woman involved with Cooking with Rockstars is getting brand specific mentioning but she doesn&#8217;t feel quite empowered enough going up to Kraft or Doritos&#8212;is she crazy to think there&#8217;s value there?  It depends on how many viewers she has.  You can get in [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p></p>	<p><i>[X] 10:00AM <a href="http://2007.sxsw.com/interactive/conference/panels_schedule/?action=show&#38;id=IAP060219">Making Money From Independent Video Content?</a> (12AB)</i></p>

	<p><div style="color: #33c;">A nice woman involved with Cooking with Rockstars is getting brand specific mentioning but she doesn&#8217;t feel quite empowered enough going up to Kraft or Doritos&#8212;is she crazy to think there&#8217;s value there?  It depends on how many viewers she has.  You can get in touch with either brand&#8217;s agency, which might be interested in talking to you if there&#8217;s something in it for them.</p>

	<p>Violet is saying&#8230; What&#8217;s interesting about that is how you&#8217;re feeling disempowered&#8212;that&#8217;s an interesting concept because maybe they would naturally want to associate themselves with that, but at the same time she&#8217;s hearing that these big brands are scared to associate with independently produced content.  How much time do you spend educating advertisers about video content in general&#8230;?  Nate says that they spend an inordinate amount of time doing exactly that! But this may change in a year or two, he says, because we&#8217;ll be able to reach these people in more ways that make sense.  As a network, it&#8217;s Nate&#8217;s job to make it something that&#8217;s more easily digestible.  Interesting.</p>

	<p>Mike: The first sponsorship we closed probably took a couple months, but recently we closed one in three days&#8212;because we&#8217;d been working on that agency for months, talking about opportunities, etc., but it takes time and effort.</p>

	<p>So the dealbreaker is not so much independently produced content but independently distributed content&#8230; Attendee asks, What are some of the strategies you lay out for an advertiser to get them over that fear?  Past episodes, Mike says, members of the press have written nice things about this show, quotes from the press, you can give a deck with these things and other things this person is doing in the media, give an overview, let them see that this person is building a career they don&#8217;t want to fuck up&#8212;and that if the guy murders a prostitute (sex worker, Violet says) in the next episode, the advertiser will get their money back and the guy making the show won&#8217;t get paid!  And that made them feel better.</p>

	<p>Nate says, there <span class="caps">ARE</span> tv shows where prostitutes get murdered and they have advertisers&#8230;</p>

	<p>Interesting.</p>

	<p>It&#8217;s that they feel more in control of the television format than the independent video format.  The advertisers have to meet us halfway, but they&#8217;re only about a quarter of the way there, Nate says&#8212;some will, some won&#8217;t (like the Air Force).</p>

	<p><b>The future of ad platforms&#8230;</b>  They&#8217;re very simple right now, Mike says.  We&#8217;re incredibly early in this industry &#8211; we&#8217;re building them as we go.  Google doesn&#8217;t even have a video ad serving system yet.  Right now we&#8217;re focusing on dynamic insertion and statistics, but it will get more sophisticated from here.  We have to walk before we run.  Banners are targeted, Adsense is targeted, Nate says, it&#8217;s important to think about how you set this stuff up, tags are important, statistics are important, the money people will want to know these things.</p>

	<p>For Nate: What&#8217;s the difference in the money you can make between contextual ad networks and sponsorships or brand associations?  Nate says&#8230;</p>

	<p>Irina Slutsky just grinned at me.  She has a <i>gorgeous smile.</i>  And I totally lost my train of liveblog thought.  Mrrr!</p>

	<p>Nate&#8217;s response is that it&#8217;s all over the map, but metadata is important for contextual ads.  Tag your videos well!  Revenue sharing = tag your videos well!</p>

	<p>If I were to do video, I would just want to do it for me, as an extension of my blog.  The idea of developing a video in order to make money only appeals to me so far, then it falls apart in my head.</p>

	<p>Spencer Nutting has heard that if he posts a video on MySpace he might lose some rights; Mike says there are a good two hundred and ten video sharing sites, all with different terms of service; one site might take complete ownership of your video, they can do <span class="caps">ANYTHING</span> with it and never give you a time&#8212;they may or may not do that exclusively, believe it or not; they might say you&#8217;re not allowed to put it anywhere else.  There are other sites who don&#8217;t take any rights whatsoever, so if you apply a CC license to your work, you can give it to the Internet Archive, who won&#8217;t do any of those things (but also won&#8217;t help you make money).  YouTube used to have awful terms of service, but they&#8217;re going to start doing revenue sharing.  You <span class="caps">HAVE</span> to read the Terms of Service.  You have to <span class="caps">ACTUALLY</span> read them.  You have to know what they have the right to do.  Blip only takes the right to put your video online&#8212;that&#8217;s all, and they help you find support to make money (in a certain way, I need to look this up).  There are five or six different revenue sharing models out there&#8212;check out LightReading.com.  Phil Harvey wrote a great article last week summarizing all the video sharing services that share money, ten on the top line, and then a really big table of everyone else, very cool.  Some sites are appropriate for one-offs, some for series&#8230; great resources.</p>

	<p>Every time Bre says something I think his voice is coming from further back in the room.  I don&#8217;t know why.</p>

	<p>We&#8217;re concerned about the advertisers, the audience&#8230; how do different people feel that affects the material and the content they&#8217;re producing?  You&#8217;re trying to produce advertiser-pleasing content, but the advertisers aren&#8217;t the only ones who are important!<br />
</div></p>
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		<title>Show Me The Money! (Part 1)</title>
		<link>http://worldmegan.net/2007/03/show-me-the-money/</link>
		<comments>http://worldmegan.net/2007/03/show-me-the-money/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 13 Mar 2007 16:03:32 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Megan M.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Blog]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://worldmegan.net/index.php/2007/03/13/show-me-the-money/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[	[X] 10:00AM Making Money From Independent Video Content? (12AB)

	Mike Hudack is our moderator.  He seems extra nifty, but we&#8217;re all so sleepy&#8230; and I have a damn sinus infection.   So, fun morning!  Bre Pettis is also incredibly cool looking.  Who are these video people?  I want to watch their [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p></p>	<p><i>[X] 10:00AM <a href="http://2007.sxsw.com/interactive/conference/panels_schedule/?action=show&#38;id=IAP060219">Making Money From Independent Video Content?</a> (12AB)</i></p>

	<p><div style="color: #33c;">Mike Hudack is our moderator.  He seems extra nifty, but we&#8217;re all so sleepy&#8230; and I have a damn sinus infection.   So, fun morning!  Bre Pettis is also <i>incredibly</i> cool looking.  Who are these video people?  I want to watch their stuff!</p>

	<p>Violet has built a reputation through online media, podcasting, vlogging, but she&#8217;s a writer and sexpert.  She&#8217;s built a brand strong enough that advertisers are coming to her&#8230; what does this mean?  This is the sort of thing that fascinates me, the sort of thing I want to do.</p>

	<p>How long it takes to build a brand&#8230; when it&#8217;s appropriate to concentrate on content, when it&#8217;s appropriate to start thinking about monetizing.  Huh.  Originally I just wanted to hear Violet on a panel but now I&#8217;m wondering if this panel is actually particularly useful for me.</p>

	<p>Nate Pagel is interesting.  All these people give me a neat vibe.  Is that why they&#8217;re successful in online video, and why they&#8217;re on this panel? &#8220;How do you hook up with people who want to pay you what you&#8217;re doing&#8221;, etc.  Now Mike is talking about how Ze Frank has made an <i>insane</i> amount of money selling virtual rubber duckies&#8230; I&#8217;m the only one in her awake and excited enough to have laughed out loud because I <i>saw</i> that the other day&#8230; and I&#8217;m sick! Oy!</p>

	<p>Dude! Mike Hudack works at Blip.tv, and I didn&#8217;t even notice that.  I&#8217;m such a dork.  I really like Blip.tv and would really like to use it&#8230;</p>

	<p>One of the things that Violet wanted to mention was that what Indie media does is have a direct relationship with the people who are watching, because we&#8217;re publishing this media ourselves&#8212;and the rubber ducky in particular maintains that relationship in a really particular way.  We&#8217;re not necessarily creating a new market, we&#8217;re recognizing the market that&#8217;s there.</p>

	<p>It&#8217;s really difficult to tell where you change from the personal relationship to the consumer relationship &#8211; there&#8217;s no map for individuals like Violet, for what they&#8217;re doing, the only ethics she can follow is full disclosure to maintain her relationship with her viewers (or readers, or listeners).</p>

	<p>Amanda says it&#8217;s possible to do both as long as you are holding up that connection with you and your viewers.  I wonder about this, but it&#8217;s very reasonable to imagine that she&#8217;s right.  It&#8217;s a fine line to walk, I bet!</p>

	<p>Also, I think Irina Slutsky may be sitting <i>right</i> in front of me.</p>

	<p>Nate is talking about being unwilling to do 30 second preroll ads; he comes from the ad / user experience world and he&#8217;s trying to come up with stuff that&#8217;s not only context appropriate, but <i>content appropriate</i>.  An 8 second postroll ad is much more appropriate, he says, and doesn&#8217;t lead to the same negative consequences that otherwise you&#8217;ll see out there.  He&#8217;s also responsible for tracking how many people are seeing the postroll ad, incidently.  Do we know what the difference is in viewership between preroll and postroll?  The information is out there somewhere, on the efficacy of each&#8212;Mike says that there may be about a fifty percent drop off between the two, if I heard that properly.</p>

	<p>Bre is talking about old school TV, &#8220;This has been sponsored by&#8230;&#8221; something really relevent to the video material&#8212;in which case, a preroll might not be half bad.</p>

	<p>What sort of systems are you guys using to work with advertisers and brands&#8212;sales team, directly with ad agencies, directly with the brands?  How are they all responding to the different options?  Mike says that we&#8217;re very early in Independently produced content.  Brands are scared to death of using generated content.  (Did I get that right?)  Blip.tv takes hit shows and reps them directly to agencies, I always really wondered about this also!  Blip.tv matched Dove with Amanda Congdon, etc.  It&#8217;s a one-off by one-off process, finding out what brands are willing to take that risk, try things out&#8230; They closed a deal with Doers for Ze Frank because Doers wants to be perceived as on the cutting edge of this stuff&#8212;but many don&#8217;t feel that way.</p>

	<p>Nate: The best money that can be made is a direct relationship with an advertiser.  If you have a decent amount of content and it&#8217;s relevant to a certain content or audience, there&#8217;s most likely an advertiser that can match you.  Contact them!  That&#8217;s the way to make the most money out there.  If you don&#8217;t want to do that, there are great sites that facilitate for you, sell ads for you, to allow you to concentrate on your content, etc.</p>

	<p>Advertisers in some cases are scared to death, but if they&#8217;re looking to be perceived as hip&#8212;you can use a rate card (they know exactly what they&#8217;re getting for their money) or a fluid process, but Nate prefers the former.<br />
</div></p>
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		<title>Schwag</title>
		<link>http://worldmegan.net/2007/03/schwag/</link>
		<comments>http://worldmegan.net/2007/03/schwag/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 13 Mar 2007 01:17:25 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Megan M.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Blog]]></category>
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		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://worldmegan.net/index.php/2007/03/12/schwag/</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[	I don&#8217;t smoke. (You knew that.)

	I&#8217;m listening to the How to Rawk SXSW podcast, since it&#8217;s one of the first panels I missed at the beginning of Interactive.  And after they mentioned it, I realized that I did not receive Nicogel in my schwag bag.

	How did they know?
 ]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p></p>	<p>I don&#8217;t smoke. (You knew that.)</p>

	<p>I&#8217;m listening to the <a href="http://audio.sxsw.com/podcast/interactive/panel/2007/SXSW.INT.2007.03.09.HowToRawkSXSW.mp3">How to Rawk <span class="caps">SXSW</span></a> podcast, since it&#8217;s one of the first panels I missed at the beginning of Interactive.  And after they mentioned it, I realized that <i>I did not receive</i> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicogel">Nicogel</a> in my schwag bag.</p>

	<p>How did they know?</p>
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		<title>Sex and Computational Technology</title>
		<link>http://worldmegan.net/2007/03/sex-and-computational-technology/</link>
		<comments>http://worldmegan.net/2007/03/sex-and-computational-technology/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 11 Mar 2007 21:57:33 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Megan M.</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Blog]]></category>
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		<description><![CDATA[	[X] 05:00PM Sex and Computational Technology (9AB)

	Note for those at work: The subject of this panel was largely teledildonics; even though there aren&#8217;t any images, know what you&#8217;re getting into before you go reading on. The links, also, are going to be largely NSFW.

	Amanda Williams &#8211; University of California at Irvine
Violet Blue &#8211; Blogger, Open [...]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p></p>	<p><i>[X] 05:00PM <a href="http://2007.sxsw.com/interactive/conference/panels_schedule/?action=show&#38;id=IAP060218">Sex and Computational Technology</a> (9AB)</i></p>

	<p><b>Note for those at work:</b> The subject of this panel was largely teledildonics; even though there aren&#8217;t any images, know what you&#8217;re getting into before you go reading on. The links, also, are going to be largely <span class="caps">NSFW</span>.</p>

	<p><div style="color: #33c;"><strong>Amanda Williams</strong> &#8211; University of California at Irvine<br />
<strong>Violet Blue</strong> &#8211; Blogger, Open Source Sex<br />
<strong>Johanna Brewer</strong> &#8211; University of California at Irvine<br />
<strong>Kyle Machulis</strong> &#8211; Engineer, Nonpolynomial Labs<br />
<strong>Cory Silverberg</strong> &#8211; Author &#38; Educator, Come As You Are &#38; About.com</p>

	<p>Much of this is not material that would generally be presented in a mainstream setting, which is what makes the birth of this panel so fabulous!  Amanda Williams is moderating, explaining about user interfaces centered around the user as a brain, eyes, and hands.  We&#8217;ve got plenty on virtual communities and Web 2.0, but all that hints that the real and the virtual are not so easily separated.  There&#8217;s plenty of overlap and interaction between the two, and that really comes out when we start to talk about sex and computational technology.</p>

	<p>Amanda: &#8220;...And Kyle has some magical toys.&#8221;  (Kyle holds up something that looks like a short, fat bowling pin made of shiny silver&#8230; heh!</div></p>

	<p><span id="more-494"></span><div style="color: #33c;"><b>Continuity of intimacy:</b> Johanna has been working on a mobile music interface.  This actually does have a lot to do with sex; she&#8217;s spent a lot of time talking to people and finding out about people imagining realities about other people&#8212;if you have a dog, what your day is like, what you do in the evenings, there are all kinds of cues that people use to understand what this other person is like especially if you&#8217;ve just met.  One of the things that this bordered on was sexual fantasies and how, perhaps, we develop crushes!  There is one fellow who maybe rode the train for an extra leg with someone he thought was attractive, you make a link with a person you don&#8217;t know, you hope to find out more about them.  There are so many intimate, unspoken connections that people are making with each other, and some will say no, this is unnatural, this is stalking, these people are freaks! But <i>this is what people do</i>.</p>

	<p>Johanna came up against a really strong block in mainstream companies in regards to developing technology to relate to these concepts, because of the worry that this is stalking, but she&#8217;s working on applications herself.  We might want to take a closer look at the continuity of intimacy that&#8217;s going on&#8212;it doesn&#8217;t have to be for sex, but it may be useful, whether or not it&#8217;s branded a &#8220;sex technology&#8221;.</p>

	<p><b>What we&#8217;re actually doing:</b> Violet says, what happens to be missing from the pornography market is what people are <i>actually</i> doing, instead of what people <i>think</i> they&#8217;re doing.  People are doing all kinds of wonderful, interesting and kinky things on their own, things they&#8217;re not allowed to talk about, and mainstream pornography seems to suggest that we&#8217;re all doing the same Barbie-shaped fantasies.  This is very interesting and probably very true&#8212;because wow, we don&#8217;t like to talk about what we&#8217;re actually doing, do we!  Furthermore, she says that people are creating sexual technology when they don&#8217;t understand the sex and they don&#8217;t understand the technology&#8212;what is missing from the market is what people actually would use, would want to use. This is why the state of sexual technology at the moment is mostly not very useful.</p>

	<p>Every human wants to sexualize every piece of technology they come across&#8212;and this is true, and it isn&#8217;t useful to us to try to slip it under the radar.  I think this is what Violet said, and I don&#8217;t know if I entirely agree or disagree; also, the media loves to talk about sexual technology without any sort of critical thinking, which (Cory adds) is why we go read tinynibbles.com. (LOL!)</p>

	<p>The oldest use of porn, Cory continues, was to turn customers on so that they would <i>pay</i> for play in brothels, etc.  That use did not include any kind of happy ending, because of course that would mean less opportunity to ultimately sell the happy ending.  I&#8217;m not sure where this fits in, but it&#8217;s clear that we need to improve our quality and (especially!) our understanding of sex, and to do this we need to talk about it.</p>

	<p><b>Incredibly interesting uses for sexual tech:</b> The computational technology that is out there is capable of responding much more quickly than previous technologies; sex is a constant negotiation of action and response, and it&#8217;s particularly useful to have tech that responds in more and more intuitive ways.  An example of new technology&#8212;Cory is talking about autonomic dysreflexia.  This happens in people with spinal cord injuries, where your blood vessels constrict for some reason and there is a block to the brain, so that the brain doesn&#8217;t get the right messages.  And autonomic dysreflexia is triggered by vibration somehow.  What he&#8217;s saying is that it&#8217;s not inconceivable to develop a vibrator that someone with a disability could use that would <i>feed back</i> what&#8217;s going on in the body, because of this trigger.  This sort of tech could be <i>really</i> interesting because instead of just mediating between one person and their partner, it&#8217;s really functional to that one person in terms of connecting with their body.  (I hope I got all that right!  Cory talks fast!)  And I don&#8217;t <i>completely</i> understand this, but I thought it was <i>really</i> interesting that he included it and seemed so excited about it!</p>

	<p>It&#8217;s also not inconceivable, he says, especially with the bad teledildonic tech that exists now, that with a laptop and a bunch of toys, a person could have any kind of sex they want.  He says later on that a lot of researchers who tackle sexual tech forget that we are <i>all</i> screwed up about sex.  By and large, starting from scratch is what we need to be doing!  So the people that he&#8217;s really excited about, they&#8217;re the ones starting from scratch and really thinking about the state of sexuality in human beings at the moment.  I <i>really</i> agree with him on the one point&#8212;we are all screwed up and we are all keeping everything too much behind closed doors.  These are things we can be talking about and understanding and they are things that can bring us together and help us relate better to ourselves, really start <i>getting</i> ourselves as people.  Some of us are doing this, but many, many, many of us are just afraid.  Which is ultimately why this post used a &#8216;more&#8217; tag.  (There may be future debates about this <span class="caps">NSFW</span> thing, and the use of the &#8216;more&#8217; tag except in instances of exceedingly long posts&#8230; er&#8230; like this one.)</p>

	<p><b>Kyle: &#8220;I will now present the horrible, bleak reality that <i>is</i> teledildonics&#8230;&#8221;</b> (Much laughter from audience.)  Kyle runs <a href="http://www.slashdong.org/">slashdong.org</a>&#8212;obviously nsfw&#8212;and is talking about the fact that basically if you put two people together in a game, they&#8217;re going to find a way to have sex&#8230; yup!  (I think he just rattled off a list of possible new porn games and said &#8220;BMXXX&#8221;&#8212;ha!)  Teledildonics is really a <i>great</i> word.  In fact, he has the audience say it all together: &#8220;Teledildonics!&#8221;  If you don&#8217;t already know, this is remote technological sexuality.  I&#8217;m sure you are getting some kind of understanding from the dramatic picture you&#8217;re making in your head!  But if you need a little bit more, there&#8217;s a perfectly safe <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teledildonics">Wikipedia entry</a> on the subject.</p>

	<p>At this point Kyle shows us many toys currently available, including the talking head vibrator, which I&#8217;ve already come across online&#8230; as I shake my head and chortle&#8230; There are many things that he shows us on slides on the big screen and the audience is having a great time.</p>

	<p>Random Kyle quote: &#8220;I cleaned it <span class="caps">REALLY WELL</span>.&#8221;  Kyle is incredibly charismatic and funny.  I really enjoy listening to him!</p>

	<p>And so we&#8217;re looking at interfaces&#8212;really bad interfaces! and Kyle is telling us some of his personal ideas for this whole concept and getting really excited and just talking up a storm!  It&#8217;s great!  One of the things that he says is that instead of using sliders, instead of matching something that&#8217;s going on in a movie, you come up with patterns!  You can actually program a series of actions, and any end-user can program their own grooves.  Plus, you can have <i>buddy lists</i> of people whose grooves you like!   And these grooves are probably series&#8217; of vibrations or movements or whatever the technology is doing to make you feel good.</p>

	<p>And Kyle says, &#8220;Sometimes people ask me, &#8216;well Kyle, what about personalization?&#8217;  Fuck personalization, this is science, people!&#8221;</p>

	<p>Apparently there&#8217;s a total-teledildonics patent that keeps us from using waveforms, specifically, so we have to use audio streams to operate these other toys.  Audio toys, a stream that&#8217;s already available everywhere, it&#8217;s excellent!</p>

	<p>So now Kyle shows us some more items&#8212;the Virtual Hole, yes, it&#8217;s actually called that, and he talks about its counterpart, the Virtual Stick.  (I know).  The VH is the silver bowling pin he held up earlier.  And there&#8217;s so much more that I didn&#8217;t quite get all of, I was enjoying myself and listening and I just don&#8217;t type nearly as fast as they all can talk!  Someone mentioned biometrics, how does biometrics fit into all of this?  I think it was Violet who mentioned &#8220;The Toy,&#8221; which pairs with your phone over bluetooth.</p>

	<p><b>Other perspectives:</b> And Johanna was talking about a whole different perspective on the sex tech industry, that &#8220;Maybe your point isn&#8217;t climaxing&#8212;maybe it&#8217;s building some kind of intimate bond!&#8221;  And she&#8217;s talking about just using this technology to be closer to your partner, or to better understand yourself, and not necessarily using it for masturbation or orgasm, because there are so many more useful applications that people forget to talk about.</p>

	<p>Amanda is bringing up something that she feels comes up a lot, implicitly, in what the panelists are discussing; <b>what is the difference between sex and masturbation? What roles do intimacy and orgasm play?  What counts as sex?</b>  At this point the panelists look very loathe to answer this question, because it&#8217;s the end of the panel and this is a <i>whole new can of worms, seriously</i>.</p>

	<p>Part of Cory&#8217;s response: One of the first things people want to talk about when we bring up the internet and sex is whether someone is online cheating.  This is technology forcing people to rethink relationships, which in itself is positive&#8212;but generally the mainstream media always asks the least interesting questions (is it cheating, is internet porn bad, and so on).  We&#8217;re guilty of thinking very narrowly about sex.</p>

	<p>Part of Johanna&#8217;s response: And ultimately, regarding the &#8220;is it sex&#8221; question, there isn&#8217;t even a final answer&#8212;it&#8217;s between you and your partner.  There&#8217;s a continuum between sex and not sex.  We can&#8217;t cut a hard line.  Sex isn&#8217;t separate from life&#8212;something that isn&#8217;t sex can suddenly turn into sex, and vice versa!</p>

	<p>Part of Violet&#8217;s response: A lot of the people who are designing and marketing sex tech are making things that are destined to fail because they&#8217;re based on some sort of &#8220;hetero-normal&#8221; idea of what people are doing, when that isn&#8217;t necessarily what people are <i>actually</i> out there doing&#8212;she used a great example that I can&#8217;t remember well enough to put down here.  This is a big thing she keeps coming back to and it&#8217;s really important to me because it links in to how we talk (or not) about sex.</p>

	<p><b>The floor was opened up for questions, and here are some summaries of information&#8230;</b></p>

	<p>Regarding the Sybian, which you can look up yourself if you aren&#8217;t familiar with&#8230; This thing costs thousands of dollars, because it actually works, there&#8217;s a lot of history and effort that was put into doing it right.  The Sybian, Violet says, gets used in porn a lot, at Kink.com, etc.; these are commercial practices.  In practicality, she says, when she got a hold of one, &#8220;it sounded like an outboard motor in my apartment!&#8221;  She said something entertaining along the lines of, I&#8217;m thinking, I&#8217;m not going near that thing!   And one of the other panelists mentioned that the Thrillhammer is pretty much a Sybian with a souped up motor.</p>

	<p>Someone mentioned a man named Crumb, who apparently draws his own pornography.  I like this concept a lot and bet a lot of talented people do this very thing.</p>

	<p>There was quite a lot more, and I did record the panel, so I may post more about this later.  If you&#8217;ve read this far, thank you. :}</p>

	<p><i>Take a look at&#8230;</i><br />
~ <a href="http://tinynibbles.com">Violet Blue</a><br />
~ <a href="http://sexuality.about.com/mbiopage.htm">Cory Silverberg</a><br />
~ <a href="http://www.nonpolynomial.com/">Kyle Machulis</a><br />
~ <a href="http://www.ics.uci.edu/~johannab/">Johanna Brewer</a><br />
~ <a href="http://2007.sxsw.com/interactive/conference/panels_schedule/?action=bio&#38;id=100763">Amanda Williams</a></p>

	<p></div><i>Further notes&#8230;</i><br />
Ya&#8217;ll already know how much I like Violet.  But this whole panel was so enjoyable it was hard for me to keep taking notes&#8212;I just wanted to enjoy listening to all the fabulous people with the fabulous ideas and the intelligent discourse and the positive attitudes about sex.  It was wonderful!<br />
<br />
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