Stafford.Tisdale's trip to the Lonestar State and an Introduction to the Cult-of-Blog From David Tisdale . Principal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Stafford.Tisdale's site for Jason Scavone & the Noises 10 was a finalist in the 2005 South-by-Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Conference in Austin, Texas. The media-rich interactive experience was one of five sites nominated in the Music category of the SXSW Web Awards on March 14th. We didn't win. However, I considered it an honor just to be in the same category with interactive industry powerhouses SOFAKE (Austin, TX) and Preloaded (London, England) for their exquisite work for Billy Harvey and Evil Nine respectively. The best part of being a finalist is that you get free badges to the 4-day SXSW conference which consists of dozens of seminars and a whole bunch of free beer. Needless to say, the Stafford.Tisdale office shot down to Austin to represent our site in the Awards, hobnob with industry peers, and to see what the "Live Music Capital of the World" had to offer. Highlights included a keynote speech from Malcolm Gladwell (The Tipping Point, Blink) and a panel discussion with Macromedia Execs speaking on the future of Flash Video. However, after only a few hours in the Austin convention center I began to realize that designers were a small minority of the crowd. The bulk of the attendees, hiding behind their shiny silver PowerBooks, belonged to the latest trend in self affirmation: Blogging. The past year has brought more people to the interactive/web industry than any year prior by promoting these former chat room junkies into self-proclaimed journalists. The essence of a blog enables a person to "publish" their personal opinions, diaries, and fluff to the web. I definitely wouldn't be in this business if I didn't embrace the back-end technology that is driving this revolution. This article is in fact part of the Stafford.Tisdale RSS feed which syndicates our news items to engines around the globe (click here to learn more about RSS or download NetNewsWire). From a business perspective, I cannot understand why the Blogging scene/cult is so hype. The bottom line is that no one reads blogs except bloggers. It is very rare that you, the web user, have a blog that you hit everyday. If you do, you are part of a small percentage of users (something like 4%). Yet, as you read this, the content of the internet is growing exponentially by people writing about what their dog did yesterday and whether they ordered a Latté or a Macciatto this morning. SXSW keynote speaker Ana Marie Cox, who is behind some of the most popular blogs for Gawk Media (including wonkette) re-enforced my argument in her speech. Bloggers haven't really "done" anything...it is just because that there are so damn many of them that they can't be ignored. The press is eating it up because it is a massive uprising of public opinion. Does anyone care? Not really. Does it matter? Yes. Collectively, bloggers are extending the distant corners of the informational universe at an astounding rate by filling it with whatever they want to talk about. So much so that their personal fluff could overtake porno as the most published form of content on the web. I must admit, I would be great to Google the word "doggy" and get a nice looking Labrador. I never would have thought much about the whole Blogger scene if I hadn't attended SXSW. I am interested to see what the masses can do. I just hate the word blog. {Visit SXSW} . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Stafford.Tisdale is a design house delivering web, print, and special media. We produce creative solutions with muscle. On point. On time. www.staffordtisdale.com / © 2005 Stafford.Tisdale