Ideas and reviews for websites, film, business, products, and designMicroblog your ideas and be discovered

Social media gurus: We all know one. If you’re lucky, you know only one. They are the attendees of tech parties, the “Twitter consultants,” the armchair generals of the Internet, and their numbers grow by the day. Yet most of them couldn’t distinguish a line of code from a badly punctuated haiku. What’s to be done with the social media experts? Accept that their blathering may contain some wisdom? Or require technical exams for all Twitter users with more than 1,000 followers? You decide! And make the NMDs among us take our “technical” quiz. Sponsor There is always grave danger when amateurs turn overnight into experts. This sub-professional clown town is where B movies and Soulja Boy come from. It’s also the birthplace of every blowhard who tells you you’re “doing it wrong” without any technical knowledge or original thought to back it up. Sometimes, it’s not such a bad thing – in fact, there are a great many non-technical social media folks who are doing a great job of creating quality content and helping brands get themselved situated on the Web. But most of the people I can think of who fit this description have been doing their thing for so long that they’ve had to pick up a few technical tidbits along the way to ensure their continued success and to ensure they weren’t sounding like idiots. However, I hold the strong opinion that if you’re working in technology – even as a PR flak or social media consultant – you should be able to understand some of the terms, concepts and people that make your business possible. Otherwise, you risk your own reputation by taking the chance that you’re scarily wrong or laughably vague, and you risk gumming up the works for your clients by not knowing how to communicate with their audience, many of whom are very technical folk. Ultimately, taking the time and effort to understand the technology you use is simply a matter of taking pride in your work, just like the barista who knows all the ins and outs of the perfectly pulled free-trade organic espresso or the skilled sommelier who, though he may not make the wine himself, knows everything about who did and where and how. Take this quick survey, my social media gurus . (Techies, don’t take the survey; you’ll skew the results.) If you can’t work out the answers, you might be sounding like an idiot – I tell you this because I’m your friend and I care about you. And remember, when you cheat, you’re only cheating yourself, so no Wikipedia for you. Let me know in the comments what you think about the issue. Am I being an elitist prig? Did I not take my rant far enough? How much do you think a social media expert should know about tech? Would you work with someone who couldn’t sail through this “technical” survey? View Survey Discuss

A ReadWriteWeb Guide OMG! Kevin Rose just touched my shirt! Don’t lie – we know you get butterflies at the thought of bumping into iJustine or Robert Scoble at a tech conference. We’ve pulled together a nice little cheat sheet just for you, friends. Whether you want a simple handshake, and autograph on your iPhone or a chance to pitch your idea for the Next Big Web App, here’s ten places, panels and parties where you can track down the Internet famous at SXSW 2010. Don’t forget to leave your tips in the comments! Sponsor This is part of a series of ReadWriteWeb guides to SXSW Interactive 2010. If this guide isn’t your cup of tea, be sure to check back for more information soon! Justine Ezarik, a.k.a. iJustine Longtime lifestreaming queen iJustine is famously an Apple fangirl, but it’s Intel that’s giving you the key to tracking her down at SXSW. She’s and Intel Insider, and she might be stopping by some of the Intel Insider events , like Frank Gruber’s Johnny Cash party or Chris Heuer’s Social Media Clubhouse . We don’t have hard and fast details on Ezarik’s whereabouts, but wherever she is, she’ll probably be tweeting, so keep an eye on her Twitter accounts . Christopher Poole Pool may not be a household name in and of himself, but there’s nary an Internet user who hasn’t been in some way effected by the fun and foul play on 4chan. “4chan – often referred to as a ‘meme factory’ – has been responsible for the creation of countless Internet memes but is perhaps best known for its exploits. In this conversation, we’ll explore the game mechanics of online communities. What fosters creativity in an online community? What design elements can we incorporate to increase interaction? How is the game played?” Baratunde Thurston In “How to Be Black,” The Onion web editor and star of Popular Science’s Future Of series Baratunde Thurston will “touch on the black online experience (if there is such a thing) included memes, statistics on usage patterns, popular destinations and issues of representation. For example, are black people as represented among the creators, developers and builders of our future or are we more consumer oriented than average?” Violet Blue Our favorite sex blogger will be kicking off SXSW with a presentation on “How to Not Be a Douchebag at SXSW Aimed at both first-time and long-time attendees to SXSW Interactive, this biting and humorous, yet useful panel takes a look at the common actions and behaviors to avoid if you don’t want to be described as ‘doing it wrong.’” Kevin Rose This year, the Digg founder returns to host Diggnation Live at Stubb’s. The Bigg Digg Shindigg was certainly one of the largest events at SXSW 2009, with fans crowding around the large outdoor stage to take pictures and watch Rose shoot the Diggnation episode. But don’t expect to meet the man himself unless you’ve got VIP status for the party. Chris Messina In his talk, “ActivityStrea.ms: Is It Getting Streamy In Here?,” Messina will explore the nuances of the real-time web. “From Facebook’s newsfeed to Twitter’s relentless real-time updates, the metaphor of the ’stream’ has taken social networking beyond blog posts and on to rich social activities. Learn about ActivityStrea.ms – the open format adopted by Facebook, MySpace, and Windows Live – and how it’s fundamentally changing the social web.” Leah Culver This young developer and successful entrepreneur will be hosting the Web Framework Battle Royale. “Which web framework will rule them all? As an audience member you pick the winner! We will present an introduction to a variety of web frameworks including Rails, Django, Catalyst and Sinatra. You can vote for the best web framework in categories such as URL handling, database integration, forms, HTML templating, documentation, testing and deployment.” Gary Vaynerchuk The WineLibraryTV founder is a true Web guru and an inspiration to entrepreneurs and content creators around the globe. He’ll be giving one of his signature, unforgettable presentations again this year as part of the Interactive Speakers Series. Evan Williams Three years after his web app hit it big at SXSW 2007, Twitter co-founder Ev Williams takes the main stage to be interviewed by Havas Media Lab director Umair Haque in front of a live audience . All we have to say is that you’d better get there early if you don’t want to get stuck watching a simulcast in an adjacent room! Molly Wood A last-minute stand-in for Natali Del Conte at this event, BOL founder Wood has a fanbase of her own. “CNET’s Buzz Out Loud will broadcast live from SXSW. While discussing the day’s tech news, hosts Tom Merritt, Jason Howell, Molly Wood and others will chat with the audience and invite special guests to talk about what’s happening at the show and beyond.” Bonus Round! If you stalk him on Twitter, Foursquare, Plancast and Gowalla, you might get to bump into Robert Scoble , as well. Or, you can catch him at the Rackspace party Monday evening. And of course, while we don’t consider ourselves celebrities, the RWW crew will be present and accounted for at the PBS/NPR/RWW party Sunday night ! Those are our SXSW Interaction recommendations for web celeb stalkers of all stripes. If you’ve got suggestions or feedback, let us know in the comments! See you in Austin, folks! Discuss

It’s services like Put.io that are behind why Google executives argue desktops will be irrelevant in three years, why Steve Ballmer says Microsoft is betting the bank on the cloud, and why storage stats for the newest gadget are becoming less and less important.Everything is going to the cloud. Does it often feel like a waste of time to download something just to watch it once and then delete it? Then Don’t. Use Put.io. Put simply, Put.io fetches files from the Internet and allows you to either store them there or immediately stream them. Sponsor Put.io can get files from bittorrent, FTP, direct download and rapidshare, as well as from standard websites. It can even automatically keep up with downloads, pulling links from an RSS feed. While the immediate question is one of legality, we do want to mention that, aside from pirated movies and television shows, there actually are a lot of videos out there available for download by bittorrent and other means. Beyond that, Put.io addresses the issue of legality and the DMCA , saying that “It is our policy to respond to notices of alleged infringement that comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) and other applicable intellectual property laws. Responses may include disabling access for all users to the material claimed to be the subject of infringing activity and/or terminating submitters of the material ability to use the Put.io service at all.” We gave the service a shot and it downloaded a 750 megabyte torrent in less then a minute. Although the service wasn’t able to stream the MKV format directly on the site (and we had the wrong DiVX player version), we gave it another shot with an AVI torrent and we had streaming video in under a minute. And Put.io stores the files so you can come back and access them again and again. Currently, beta testers get 50 gigs of storage with 150 gigs of bandwidth. The bandwidth is not counted when downloading the files to the service, but instead when you access them – so repeated watching of a large file could surely reach that limit. In addition to the basic functionality, you can share files and folders with friends and access files from anything that supports a browser, from your iPhone to your PS3. In addition to a mobile version, the service is planning to release an API as well as a Boxee plugin. The site is still in public beta, but Put.io is offering 300 invites to our readers. Simply visit this site and get an invite . Discuss

Early stage startups in Europe will be the primary beneficiaries of a new €6 million seed fund just announced by Berlin-based Team Europe Ventures . In the past we’ve talked about Europe’s entrepreneurial woes, most notably a dearth of seed funding due to having a culture largely averse to taking risks financially . This new fund is a good step towards changing that trend and keeping more startups from looking for funding elsewhere. Sponsor The €6 million fund (over $8 million) will provide up to €500,000 to early stage startups in the Internet and mobile Internet spaces over the next three years. Team Europe plans to selectively choose four to five startups each year to receive the funding, rather than quickly spreading the wealth around to any worthy recipient. “If we feel that a business will succeed without us, but will be quicker, larger, nicer with us – than it’s a case for us,” said Team Europe partner Kolja Hebenstreit in a press release Tuesday. “Experience shows that decisive decisions are often made during the foundation phase, so we think it’s good to speak with experienced potential partners as early as possible.” Team Europe has also rounded up entrepreneurs from past investments and active angel investors to assist in the disbursement of the funds, including Matthias Spieß of Leipzig-based Spreadshirt, and angel Günther Faltin. “These are all people who are active in the Internet space and with whom we have successfully worked together in the past,” said partner Lukasz Gadowski, explaining the “tightly-knit network of experts” that will help Team Europe pick early stage companies to fund. Hopefully this fund will start a trend among European venture capital firms. As we mentioned in February, many European startups have been looking to American incubators to help them get off the ground. If funds like these succeed, we could see these numbers go down over time, and more successful startups could emerge from Europe. Most VCs in Europe look for proven models and a solid financial foundations, so seed funds like Team Europe’s and organizations like Seedcamp can help startups get a boost into the line of sight of VCs providing second, third and fourth round funding. Discuss

Today, Cisco announced the CSR-3 product , a game-changing system to managing the network core. But for CEO John Chambers, the news is about market transition forces and being ready for the next generation of the Internet. The company invested $1.6 billion research and development in CRS-3 to be ready for the next phase of market growth that merges video, cloud, and mobile trajectories. When asked, he said when his team looks out 3-5 years that network growth may be 300 to 500%. Cisco is investing that another revolution is on the way for consumer access and enterprise productivity. Sponsor Getting a handle on scale Cisco’s fabric offers network speed never seen before. According it’s’ own estimates the CRS-3 could offer bandwidth for: Every man woman and child in China the ability to make a simultaneous video call. All movies ever made to be downloaded in 4 minutes (if you had enough disk to store them). 1 GB link to every household in San Francisco. Virtualization and Cloud: Moving from Plumber to Business Architecture The network has many touch points. Chambers said that this has been moving Cisco from being a technology partner to a trusted business partner for nearly all its enterprise and service provider accounts. He views this as a tipping point in how Cisco engages customers and innovates. To that end, the major market transformation underway in the cloud, and Cisco has positioned its network, including the CRS-3 to offer tight linkage between data center and virtualized services. Chambers mentioned “It’s all about the cloud, the CRS-3 family talks directly to the UCS in the data center.” To that end, it’s nice to consider the end-to-end network being prepared for the connections in the data center, especially for physically distributed environments that benefit from fast links between them. Chambers continued: “We kept our partners VMware and EMC in mind in this solution, to be ready to fulfill our vision in the data center”. Here it is a summary diagram on CRS-3 connects data centers. Service provider: Critical Network Backbone Keith Cambron, President and CEO, AT&T labs added. “AT&T was the first user of CRS-1 with it’s 40 GB interfaces and have been using them to manage their network growth. We are testing the 100GB interface in the labs and real production environments.” Chambers mentioned that Cisco’s goal is to have long-term partners and to never compete with pervice provider. With a company like AT&T, Cisco’s product goals are to help be ready for where things are headed, to be there when it’s needed. Cisco does not want to be the bottleneck for the Internet. He continued “Service providers are our partners, if our goal is to bring this technology to everyone in the world, we must work in a tight fashion and follow the market transitions with them” Q&A Some of the best parts of this dialog was the question and answer session, a few excerpts below show the depth of thinking Cisco is moving forward with the intelligent network. Q : How does this impact the mobile data flow? A : The team was asked about how this innovation impacts consumers and the mobile data flow. Chambers added, “As a consumer, I want any video any time. To share it on any device in the living room and to bring it with me when I’m on the go. The network has an important role in enabling that future” Cambron spoke from AT&T’s goals with this technology “It provides a single network design for around the globe. Particularly important for important customers who are using private networks and deploying mobile applications. A common network design that is highly video centric is central to our business” Q : Is Cisco an on open vs. closed company, will core innovations from CSR-3 be open source? A : Chambers responded “Interoperability is one thing we don’t debate in Cisco. We believe we need to bring together all of these protocols into one network. We will of course be an open architecture.” Q : What do you think about Google’s service provide announcement? A : Chambers responded “Google is a great company. We love anyone who adds loads to networks. We think the question here is how do we find the “and” here and find ways to build load and also built great networks with the right partners.” Q : Why is Cisco building in silicon? A : Chambers was excited to talk about how important silicon was to the company in the products. “Cisco’s investments in ASICS has been a key part of many of the core products. The reason that Cisco does our own, is that silicon ties all of the key components together. Cisco had to change the way its working style to have a collaborative team to build this next generation of silicon.” Cisco is in a unique position to see the future of bandwidth better than anyone. We wonder if Cisco will be rewarded for avoiding future network bottlenecks and propel the network forward with CRS-3? Discuss