April 17th, 2013

4:23 PM CDT

Google Fiber—On the Silicon Prairie, the Silicon Hills, and now the Silicon Slopes – Google Fiber Blog

Today the Google Fiber team is in Provo, Utah, where Mayor John Curtis just announced that we intend to make Provo our third Google Fiber City.

Unlike Kansas City and Austin, this network is already built (and just need some upgrading).

In order to bring Fiber to Provo, we’ve signed an agreement to purchase iProvo, an existing fiber-optic network owned by the city. As a part of the acquisition, we would commit to upgrade the network to gigabit technology and finish network construction so that every home along the existing iProvo network would have the opportunity to connect to Google Fiber.

All this depends on the approval of the city council. So to the folks in Lafayette that want to get rid of LUS, Google may be interested.

Georges signs letter of intent to buy The Advocate | NewOrleans | The Advocate — Baton Rouge, LA

March 16, 2013 / 1:44 PM CT

John Georges, business man and unsuccessful politician, buys the Advocate.

David Manship, publisher of The Advocate, and New Orleans businessman John Georges have signed a letter of intent for Georges to buy Baton Rouge’s daily newspaper in a deal that is expected to close by June 1.

Terms were not disclosed. Manship, who is also chief operating officer of Capital City Press, which owns The Advocate, and Richard Manship, president and chief executive officer of Capital City Press, announced the agreement in a news release but would not comment further.

I’m curious as to what Georges will do with the paper. Keep it as it or slant it to either a liberal or conservative bias.

Broadway actors demonstrate a new feature of the Samsung Galaxy S IV at the Radio City Music Hall in New York, NY.

Samsung and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad keynote and why they all must die!

March 15, 2013 / 3:08 PM CT

+ Technology

I’m excited about Samsung. Not for the phone; I have a Nexus 4 and currently have no plans on upgrading to the Galaxy S4. I’m excited that I didn’t get a press invite to the unveiling of the phone at Radio City Music Hall in New York, NY. Because it had everything that makes a keynote horrible: bad acting, sexists jokes, abusing the forth wall and pre-recorded demos. It’s always a bad sign when the master of ceremonies warns the audience that this wasn’t going to be the average keynote.

When radio actually invents: Clear channel radio sets up SXSW radio

March 14, 2013 / 12:39 AM CT

+ Media

Let’s face the facts: radio is on life support. Today’s music sucks, all programming is controlled by one person thousands of miles away, DJ chatter – if the station still has DJs that live in the broadcast area – is nothing but hollywood gossip that people can read on TMZ. The only thing keeping radio alive is political talk (mostly conservative) and 24 hour news in metropolitan areas like New York, Washington DC and Los Angeles.

Downtown Austin, Texas on a beautiful Sunday afternoon.

My last interactive SXSW

March 11, 2013 / 10:54 PM CT

+ Monday morning column

Aside from last year, this is my third year going to Austin, Texas for the annual South by Southwest Interactive festival. And this year will be my last. Many people think the festival is about networking and how to make your social life better. It’s all a lie! It’s nothing but overwhelming, misleading panels and standing in long lines with pretentious people to enter parties by startups with lots of venture capitol funding where nobody remembers the name and will cease to exist next year – if not earlier.

Hey Kids, Forget Netflix! Come Party With The New York Times – Bloomberg

March 11, 2013 / 12:48 PM CT

This was probably a shocker for me that a dying newspaper had a huge (and probably expensive) booth at SXSW.

But if there’s something the Times wants more than paying readers, it’s young paying readers. It wants kids out of college willing to plunk down a few bucks every month, and hopefully continue to pay for it until they’re old and gray.

One weapon in the Times’s arsenal can be found within the maze of tables and screens occupying the Austin Convention Center this week at the South by Southwest Interactive conference. The 161-year-old publisher made an appeal to the tech faithful by offering, in addition to a subscription, a printout of your face arranged in a word cloud.

Don’t laugh. There was a line.

When I walked the trade floor on Sunday, there was a line for the cloud imaging. It had five people in line and hundreds were walking by ignoring the booth.

2013 SXSW keynote with Elan Musk

March 9, 2013 / 1:25 PM CT

+ Posts

This was how we covered Élan Musk’s keynote at the 2013 South By Southwest Interactive festival on Austin, Texas.

People of South by Southwest — Please, Free Grumpy Cat. – Mike Isaac – Social – AllThingsD

March 9, 2013 / 12:53 PM CT

A new trend has formed at SXSW: have an event turn into controversy. Last year it was homeless wi-fi hotspots. This year:

For the uninitiated: “Grumpy Cat” is the latest web-born viral meme manifest in furry form as “Tardar Sauce,” a cat whose face is in a state of permanent frown. Tardar Sauce’s — Tard for short — famous face is “likely due to feline dwarfism,” according to her owners’ website. And after her scowling mug made it to the front page of the social site Reddit late last year, Tard’s popularity exploded.

But it’s that burst of Web fame that has brought Tard straight to Austin, where she’ll be on display inside of the meme-friendly site Mashable’s tent during part of South by Southwest’s Interactive portion of the multi-week long show.

Mashable has a sample of people taking photos with a sick cat. #freegrumpycat is trending and people are not happy.

OpenBayou at SXSW 2013

March 8, 2013 / 1:19 PM CT + Uncategorized

sxsw2013

OpenBayou is at the 2013 South By Southwest Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas. Our coverage starts today and lasts until Wednesday. For the next five days, we’ll try to bring you what’s going on in Austin as well as hidden gems other media outlets will miss.

Saudi Prince vs. Forbes in billionaire brawl – Mar. 5, 2013

March 5, 2013 / 4:35 PM CT

Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal and Forbes magazine are fighting over his ranking in the list of biggest billionaires.

Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal and Forbes magazine are fighting over his ranking in the list of biggest billionaires. Alwaleed, angry that Forbes values him at a paltry $20 billion, has formally severed all connections to Forbes’ annual list of “World’s Billionaires,” now in its 27th year.

$20 billion and the precious Saudi ~~asshole~~ prince is upset he didn’t rank higher?!? No wonder people hate rich people!

Sure his ego might be crushed but in the end, I imagine the Saudi primadonna has fights that go like this:

10 best goat remix songs

March 1, 2013 / 9:20 PM CT

+ Technology

I’m loving the “yelling goat” meme, anything to quickly kill Harlem Shake. I despise it so much that the federal government has joined in my hatred and will try it’s hand at killing the meme. Hopefully it succeeds (I doubt it) and conservatives might have a positive comment to say at President Obama (I doubt that, too!). Why do I have so much hatred for Harlem Shake? Because every one feels the need to do a viral video. And when everyone feels that they have to do a Harlem Shake vid only for popularity purposes, it dilutes the flavors that keep the meme rolling. Which is why I love the “goat yelling” meme: it’s simple, funny, every video is different and not everyone feels the need to do a goating video. Here’s my top ten favorite goat remixes.

Time Warner Cable says there’s no consumer demand for gigabit internet | The Verge

February 28, 2013 / 4:20 PM CT

Esteves seems to think business customers are more likely to need that level of throughput, and notes that Time Warner Cable is already competitive . “We’re already delivering 1 gigabit, 10 gigabit-per-second to our business customers, so we certainly have the capability of doing it.” The executive claims that residential customers have thus far shown little interest in TWC’s top internet tiers. “A very small fraction of our customer base” ultimately choose those options, she said.

To get products into more hands, Google will open its own stores by the end of the year | 9to5Google

February 17, 2013 / 10:52 PM CT

An extremely reliable source has confirmed to us that Google is in the process of building stand-alone retail stores in the U.S. and hopes to have the first flagship Google Stores open for the holidays in major metropolitan areas.

The mission of the stores is to get new Google Nexus, Chrome, and especially upcoming products into the hands of prospective customers. Google feels right now that many potential customers need to get hands-on experience with its products before they are willing to purchase.

Gateway started the trend and failed, so did Nokia (with the same results). Dell tried it and they’re in the process of closing. Sony seems to be doing well (although the Destin, FL location closed). Judging by my investigation of how Best Buy treats the Surface Pro (and how successful Apple retail stores have become), it’s no wonder everyone is opening retail stores. More bad news for Best Buy.

Surface and Best Buy: The case for Microsoft stores

February 16, 2013 / 10:56 PM CT

+ Technology

You can tell the pressure is getting to Microsoft. Apple and Google are eating into Microsoft’s profits and Microsoft is striking back – with poor results like the Kin, Bing and Windows phone. Now the company is trying to compete with the iPad with its’ line of tablet computing: Surface and Surface Pro. I haven’t tried either of these devices but I don’t see the Surface competing with the iPad or the hundreds – if not, thousands – of Android tablets. If Microsoft makes some tweaks to the Surface Pro (like putting back the start button), they might have a chance. Real tablet, real software. No compromises! should be the marketing slogan for the Surface Pro.