Back from California.

We spent a few days in San Francisco. Pier 39. Lombard Street.

But the first stop was Ilan. He's one of those friends who are basically part of my extended family. Haven't seen him in years. Watching him and Orly meet each other for the first time was something I'd been looking forward to for a while.

Orly gave me a tour of Stanford, where she spent five intense and formative years. The grounds. Her old lab. Fellow researchers who still work there.

At one point she sat down on a sofa and told me she used to rest on it. Then her eyes lit up and she told me it was Philip Zimbardo's.

We'd been staying at Laura's apartment in the city. I'd heard a lot about her. It was great to finally meet in person. On the day of Passover eve we drove to her parents' house for the Seder.

The next morning we started our road trip headed east toward Sequoia. Laura drove.

Update: New details have emerged!

Someone Dover D decorated the Tel Aviv City Hall escalators with the Episode IV opening crawl.

Fun fact: they shot the actual crawls with a camera moving over text on a board. No CGI.

A heatmap visualization of some of the data we collected and analyzed at Tracx to create The Ultimate SXSW Infographic:

Tracx customers have access to an interactive map showing clusters of public, location-tagged user-generated content (tweets, check-ins, etc.) that are relevant to their campaigns, with the ability to drill down to the individual post level.

The SXSW Infographic to End All SXSW Infographics
by Sam Dwyer

As much as we all appreciate the wisdom of "that friend" who knows a dude who heard of a guy who met a bro who said there was a lot of buzz around Highlight at SXSW, I think we all agree that it would be nice to see some metrics.

Social media manager tracx, which recently earned $4.4 mil in funding, created a SXSW infographic to end all SXSW infographics. From the social media scene as a whole to the "Official Hangover Food," the study quantifies the event from top to bottom. Now you'll no longer have to wonder whether the Jay-Z concert was actually "whack," or if your friend just couldn't get tickets.

Here's a breakdown of a few leading buzz grabbers before you dig into the epic image.

Most Influential Tweeter
O'Reilly Media Founder and CEO @Timoreilly

Most Successful Brand/Campaign
American Express' Jay-Z Show

Most Startup Buzz
Location based "hidden connection finder" Highlight

Most Booze Buzz
Beer

Most Party Buzz
American Express' Jay-Z Show

SXSW 2012 Most Influential Folks:

1. Tim O'Reilly. Founder of O'Reilly Media. Coined "Web 2.0". Tech publishing pioneer.
2. Steve Blank. Serial entrepreneur. Stanford professor. Author of "The Four Steps to the Epiphany". Godfather of Customer Development.
3. Our friend Robert Scoble. Tech blogger. Former Microsoft evangelist. Early adopter of everything.

Courtney Boyd Myers over at The Next Web summarized Tracx's insights perfectly:

The Ultimate SXSW infographic
The most popular influencers, parties, brand campaigns and more!

In our recent "Best of: Austin SXSW" breakdown, we asked a few folks why they came to the annual tech conference, which draws Internet lovers from across the globe.

"To meet my Twitter friends in real life," was one girl's twee answer. "To get people excited about my startup!" exclaimed one entrepreneur.

For many, SXSW Interactive is a convenient time for business meetings, company bonding and relationship building. "It's the people you meet on the street corner or in line at the taco truck at midnight that matter, these people could be your customers, a future investor or your next business partner," said one female CEO.

To measure the awesomeness that is SXSW, Tracx, a social media management system, created an infographic of the SXSW aftermath, which quantifies the good time attendees had at the event. Which speakers/keynotes were most talked about? Which parties were most popular? Which influencers/thought leaders tweeted/posted the most? Which brands and campaigns generated the most buzz?

For those who attended the event, the infographic is a nice reminder of how much fun we had and for those who didn't, hopefully it will inspire you to hop on a plane to Austin next year!

See below for full size:

Read more →

At the "GarageGeeks and Yossi Vardi hosting Singularity University" event, I had the privilege of attending a talk by Brad Templeton.

Templeton serves as the Singularity University Networks & Computing Chair, as well as Chairman Emeritus of the EFF. He also consults for Google's driverless car team.

An acronym he used stayed with me:

PDLBKBR: People Don't Like Being Killed by Robots.

This, he said, is the "risk perception asymmetry". People would rather be killed by drunks.