With the endless to-do of today threatening to smother you, any help is certainly appreciated. How about a network of people bidding to take care of some of your day to day? In March (just in time for South By) the online marketplace will launch in Austin, after building their presence in Boston, Chicago, and on the West Coast over the past 3 or so years. So how does TaskRabbit work? more ›

Though Facebook isn't yet commenting on the matter, CNN is reporting that Austin's Gowalla has been acquired by the social media giant. According to CNN, most of the local team, including CEO Josh Williams, will move to Palo Alto to help Facebook develop their new Timeline feature. Despite raising millions in recent years, Gowalla wasn't able to knock rival FourSquare out of the ring, and has recently redressed itself as more of a discovery tool rather than a simple check-in service. An unidentified Gowalla insider reported, "It's a perfect match. As far as the big picture, Gowalla's vision is about people telling stories, and Facebook's vision for Timeline is about stories about important moments in life." Maybe so, but by connecting with Facebook, it feels like the purchase is more of a bid to re-ignite competition with FourSquare. Especially considering Facebook's seeming impotence in the check-in world. By combining check-ins with a more robust day-in-the-life timeline application, Facebook positions itself as a more powerful option for users willing to set aside a certain amount of privacy in order to document their lives. Does any of this mean something special for Gowalla? It remains to be seen, but the purchase -- whatever the amount -- might be a cause for celebration tonight for the fledgling business. Regardless of how anyone dresses it as a win for the young start-up, it's always a shame to see talented minds and best-in-class developers leave Austin for supposed greener pastures. more ›

With the digitization of content and identity on a steady increase, there's a great cultural squashing/mashing/flattening going on that is nothing if not exciting. Of course, there's a lot more to the story and it's a subject that most with a pulse have at least a passing interest in. more ›

Keepstream started at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, where a small team of three friends contributed to the Program board, planning events for the campus. In 2009, the trio had developed an app they called Corkshare, but were inspired by developing issues and challenges in social media to create a twist on the original concept. Thus, Keepstream was born. The group was lucky - they were accepted into the Capital Factory program here in Austin and they moved down here to perfect the application. So what is Keepstream? From their site: "Keepstream is a social media curation tool that helps organize tweets, Facebook posts, and website bookmarks into shareable, embeddable collection pages. Collections are useful for bloggers, marketers, or just about anyone who wants to curate the chatter from a conference or event, a news headline, or a hashtag chat." The tool helps you archive your messages and conversations (pieces from Twitter and Facebook than can disappear or that hard to track), and it also helps sort what people are saying about you - a feature that the company's founders think will make it appealing to marketers, PR professionals, and social media managers in small-medium size businesses. more ›

Read Write Web is reporting that there's a good chance we'll see Google announce the launch of a new social network today at SXSW Interactive. It's called Google Circles, and it is likely to offer photo, video and general status updates. more ›

Social media standout Chris Brogan will deliver the keynote address at the Ubiquity Marketing unSummit, set for Sept. 3 at the Shoreline Grill. Brogan's latest book, "Trust Agents", demonstrates how to tap into the social networks to build influence, reputation, and profits. The twist for this conference, however, is that rather than making your message broad and globally focused, you can use social media to turn your small business into a local powerhouse. more ›

In We Live in Public, acclaimed director Ondi Timoner pieces together footage from two of Harris' past projects, one of which was "Quiet", a chronicle of 100 people living in an underground bunker in Manhattan for 30 days, their every movement recorded (voluntarily) and broadcast online by Harris, until the cops shut it down. Maybe it was the indoor shooting range that did it? Following that experiment, Harris and his girlfriend decided to broadcast their lives 24/7 online for six months—until she had enough and moved out. This from a man who began one of the first online television networks and made millions through web consulting. Harris, "the greatest Internet pioneer you've never heard of," lived in public, and eventually lost his sense of self and his mind. And we could watch it all online. more ›

more ›

• A Straight Dope message board member attempted to waterboard himself, then shared all the details. It's as close to feeling tortured as most of us will ever experience.
• A hundred years after Freud, one man may have figured out why we dream. You'll never think the same way about nightmares again.
• Exhaustive Sesame Street video archive makes searching for your favorite old clips easier than ever. Oh, and maybe your kid will be into it.

Photo by Will Pate on flickrInteractive + ScreenBurn The preliminary list of Interactive panels has been released, and includes topics like "The Great Debate: Is Web 2.0 Bulls#!t?", "The Porn Police: Know the Rules," and "The Suxorz: The Worst Ten Social Media Ad Campaigns of 2007." [Preliminary List] Additional, several panels for the gaming-centric ScreenBurn fest have been revealed. These include "The Future Virtual World Game Development: Rise of the Indies," "You Are Here: Gaming... more ›

THURSDAY [17] theatre • Rubber Repertory presents A Thought in Three Parts at The Vortex (8pm) art • Opening Reception: Denise Prince Martin: Things I Never Told You at Women and Their Work, 1710 Lavaca Street (6-8pm, the artist will discuss her work at 6:30pm) art • Downtown Art Night at Participating Galleries (6-9pm) art • Artist Talk: Ann Connor at Flatbed Press, 2830 E. MLK (6pm) art • Art Fix: Printmaking at The... more ›