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car2go: A chat with their CTO and an exclusive look at their new app

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Monday, March 25th, 2013 at 6:56 pm

car2goIt’s a problem faced by most of us living in modern urban cities: transportation and parking. Environmentally (and economically) aware urbanites have long relied on mass transit, carpooling, bicycling and good old fashioned walking. In recent years, there have been a number of companies trying to fill the gap between private vehicle ownership, and the public bus. Companies like Flexcar, which later merged with Zipcar, are probably the most commonly known car sharing companies. However, within the last couple of years, another player has slowly, but steadily been entering the market.

Launched in Germany in 2008, car2go made its US debut in Austin in 2010, just in time for SXSW.  Since then, it has steadily been growing in popularity in urban metropolitan regions across the world.  Unlike other car sharing services, no advanced reservation is necessary. But most impressive is that vehicles can be driven one-way and parked on any public street curb. The company negotiates annual parking rates directly with cities, so drivers never have to worry about paying for parking.

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Viral Video: Kid President Picks Gonazaga

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Friday, March 22nd, 2013 at 10:00 am

With everyone going nuts online about their brackets for March Madness, it seemed like a good time to have Kid President make his return on Flip with his choice to win it all. Check it out.

 

Who do you think is going to take it all?

Full Tilt’s Sweet Success: A Mix of Tradition and Technology

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Thursday, March 21st, 2013 at 11:51 am

Justin Cline's knuckle tattoos are a constant reminder of his commitment to Full Tilt

Owner Justin Cline’s knuckle tattoos are a constant reminder of his commitment to Full Tilt.
[photo credit: Caroline Gabriel]

By Caroline Gabriel

This post was produced as part of the UW Comm Department’s undergraduate Entrepreneurial Journalism course.

“Other ice cream shops are really fancy, but I’ve heard this be described as a dive bar for kids,” said Lina Sepulveda, an employee of Seattle’s Full Tilt Ice Cream. By adding something a little sweeter than just ice cream, Full Tilt has put a spin on traditional frozen confectionaries like Seattle-based Molly Moon’s, Bluebird and Fainting Goat Gelato. It’s only been around since 2008, yet it boasts four locations in the Greater Seattle area and sells wholesale to over 35 restaurants, grocery stores and other scoop shops. What’s the secret of their success? Pinball and arcade games.

“No one comes here to have a bad time, they come in to indulge in something fun, no matter whether it is a hot fudge sundae, a beer, pinball, or seeing your friend’s band play,” said Shannon Lambson, an employee at the White Center location, “It’s hard to be bummed out when you are here.” In addition to an ice cream parlor and a pinball arcade, the store also hosts live music and “Vinyl Appreciation” nights, where customers can bring in their own records. Continue reading →

The power of Low Power FM

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Tuesday, March 19th, 2013 at 7:44 pm
SXSW Low Power FM panel

SXSW Low Power FM panel

The FCC has opened up a rare window of opportunity for non-commercial organizations to start new low-powered radio stations in urban areas, and Seattle’s Brown Paper Tickets is trying to help as many people as possible navigate the application process.

Sabrina Roach is heading up BPT’s “Make Radio Challenge,” which is providing free assistance to applicants for the Low-Powered FM (LPFM) stations. As part of the effort, Brown Paper Tickets organized a launch brunch during South by Southwest Interactive.

Along with breakfast burritos and Bloody Mary’s, a panel discussed the importance of LPFM stations as an outlet which will enable communities to tell their own stories and reach people who may not have easy online access.

“Radio is one of the most successful media platforms we have available to us,” said Garlin Gilchrist of MoveOn.org. “LPFM allows people to produce and consume narratives that are important to them.”

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SXSW: Stop waving your arms you’ll knock over my printed mug. And are those Google Glasses Ray Bans?

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Monday, March 18th, 2013 at 2:37 pm

By Daimon EklundBased on this past week’s shenanigans at SXSW Interactive in Austin, very soon we will all be sitting at home gesticulating wildly at monitors or TV’s in order to make a booking on a rocket to space while our shirts are connecting us to the internet and our glasses are telling us we better book our Car2go and leave now if we are going to make our space rocket because the traffic is terrible – even before we think to check. We won’t need to carry any little plastic souvenirs back with us from space because we will be able to print them from our 3D printers when we get home. And because we are all “just storytellers” we will never bore anyone with our space travel tales.

Ok, so maybe the space travel thing is a little far off (Elon Musk is working on it even if NASA isn’t) but gesture technology, wearables, ride sharing, 3D printing and the importance of content and story were all front and center in Austin this past week.

As you, dear reader, will already know, six of your Flip the Media correspondents made the trip to Texas to cover SXSW for you – as well as learn a few things for themselves and perhaps partake in a barbecued rib or two. Having now been on two of these sojourns, I can confidently tell you it’s all at once an inspiring, fascinating, educative, frustrating, tiring and irritating experience. But it’s not to be missed. And on behalf of the Flip 6, I want to thank the MCDM powers that be for supporting the initiative. Continue reading →

Viral Video: Al Gore’s Spider Goats

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Friday, March 15th, 2013 at 2:45 pm

I had the great opportunity at the 2013 SXSW Interactive conference to film and meet former Vice President Al Gore. During his talk he discussed his new book “The Future: Six Drivers of Global Change” and went on to explain the technology behind genetic manipulation that is happening today.

So as part of our SXSW coverage here is Flip’s own “viral video” – former Vice President Gore talking about  Spider Goats.

If your still not convinced Spider Goats exist here is a second video courtesy of the BBC: Milking Spider Goats.

2013 SXSW Interactive Award Winners

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Thursday, March 14th, 2013 at 7:02 pm

Yes I sat through the awards ceremony for you all to bring you this year’s SXSW Interactive Award winners. Subsequently, I realized I could have just got the information off the press release and used those two hours of my life in a more fulfilling way. Question to the organizers – why have a drinking game as part of the night’s entertainment when we all only got one drink ticket? The game was to drink every time the word “nerd” was used – which was surprisingly infrequent. But all was not a bust – the host for the awards was comedian Aisha Tyler - who introduced each award category with a specially written Haiku – very funny.

Anyway, browse through this list of some of the coolest stuff happening online today. From Kony to beautiful graphics and animation to new ways of learning, education and having fun – there may well be something here to inspire you to do something amazing.  So ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, the winners are:

Special Honors

Digital Campaign of the Year
Invisible Children: KONY 2012 You may well know about this one for the right or wrong reasons but the KONY 2012 campaign yielded the fastest growing viral video of all time. 3.7 million people pledged their support for efforts to arrest Joseph Kony. With over 96 million views here’s the video once more. YouTube Preview Image

Best of Show and Amusement
Contre Jour  is  a “hauntingly beautiful” web game  where you swing, shoot, drop or fling a character called Petit through 30 free challenging levels right inside the browser. The game is optimized for touch and for working with Internet Explorer 10 on Windows 8 devices. It will also work with other modern browsers. YouTube Preview Image

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Is It Journalism, or Is It Social Media?

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Thursday, March 14th, 2013 at 3:41 pm
Social media and journalism influencers: (l-r) Mark Briggs, Mandy Jenkins, Evonne Benedict

Social media and journalism influencers:
(l-r) Mark Briggs, Mandy Jenkins, Evonne Benedict

One of the great things about South by Southwest Interactive is the opportunity to attend less formal sessions and meet people with similar concerns and interests, and hear from people who’ve put some serious time in the trenches. Such was a conversation with Seattle’s King 5 Broadcasting Company Social Media  Director Mark Briggs, and Mandy Jenkins, Interactives Editor for DigitalFirst Media.

I arrived knowing that the conversation would probably weave through the issues of corporate control versus social media agility, and implications that agility holds for journalistic standards. I hoped that Briggs and Jenkins would be able to offer some expert perspective, and I wasn’t disappointed. Bonus takeaways came from the experience of other attendees, which appear later in this article.

The conversation began with some insights on the demands placed on today’s journalists by the here-and-now media environment that has naturally developed from the ubiquitous nature of social media. Mark Briggs began by describing recent times in news reporting when journalists were pushed to tie up the day with major stories. But with so many channels available for information, deadlines are many and frequent.  “Now it’s minute by minute,” said Briggs. Continue reading →

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