Jules Says

Kathy Sierra: this has to stop

Kathy Sierra just published a long, disturbing post about the death threats and awful statements of sexual violence she received. She's canceled all her public speaking engagements. Instead, she's "at home, with the doors locked, terrified." The general consensus seems to be that she has become a target simply because she is a smart, successful woman.

I received a death threat when I was with Excite, back in 1997. It came after we redesigned our bulletin boards without - gasp - telling our users first. I laughed it off, but the fact is it was really creepy. Someone took the time to find out that our Austin office was behind the product, and that I ran that office. And they were so angry with me that they actually had thoughts of killing me. I didn't have the feeling it was serious in any way, and I wasn't concerned for my safety, but it was very disturbing.

Now, with Halsoft (parent company of VPchat), I'm more of a target. Or I was, anyway. The first couple of years with VPchat I was doing all the customer service. The threats and vitriol that came my way were unbelievable. I posted some of the disturbing mail I'd get on a blog called Yikes! What if they vote? I don't keep up with it any more, but the letters are still there. When one customer claimed to be moving to Austin and started threatening to hunt me down, I was really alarmed. I called the police, who suggested I contact the FBI. I contacted them and basically learned there was nothing to be done. I got scared, and I got mad - this asshole had made me feel unsafe in my own home. For a few weeks I was always looking over my shoulder, always nervous when I'd get home in the dark. I'd wake up at the slightest noise. Even though I was pretty sure there was no real danger, I was freaked. Fortunately, nothing came of it, and the feeling passed. I feel safe in my home again.

Kathy Sierra is an inspiration to many of us. If we lose her presence in the industry and on the web, it will be a terrible loss. My heart hurts for her. I hope they find the bastard who's making her life hell and put him away.

And I hope the blogosphere steps up, and says This Shit Is Not Okay. This kind of hateful behavior is unacceptable. Don't host it. Don't link to it. We're better than this.

Next up: some moving, some shaking

SXSW (South by SouthWest) is an annual interactive/film/music conference/festival/tradeshow here in Austin. It's grown quite the international reputation over the years, and has become an internationally recognized conference. New companies get formed, bands get signed, films get distributions deals, and people do lots and lots of partying. Thousands of people will be descending upon Austin tonight in anticipation of the beginning of the interactive portion of the conference tomorrow. Lucky me, I only need to drive downtown :)

I'm only attending the interactive portion of the conference. Maybe some year I'll do film and music too, but frankly a week and a half of SXSW would probably require a week's vacation afterward, as much from sensory overload as from hitting too many parties.

I'm particularly looking forward to seeing Kathy Sierra again. Her presentation on Creating Passionate Users was a conference favorite, and this year she's giving the opening remarks. Will Wright, creator of The Sims, SimCity, all the other SimGames, and the eagerly-awaited Spore. Last year SXSWi programming was heavily weighted towards blogging. This year there appears to be plenty more, with the addition of all sorts panels on 2.0 (web 2.0, distribution 2.0, media 2.), collaboration, and open source.

At least a couple of friends I haven't seen in a while will be here too, so I'm looking forward to doing some catching up. Several groups are doing meetups as well, so I'm hoping to meet some folks I only know through blogs.

There was a near disaster this morning, though. I have my VPchat business cards ready, as well as my MediaRich cards. But I decided I really needed personal cards with just my blog address and email address on them. So Monday I ordered cards from VistaPrint, and paid extra for rush delivery. They arrived this morning... with no email address on them. I checked the online proof - it was there. I called customer service. Will they fix it? Yes. Can I get them in time for SXSW? No. They won't overnight. "It's impossible" said the rep, and then the supervisor. I'm pretty pissed. How did they manage to screw this up? I went to create my own card and discovered I don't have a proper vector program in which to do it. I found a free/open source program called EazyDraw, which would have worked just dandy, except it saved in some proprietary format, so I couldn't upload it to Kinko's. Fortunately, despite a hellish schedule, my sister Jeanne came through for me and created a .pdf of my card, which is now at Kinko's. Thanks Jeanne!

Place-based Chat

I always thought the tours in VPchat had potentially interesting business applications, but the general nature of the chat community really prevents it from entering that realm. VPchat has been doing place-based chat for (holy crap!) 11 years. Finally, place-based chat has come of age. The products out there are small, and new, but they all have great potential. Place-based communication can be a great adjunct to IM for business communications. There are several options out there now. No avatars, no chat room backgrounds, just text chat anywhere you go.

I didn't find many people chatting, for the most part. These products definitely need a little critical mass to get them going.

They all seem to be working on directories - right now, there's really no good way to find people.

Peekko
Firefox extension, also works with Flock

Peekko is an IRC client. It adds a toolbar at the top of your browser to show you how many people are chatting. It creates a text chat window that sits across the bottom of your browser for that page.

Gabbly
Nothing to install or download
Supports FF, IE, Safari, and Flock, they're Yworking on Opera
“Chat about any content on the web – just add gabbly.com/ in front of any url”

By default, Gabbly floats an actual chat window in the upper right corner of your browser. You can adjust this to be a sidebar or a bottom frame. It's pretty noisy, but you can turn off the audio with one click.

Yaplet
Nothing to install, just drag a bookmark to your toolbar.

The chat pane appears in a sidebar to the right. They also offer a “poplet” that opens the chat in a small window. You can also IM or leave a message for someone.

Yakallike
Firefox extension, IE favorites link,
Compatible with Jabber

This is small-time. Coded by Adam. Funded by Adam. I got an application error when I tried to register. Still, it's a decent interface, and they seem to be getting some good attention. Ya never know :)