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Hello from Austin! Eve and I are here at South by Southwest Interactive to scope out the latest innovations, meet with potential partners and non-profits, and check out all the conference has to offer. I’ll be updating semi-live blogging from the conference from today through Tuesday - be sure to check back regularly for updates (assuming the wireless holds out). -John Brian

• 6:11: I’m headed out now to get my badge, scope out the convo center and attend the opening night party. Maybe when I get back tonight, I’ll migrate this to Twitter.
• 5:02 pm: Don’t let your cabbie handle your notebook, under any circumstances. I now have a big crack in my battery that scratches my wrist when I try to type. Anyone know where I can get some tape?
• 4:55 pm: I’ve been given no less than four free cookies so far today. Midwest’s are much better than Doubletree’s. Of course, more than 56,000 people signed a petition to support them…
• 3:37 pm: About a third of my flight from Kansas City to Austin is coming here for the conference. Thank you to the flight attendant for being a good sport and asking for a show of hands!
• 1:31 pm: PackRat is some Facebook game that’s got an ad in the SxSW convo booklet (pdf). I installed it on my FB on the assumption it has something to do with SxSW, but it doesn’t seem to. What a waste - this could have been much better if it involved the conference in some way. Wonder how much that ad space cost.
• 1:12 pm: Kansas City Airport has free wireless. Not often you see that anymore, so I figured it was worth giving props for. It was so slow it was nearly useless, but better than the usually outrageously priced, but today mysteriously nonexistant wireless at National’s Terminal A.

I’m with Michael and Nancy: Facebook made a mistake by switching ideological political categorizations to partisan ones. And I say that both as a user and as an ad buyer.

First, the fact that it’s a remarkably unfriendly autofill should have been a big sign that this was a step in the wrong direction. When you’re largely based in the United States, and have put far more investment into your American political coverage (with admittedly mixed results), to have the party that most Facebookers are close to require no less than twelve keystrokes (though I’ll note that the GOP requires a mere three… no real conclusion to draw there, just interesting) is just bad user interface.

It could be improved fairly easily by making the assumption that if someone is in an American network, they’re probably a member of an American party. This doesn’t mean disallowing other selections for expatriates, just skipping them in the autofill for more likely suggestions.

The idea that candidates and parties are the ones demanding this seems strange. First, as a veteran of a Democratic campaign, I can say that Facebook ads are not a major media buy (unfortunately). While they’ll be a bigger part of the media mix this year, particularly with microtargeting, there won’t be enough money there to really make that much of a difference.19

Furthermore, if I’m advertising for political reasons, I’d rather have the liberal-conservative axis than a partisan one - a campaign is going to use different appeals to different groups, and I’d rather have more granularity. For example, I might target a "Make a donation" ad to self-identified progressives, a "Join the list" ad to moderates, and a "Who is [Candidate name]" to those with no affiliation. Instead, I’m stuck using just one metric - are they or are they not a Democrat.

That said, I will give them some credit: the ability to type in your own answer, such as "Independent" or "No party" is a step in the right direction. I never bothered filling in my political ideology because the generic term "liberal" was far too much of a simplification of a complex question. On the other hand, I’m a partisan Democrat so I was willing to indicate that. Allowing users to write in their own answer, as with the religion question, is a choice that will hurt marketing (because it’s more difficult to target people if they phrase the same answer different ways) but be good for users.

Hopefully, we’ll see Facebook unveil some reason for this change that makes sense, or roll it back, as they have with other poor choices. I’ll try to get some reactions from other users at South by Southwest.

Google Maps is a free web mapping service application that allows developers to create “mashups” with other data and embed the map on third-party websites via the Google Maps API.

Tons of groups and individuals have come up with some really interesting map tools that display everything from American Idol contestants” hometowns to localized crime data. The best part about the Google Maps, compared to its competitors, is the high level of user interactivity that allows you to drag the map and double click to zoom (by performing asynchronous network requests using Ajax so grid squares are downloaded from the server and inserted into the page). While you can translate almost any data points into a map, the keys to a successful mashup are simple: a map should make the data more useful or relevant and there should be multiple data points that, ideally, can build over time with user input (i.e. the Seven Wonders of the World map falls a little flat).

Here are some examples of interesting Google Map mashups, including one that Beaconfire built, to show the breadth of what can be done (and what we can help you do!).

1. NetDoc.com: This mash-up shows hospitals around your zip code and their performance on major standards of care measures (Heart Attacks, Heart Failure, Pneumonia, and Surgical Infection Prevention) set out by the US Department of Health and Human Services.
2. We’ve all heard it: Location, location, location - the most important thing when it comes to real estate. Housing Maps is a marriage of Craigslist and Google Maps makes it easier to search for housing based on neighborhood preference and also makes it easy to search by pictures, price, number of bedrooms, city and date posted.
3. Ironic San’s Guide to Ghostbusters: Photographer David Friedman was apparently just playing around when he developed this virtual tour of the filming locations of the classic Ghostbusters.
4. Campaign Tracker: The Washington Post’s Presidential Campaign Tracker “uses information from campaigns, media reports and other sources to compile a listing of events involving presidential candidates and their spouses.”
5. This virtual protest map (which is a replica of one that Beaconfire built for a client) is a great example of how to use Google Maps for online organizing, advocacy and supporter engagement. The message was “Join the online march. Pick your sign. Get it on the map.” helping supporters see how they connect with other people standing up for the cause.
6. Like the Ghostbuster map that is a virtual tour of a movie, BibleMap.org facilitates a virtual tour of a book, The Bible. Interesting concept though I had trouble finding a book and chapter that actually had points on the map. If you want to explore it yourself, try Genesis chapter 13.
7. Unfortunately only available in the UK, Bar Crawl allows you to pick your area, rank of the bars you’re interested in going to and how many you want and it will plot out a pub crawl on a map for you, complete with address and phone number of each. An Americanized version Pub Walk doesn’t appear to be as good, mostly because I live here so know they are missing a whole lot of local bars.
8. With the tagline “Make it personal. Explore options. Find Providers,” The Funeral Site map tool is done by the national registry of American Funeral Homes. I am fortunate to have no use for this one but I imagine in a time of need, this is more useful than a phone book.
9. Washington Post’s Local Explorer: On this map you can search for practically anything in a DC-area neighborhood: crime, schools, places of worship, post offices, gas stations, metro stations, you name it. I’m not sure if there are maps like this for other cities but it’s quite comprehensive and useful.
10. Safe2Pee.org is a resource where people who do not feel comfortable with traditional public restrooms can find safe alternatives. It is part of a larger advocacy and research project tackling gender free, inclusive bathrooms and another good example of a public policy issue being addressed using Google Maps.
11. GolfFinder.net and CaddyMap.com are perfect examples of how a mashup is only as good as the data in it. I looked at six separate golf course locator tools and these had more than twice as many points on the map for the DC area, though I still can’t figure out from the two which is better.
12. Though definitely not the most attractive mashup, Hurricane Information Map is a concept well worth highlighting. It is “intended for the use by people affected by Hurricanes Katrina or Rita who have or are trying to find information about the status of specific locations affected by the storm and its aftermath.”
13. MapSkip: Launched in August 2007, this tool “makes the world a canvas for our stories and photos” and is very well done (and my personal favorite). Though they have only collected 200 stories so far, their mission is to “create a weave of stories about the places in our lives” because “…many of our stories are about places. Where we fell in love, had the dream vacation, took that great picture or, well, joined the rebellion.”
14. BookWormz, Starbucks Finder, GymPost, Bank Anywhere and Gawker Stalker can help you find your local bookstore, Starbucks, gym, bank and celebrity respectively.
15. Despite all the useful things you can do with mashups, I found a handful of odd but amusing maps that I’ve lumped together to share: “If I walk in a straight line around the world, where will I pass?”, If the Earth were a sandwich?, Who is sick?, and OurDumbWorld

For more, check out NetSquared, Google Maps Mania blog or this website.

Editor’s  note: Each week, we do a survey of Beaconfire staff to get impressions on a variety of non-profit technology issues. All opinions expressed here are solely those of their authors. RSS is becoming ubiquitous, and with the sheer volume of content on the internet, more users are finding that they need a way to manage their content. This week, we asked the Beaconfire staff: How do you consume RSS content?

Eric, Senior Consultant: I aspire to have a complete set of Yahoo! pipes to perform elaborate analyses of of the blogosphere and social media about the the people and issues of importance to me, translates snobby foreign news sources into English to make me seem smart at parties, and otherwise leap tall buildings.

But in fact, I use the built in reader in IE7 to keep track of about 2 dozen environmental and tech/marketing blogs.

Ali, Marketing Consultant: I’m a fan of Google reader. It’s one of the easiest readers to set up, I can access it from any computer and I can track all the marketing and technology blogs I follow.

Amy, Functional Consultant: RSS is everywhere but I pro-actively consume RSS in two ways.  One is iGoogle – I use Google as my browser home and have set up a HOME tab with news (CNN, Top Stories), Weather, Moon Phases, HowTo Wiki and, of course, the BeaconfireWire feed.  My iGoogle also has an IA/UX tab with my favorite industry feeds (Boxes & Arrows, A List Apart, UX Matters, etc).  

I also use Bloglines to manage RSS feeds.  Bloglines has more advanced functionality than iGoogle in terms of managing feeds and I like how it lets me save articles in the feed queue for later so I can go back and re-read them when I have time.

Paul, Software Engineer: This may brand me as a neo-Luddite, but I don’t use RSS.  I’ve always preferred to actively seek information on a website rather than subscribing to a feed and having it delivered to me.  The moral of the story?  Make sure content that’s available in RSS feeds is conveniently indexed in HTML format on your website as well.

Marissa, Functional Consultant: RSS (like Web 2.0) is one of those technologies that isn’t really new, and has really always been around in some form. And everyone who uses the Internet probably consumes an RSS feed in one shape or another, even if they don’t know it. If you see a list of “latest news” on a web site in the past few years, you’ve likely consumed RSS content.

For my personal RSS use, I love Netvibes. The tabbing and rearranging let’s me keep my most important RSS Feeds up in the forefront, while allowing me to easily organize secondary feeds that I like to read from time to time.

Kate, Administrative Assistant: I’m obsessed with tracking the weather, both on my home laptop and on my iPhone. Especially since I’m new to this whole “East Coast Weather” thing, and I don’t have any windows at my desk, I use my iPhone to see what the weather’s like downstairs at least 5 times a day. I also check the weather in my hometown, as well as in Paris, London, New York, and Portland. I just like to see how we stack up. I also track stocks on my iPhone that I’ve not invested in, but I think I get some sick pleasure in watching other people lose their shirt. I guess a touch of schadenfreude’s good for the soul.

Kristin, Project Manager: Honestly, I don’t consume any RSS. I can’t even keep up with email (which is my primary "dashboard") so why add another "feed" to my list of things to try and keep up with.

John Brian, Marketing Consultant: I use a single Netvibes page as my portal at both work and home - it’s the only way I can avoid getting buried in content. I triage my content into pages - must-read items like my email, a couple political blogs, weather, and, most importantly, Beaconfire Wire live on the first tab, fun and goofy stuff, including Digg and my comic alert feed on the second (when you get the rest of your newspaper online a la carte, it’s important to get Dilbert and Doonesbury that way too), clients and other non-profits on the third, work-related tools, like Central Desktop and Basecamp on the fourth, and occasionally interesting, but non-required reading on subsequent tabs.

The key is making use of preview tooltips and titles to quickly and ruthlessly mark items as read - I’m not someone who deals well with unread items, either in my inbox or my feeds. But in the net, using RSS keeps me from having to check more than 100 sites several times a day, so it’s a real time-saver.