I’m prone to exaggeration, but believe me when I say the Amazon Kindle is about the most amazing piece of technology I’ve ever held in my tiny hands. You must go buy one.

Seriously, do it. You’ll not understand how freaking cool this thing is until you own one. You’ll not be sorry, in fact, you’ll be addicted to reading again.

You know how you go through those phases of constant bookish-ness…then it fades. For me, it was always a matter of instant gratification. When I want a book, I want it now. The Veruca Salt in me is completely satisfied by the Kindle.

The Amazon Kindle is the kind of technology you can cuddle up with–yes, even with a cup of tea. It’s not heavy like all the Harry Potter and Twilight books you’re reading.

More good news: if you are embarrassed to be reading the aforementioned works, your secret is safe on the Kindle. No one can see what you’re reading.  So feel free to consume Eat, Pray, Love for the third time. Read More…

Okay, I know I expressed a bit of concern about whether SXSW would be this big I Heart Twitter! fest or if I would actually learn something new. No worries! I attended three fabulous panels and a keynote address on Day 2. In all honesty, the speakers most certainly did teach/encourage/motivate/challenge me, so if I had to go home today I would feel like I got my money’s worth.

I very much enjoyed hearing from Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh, his keynote address was packed out and even spilled into three simulcast rooms. The great news about Tony is that he’s relatively young, extremely successful and absolutely understands that THE BEST way to have productive, customer service-oriented, on-message employees is to create a culture that fosters those things.

If you want your customers to be WOWed, as Hsieh does, then you’ve gotta take great care to hire employees who enjoy WOWing folks. And, “fire quickly” those who do not. Nice the hear that Zappos’s priority is creating and maintaining that culture. “If we hire for the culture fit,” Hsieh said, “the rest just takes care of itself.” He also said that Zappos considers money spent on WOWing customers and training and motivating employees as marketing dollars. It’s billiant, in my opinion.

The panel on Internet privacy was also fabulous. It wasn’t so much that I learned new stuff, you already know how I feel about the importance of knowing your online self. It’s was really just nice to have my obsession validated by really smart folks who are just as freaked out as I am about how little the average person cares about what personal information of theirs is floating around on the Web.

Anyway, there were so many great nuggets of geekdom crowding their way into my head that I thought I might explode a little. You can see my schedule over there…except for that Obama/Dean one. I skipped that to hang with hubby. And that’s okay because the keynote for Day 3 is the same Obama Web-ness, so it’s all good. The topics and converstaions spurred many blog ideas for me, so look for those in the coming days!

In the meantime I’ll leave you with this video of Dave stripping down at the trade show to get a cool t-shirt. We do what we have to do, friends:

Saw this Cult of Mac post about a Blackberry Storm ad that was rejected by RIM.  Though the gun message and copy claim is clearly misguided, I still find it rather clever.

Of course, you already know how I feel about the Storm after my brief time throwing it against the wall trying to figure it out. (sigh) Bless ‘em.

You like, you love it, you want some more of it:

• BlackBerry advert sticks it to Apple (reghardware.co.uk)
• The BlackBerry Storm ad that might have been (engadget.com)

Oh, how I long to attend BlogHer next year!

Why? Here’s why:

1. From everything I’ve read, BlogHer really is the best of both worlds: It’s fun and social (lotta parties) and offers up a great deal of tangible info about blog writing, marketing, upkeep and – more importantly – identity. That’s not only good for me and FlackRabbit here, it’s also great for my clients. I really do want to be knowledgeable about the blogosphere, not simply be obsessed with it.

2. I heart blogs.

3. I have ovaries.

4. I am still not completely over the fact that the Nashville BlogHer stop was canceled this year. I was so looking forward to dipping my toe in the local lady-blogger pool.

5. I’m obsessed with Dooce and would love nothing more than to keep watch in the hotel lobby in hopes of catching a glimpse of Heather walking by so I could Twitter my elation along with a picture of her from a distance and giggle uncontrollably for the next three hours.

Here’s a little more info from their announcement post:

Yes, BlogHer ’09 will be at the The Chicago Sheraton and Towers from July 23-25, 2009. We will kick off on Thursday July 23rd with our 3rd annual BlogHer Business Conference, and will continue with the two-day 5th annual BlogHer Annual Conference on Friday and Saturday, July 24-25.

Are you going to BlogHer ’09?

Seriously? How did the folks at Google miss the similarity of their new Chrome browser logo and Simon? Clearly they should have Googled it before launch time.