Anyone who follows anyone who could be described as a geek on Twitter has probably seen the hashtag #sxsw this week and may have wondered why it was so ubiquitous. South by Southwest (SXSW) is an interactive conference that takes place in Austin Texas every March – literally thousands of geeks descend on the Lonestar state to meet and discuss the myriad of opportunities in the tech world. Doesn’t sound terribly fascinating to those who don’t live and breathe digital media, but because of its reputation for being the place for tech start-ups to launch themselves, it’s definitely the place where you’re most likely to see the Next Big Thing.

Last year it was Foursquare, a location based social networking service that allows users to tag where they are (and was dubbed in some quarters ‘the burglar’s friend’!). This year it’s stickybits, which involves tagging objects in the real world with little barcode stickers available from stickybits (or using the existing barcode assigned to an object), and then uploading all kinds of content and attaching it to the object using the free stickybits app on their iPhone or Android. Users can also view what other people have attached to a barcode by scanning it with their phone.

Now, on the face of it sticking a barcode on an item and then uploading information to that barcode seems a bit pointless: so I put a sticker on Suzanne’s coffee mug and upload a picture of Suzanne. It’s nice, but why would you bother? But imagine if you could scan a barcode sticker on your fridge or washing machine and get instant access to the user manual, guarantee information and energy usage statistics. Now that would be handy.
Other real world applications of stickybits are already flying around the TechBlogs, here are just a few

• Stick a barcode on a birthday card and upload a video greeting to your Mum.
• Never lose the assembly instructions for your Ikea bookcase (because you know you’ll need them again one day); just scan the barcode and there they are (and in video format too, for extra help).
• Get the benefits of online shopping offline by swiping the barcode with your phone and getting instant access to user reviews and ratings, not to mention discount vouchers and special offers.
• Create a box inventory by taking a photo of the contents and then sticking a barcode on the outside and uploading the picture to it – could make unpacking after a move a whole lot easier.
• Run a competition where people attach their favourite recipe involving cornflakes to the barcode on the packet.
• A simple barcode added to your brochure or business card could give new customers access to more company and product information quickly and easily.

At the moment stickybits is just starting out, but I bet in a year’s time you’ll be seeing their barcode stickers appearing on all sorts of things and the ability to ‘read the story’ of an item will become second nature. Meanwhile, SXSW will have moved on to the next Next Big Thing.

Onomatopoeia was today’s word of the day on www.visualthesaurus.com.

hiccup, zoom, bang, beep, splash!

I love words that sound like their meaning.

quack, bark, roar, meow, whoop!

Why am I writing about this? Well, it is relevant to marketing and design: Onomatopoeia has been used in advertising lots over the years. Snap, crackle, pop springs to mind. And in Art, Whaam (1963) by Roy Lichenstein is a great example.

Onomatopoeia are useful when sound is important to your message, or when you want to create a mnemonic. They can make for really fun, hard hitting copy and headlines. Pow!

Another word springs to mind–Autological.
According to Wikipedia, an Autological word is “An autological word (or homological word, or autonym) is a word that describes itself”

tiny, seventeen-lettered, lowercase, written, red.

So, a homological is the opposite, a non self-descriptive word.

mono-sylllabic, red, misspelled, oral, big.

I think there is potential for some great headlines using Autological or homological words, using some great typography. And using some artistic license, one can start to see more words that look like their meaning.

For example the word bed in lowercase looks a bit like a traditional bed, with the ascenders making the ends. I think CD looks a bit like a Compact Disc.

Then using some nice typography, you can add visual meaning to words to back-up or contradict their meaning, for example, thin set in a  light typeface, or a  bold typeface.

Of course you can go much further with this idea, there have been many designs that use this form of visual link very effectively. Just tucking this away for when the right brief comes along…