I have two new social media addictions thanks to SXSW. The first is Twitter (more on that in another post, but in the meantime, you can follow me); the second is Bitstrips.

Simply put, Bitstrips is a Web 2.0 application for creating comic strips. It enables people like me who have no artistic talent, but occasionally observe or think of something funny, to have a nicely-rendered visual expression of it. But what makes it really compelling is the social aspect of it.

For starters, you can create a character to represent yourself:

This is me	This is me on Bitstrips

Then you can connect with existing friends and use their characters in your strips. For example, I figured bLaugh creator Chris Pirillo would be interested in this, so I thought I’d drop him a line to tell him about it. Needless to say, he was already there and highly active:

You can also create characters representing your friends and then invite them to join.

Once you’ve done all that you can use your friends’ characters and the characters they’ve created to make strips of funny things that happened in real life. And before anyone gives me grief about this next strip, I’ll say that a) it’s a slight exaggeration, b) I cleared it with the star of it before publishing it (”Oh man, you could’ve made it WAY more unflattering than that. It’s perfect!!!!”), and c) no, the guys in the background aren’t any specific people - y’all go make your own!

You can also make images of celebrities. And you can edit your friends’ strips (well, not actually edit, but create copies of theirs which you can then edit):

Of course, including your friends and family in comic strips may not always go over well:

It’s incredibly fun to create the strips, and incredibly funny to read them. I also love that they build the tutorials in the application itself, for example:

They even use it to communicate company news:

That said, it is a 1.0 product, and it has, shall we say, quite a few shortcomings, such as:

Limited range of expressions…

Shortage of people who are actually funny…

Characters can only be human…

Lacking some seemingly obvious essential props, like musical instruments…

And phones…

Fortunately, they’re working on it…

Of course, some people have come up with some pretty creative solutions in the meantime (in case you’re wondering, that’s a stack of tables in the back)…

Well, that’s my review. Now just to think up an idea for my next strip…

Oh yeah… if you decide to check it out, feel free to add me as a friend.