SXSW 2010 Archive

Day 2 of the SXSW interactive festival is complete. Here are some of the best reads from the second day of the conference:

• Lifestreams, Neuroscience Marketing, Privacy and Content Strategy – Weber Shandwick
• Mojito Internet device video demo – Information Week (my post)
• I Don’t Do SXSWi – Jeremy Pepper (I agree with him)
• Lost in Translation: Nuances of European Social Media – Peter Bihr
• Boyd Calls Out Google and Facebook for Abusing Users’ Privacy – GigaOm
• New Version of Digg Revealed – Mashable

If you aren’t interested in SXSW posts and/or event coverage, Darren has put together a website, Not In Austin, that lists posts from the top tech blogs with no SXSW posts listed.

DO NOT FORGET TO MOVE YOUR CLOCK FORWARD ONE HOUR!

Leave any links you’ve found related to SXSW in the comments and I will add them to the post.

This afternoon marked the opening of the SXSW 2010 expo hall. Like most things at SXSW, the expo hall seems larger than in previous years with more large companies anchoring the space. Paypal, Google, Rackspace, AOL and Microsoft all have huge sections of the space showing off their latest technologies. Panasonic has a huge truck that houses a 3D experience. Former PayPerPost, now Izea, seems to have a booth at every conference.

There are multiple companies that provide simple webpage creators (SnapPages and Lifeyo). And lots of musician and music management apps are showing off their wares.

Here are some photos from the expo hall – you can also check out my full SXSW photoset on Flickr.

Microsoft showing off their table touchscreen thingy

Continue reading “SXSW: Expo Hall Photos” »

Last year at SXSW we filmed a video demo of Atlanta-based Regator. The service provides curated blog aggregation on hundreds of topics. It looks like the Regator team is in Austin again this year and I’ve noticed their ads on all of the “Plastic-wrapped columns” around the convention center.

You can see their ad below – pretty interesting. They use a Twitter bubble along with names of two popular bloggers: Marshall Kirkpatrick from ReadWriteWeb and Robert Scoble from Rackspace. I first noticed the ad because the @marshallk caught my eye.

Instead of pushing the service on the ad, they push two of their popular users. The names may draw people to the ad and then to the site which could mean longer levels of engagement.

Day 1 of the SXSW interactive festival is complete. Here are some of the best reads from the first full day of the conference:

• SXSW: Social media marketing for business – Lost Remote
• 12 Tips on Live Blogging & Content Marketing at SXSWi (works for any conference) – Lee Odden
• Tech companies try to stand out at SXSW – Houston Chronicle
• What Google will do in China – RWW
• SXSW photos by Jeffrey Zeldman
• Staying Immune to the Hype Virus at SXSW – Harvard Busines Review

If you aren’t interested in SXSW posts and/or event coverage, Darren has put together a website, Not In Austin, that lists posts from the top tech blogs with no SXSW posts listed.

Leave any links you’ve found related to SXSW in the comments and I will add them to the post.

I’ve heard from multiple people along with SXSW event staff that this year’s event will be the busiest ever. I’ve been coming to SXSW for 5 years and from what I can tell, it sure is more crowded than it was 5 years ago. More sessions rooms are being pushed out to the nearby hotels and there are more people on the street than before.

I decided to select one of two sessions in the Hilton in the first round of sessions, Friday at 2pm. I arrived 30 minutes early and, as you can see from the photos below, the rooms were both packed. A couple of people were wondering if the entire event will be like this. The last couple of years the keynotes were crowded, but the session rooms were sometimes full.

Since SXSW is still allowing people to register, is there even a capacity limit? If there isn’t, there certainly should be.

As I noted in an earlier post, it’s also interesting to watch SXSW become the NASCAR of tech conferences. It seems like they moved the registration to allow for more sponsor areas. So far I’ve seen huge displays for Pepsi and AOL – tradeshow-like displays.

If you are at the event, leave a comment on your take on capacity limits and if you feel like you are riding the 6 train at rush hour trying to move around the convention center and into the sessions.
Continue reading “Is This What It’s Going To Be Like All Weekend?” »

Ok, I’ve never actually wanted a service to not function and I am partially joking, but it would be great if AT&T service would go down here at SXSW 2010 in Austin. Why? Because perhaps then there would be actual talking and networking at the event. I say the same thing every year and I assume this year there will be even more online chatter instead of offline networking and handshakes.

With that said, AT&T has apparently put a lot of capital investment into the Austin area recently to help handle the traffic loads with iPhone users wanting to tell their “friends” what they are doing while at the SXSW event. There’s a card in the schwag bag that outlines what AT&T has done to handle the load.

MG Siegler at Techcrunch has a post that discusses last year’s AT&T service — he uses lots of words like “nightmare”, etc. I like this line the best, “I’m leaving for Austin tomorrow and I’m terrified of what the AT&T situation will be when I get there.” Read that again – MG is TERRIFIED that he might not be able to both update Foursquare and also write what our sources tell us will be 43.2 Foursquare stories. MG did get a freebie from Sprint (which I am on, pay for each month and had great service last year) so that means he should be A-OK for coverage posts.

Check out the video of the registration line below. Count how many people are either talking on their phones or looking at their phones versus how many people are looking up and/or talking to someone.

Put the phone away, smile, talk to people and meet new people. Learn something new at a session. All the social networks will be there when you get back to your home or office and you can then post updates.
Continue reading “SXSW: I Hope AT&T Goes Down (video)” »

After waiting on line just about 90 minutes to get my badge, I was able to pick up the exciting SXSW 2010 schwag bag. The bag always contains tons of paper and a variety of small trinkets. I actually wish the bag was full of trinkets and would have no paper. I seriously wonder how many people look at the cards in the bag and then go visit the listed websites. This is our fourth year of providing these very exciting videos. (ignore my stuffed nose, seems I always get this sympom the first day in Austin)

If you’d like any of the items in the bag, hit the contact form on CN and send in your address and which item you’d like. First come, first served.

Update: camera bag, wordpress stickers, all the pins/buttons and awesomeness luggage tag are gone.
Continue reading “SXSW 2010 Schwag Bag Video and Giveaway” »