SXSW Interactive 2008 Podcast

Here’s the link for the podcasts of the interactive sessions from the 2008 SXSW interactive festival. Enjoy! I was listining to Tantek Çelik’s Body Optimization talk this morning on the way to work.  Almost makes me want to become a vegetarian ;)

SXSW: A Critical Look at OpenID

Ryan Janssen has an excellent summary of the OpenID panel I sat in on at SXSW:

I actually made my way through the labyrinth that is SXSW to one of the lesser rooms about 15 minutes early (WAY early in SXSW time). To my shock, the room was already packed (300-500 people). Even more telling, this was a very sophisticated 300-500 people. I would guess that about a quarter were implementing or looking to implement identity solutions in some form or another. In other words, this space is SCALDING hot.

SXSW Report: A Critical Look at OpenID

Two of my favorite panel / presentations from SXSW 2008

I sat in on many panels this year in Austin.  Some of them turned out to be major duds and some were simply amazing.  Of the set of panels I felt I got a lot out of, two have placed their slides online for everyone to enjoy.  They are obviously not as good as actually sitting in on their panels, but you can still get something from them.

The first up is John Resig’s Secrets of JavaScript libraries.  The panel consisted of Sam Stephenson (prototype), Alex Russell (dojo and fellow Purdue alumni), Thomas Fuchs (Scriptaculous), John Resig (jQuery), and Andrew Dupont (also prototype):

The second was a panel put on by Derek Powazek called Weird turn Pro: Crowdsourcing for Creatives. Derek talked about his vast experience in building growing online communities, highlighting what works and what doesn’t work and how you can help your contributors and fans feel like they’re a part of something larger than themselves:

There currently exists no audio for these two panels, but the SXSW staff is producing and posting them at a rate of about three to four a day and posting them on their podcasts page.

SXSW 2008: Content Management System Roundup

I saw this panel and immediately thought of our director, Jason Marlin. The only problem? Where the heck is MODx? :)

SCHED: SXSW 2008: Content Management System Roundup

A variety of widely-used CMS products will be covered, including Drupal, Expression Engine, SharePoint, and Collage, and the panel will also cover the challenges of developing a “home-grown” CMS from scratch. Panelists will include front-end interface designers, back-end programmers, and consultants who will provide an overview of each system and discuss their experiences using them in corporate, academic, and not-for profit environments.

South by Southwest Interactive is coming up

You don’t know what SXSWi is? Maybe you think it’s the famous music festival? You weren’t aware there was an amazing Interactive Festival before all that other cool stuff? Maybe you should watch this

ZeFrank explains SWSXi in under a minute

I’m going to be headed out to Austin next week to take part in my very first SXSW and I couldn’t be more excited. I’ve wanted to attend both the interactive and music portions of the festival for a few years now. This year I’ll only be able to make it out for the interactive stuff, but that’s good enough for a first run.

I posted on my personal blog a few weeks back which sessions I was most interested in attending and I thought I’d repost those here:

• Saturday
  • AJAX and Flash Mistakes (Jonathan Boutelle)
  • 10 Things We’ve Learned at 37signals (Jason Fried)
  • Go For IT! Attracting Girls to Technology (Claire Richardson)
  • Quit Your Day Job and Vlog (Tim Shey)
  • The Suxorz: The Worst Ten Social Media Ad Campaigns of 2007 (Henry Copeland)
  • The Weird Turn Pro: Crowdsourcing For Creatives (Derek Powazek)
  • Worst Website Ever: That’s So Crazy, It Just Might Work (Andy Baio)
• Sunday
  • A/B Testing: Design Friend or Foe? (Corey Chandler)
  • 10 Tips for Managing a Creative Environment (Bryan Mason)
  • Tools for Enchantment: 20 Ways to Woo Users (Kathy Sierra)
  • Wireframing in a Web 2.0 World (Richard Rutter)
  • Magic and Mental Models: Using Illusion to Simplify Designs (Jared M. Spool)
• Monday
  • A Critical Look At OpenID (Jason Levitt)
  • Building Developer-Friendly Web Service APIs (Ben Vinegar)
  • Self Replicating Awesomeness: The Marketing of No Marketing (Brian Oberkirch)
  • The Web Agency: There Will be Blood (Chris Bernard)
  • What User Generated Video Means to Word of Mouth Advertising (Daphne Kwon)
• Tuesday
  • Considerations for Scalabale Web Ventures (Chris Lea)
  • Creative Collaboration: Building Web Apps Together (Paul Hammond)
  • Secrets of JavaScript Libraries (John Resig)
  • Using Entertainment to Create Effective Mobile Advertising (Adam Zbar)

In addition to all of these excellent panels, there are nearly infinite possibilities for networking, partying, and catching up with old friends who live in the far away world of San Francisco. Here are the best parties as far as I’m concerned. I don’t know if we’ll be able to make all of them, but I sure will try ;)

• Saturday, 6pm-8pm — Google Party
• Saturday, 8pm-11pm — Frog design
• Saturday, 10pm-2am — 16 Bit: SXSWi’s Opening Night Afterparty (Joyent, Pownce, Digg, Laughing Squid, Catster/Dogster, et cetera)
• Sunday, 6pm-7pm — Pre-awards party
• Sunday, 7:30pm — Web awards
• Sunday, 9pm — People powered party (Etsy, Threadless, Timbuk2, Moo)
• Monday, 7pm-10pm – The great british booze-up
• Monday, 8pm-Midnight — Next New Networks, “Hey! Ho! Lets go!” Rock band party!

SXSW is also a time during the year when new startups and big companies alike launch big products. Last year’s festival marked the huge explosion in the use of Twitter, a little company you may have heard of by now. In a post over on ReadWriteWeb, Marshall Kirkpatrick is taking bets on what new product will be the breakout hit of 2008:

A winning app has to be easy for lots of people to use and has to provide clear value to conference and party-goers. It might seem valuable only at SXSW but end up proving itself afterwords due the scale achieved in Austin… [B]uzz momentum leading up to the event is also very important. If a good number of savvy web lovers have just become power users of an app before SXSW, it stands a great chance of reaching critical mass there.

Marshall goes through a list of new products that have popped up over the past year and gives their pros and cons. Pownce might’ve had a good shot if they hadn’t just released a full API so late in the game.

FriendFeed is another good bet. Powered by a clever bunch of x-googlers, they’ve produced a product that has the makings of something interesting. It still hasn’t gelled with me as something I need to check everyday like Twitter. I suspect that this is mostly a design issue though; the current display of information is basically an overload and I find it personally very had to scan through.

Check out my page on FriendFeed.If you’re going to SWSX and want to meet up with me, shoot me an email at cecker@stoneward.com and we’ll work it out!