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SxSW Travelogue - Day 4
March 11th, 2008 by John BrianHowdy from Austin. Today’s the last day of the conference, and I’ll be taking my camera in again to get some pictures of what’s going on at the convention center. Once again, for more up to the minute updates, check my Twitter feed at http://twitter.com/johnbrian. Previous updates on days 0, 1, 2, and 3 here. -John Brian
- 11:52: As I pack up to leave, I’ve got a bunch of pics I haven’t posted yet. I’ll upload a few now, and save the rest for the wrapup post:
Even for a tech conference, in a paperless society, there were tables set up to capture the massive amount of junk lit. It reminds me of what a friend once said to me at a rally, "When someone hands me a flyer, I feel like they’re asking, ‘Could you throw this away for me?’"
One thing I was surprised not to hear such a libertarian group discuss was the massive number of cameras in the convention center. I mean, it makes sense, but they were really obvious and omnipresent - you’d think that there’s at least be something on Digg asking Ron Paul to do something about it.
Yes, even Judge Dredd uses Twitter. Okay, not really - the guy in the costume is Adam Lavis, who made a film about John Hicklenton, pictured on left. Here’s a blog post with more if you’re interested.
There was serious work going on with regard to the Legos. I considered building a Beaconfire logo, but saw very few standard 4×2 and 2×2 red and white blocks. Oh, and there were panels to attend. Feel free to discuss in the comments how Legos have morphed from when you were young.
That’s all for tonight - I’ll write a wrapup on the way home. Earlier posts from today are below the fold…
- 5:22: Music folks are presently covering every square inch of downtown’s outdoor architecture with posters. I was a little confused as to why they Saran wrapped their light poles, but now have figured it out: in years past, some poor person has had to peel off about a million miles of tape.
The music festival has a very different vibe; while Interactive was as much about sessions and knowledge as networking, music seems pretty much just geared to getting bands exposure. I get the impression that many people will be enjoying the music festival a la carte, particularly since there’s so much that’s not officially part of the conference but just timed to coincide.
- 11:44: First session (I ended up going to the online video session, as you’d already know if you’ve been reading my twitter feed) was interesting, if a bit technical. Eve and I are going to the adobe click at 4:30 for online video folks, looking to recruit a couple more contractors and get a sense of what up and coming in the field.
In unrelated news, the conference seems to be thining out; talking to folks last night, I get the impression that a lot of attendees flew back yesterday and this morning. There are also less events tonight. Maybe the folks who are staying have the platinum badges and are going to music festival events tonight?
- 9:30: First session slot once again has several good options - I’m waffling between Future of Corporate Blogs and 10 Ways to Green-ify Your Digital Life, though there’s also some promise in Crunching and Streaming: Online Video Distribution Challenge and Opportunity. While it’s annoying that they scheduled useful panels on top of each other, they do say that they’ll be releasing all the panels as podcasts later, so folks can check out the ones they missed.
Also, here’s another pic I took yesterday - the Post Secret guy did yesterday’s keynote, and it was pretty impressive; I couldn’t stay for the whole thing, but I’m told that it included a marriage proposal. Looks like he’s starting work on another book:
