In the interest of keeping my SxSW “Round-Up” short and sweet, I wanted to share just a few highlights from this year’s SxSW Interactive conference.
Unfortunately I didn’t visit a ton of panels this year mainly because I’ve already heard most of the folks that were speaking during past events, so I was very selective and a little biased on which discussions I sat in on. I visited the Virtual Goods panel moderated by Susan Wu, featuring Andrew Sheppard, hi5, Kevin Dasch, IMVU, and Susan Choe of Outspark. This was a very compelling panel because it helped bring clarity to the billion dollar question – how the heck are social networks going to make money? Social ads don’t seem to be working, so should the focus turn to primarily direct-user transactions, such as virtual goods, games and premium content? The consensus from the panel was YES. Read more on the panel from VirtualGoodsNews here: SxSW Virtual Goods Panel
I also took some time to peep into the Social Media for Sustainability discussion. Other than the aggression that lingered in the room, I felt that there were some really compelling speakers on board. Primarily Emily Gertz, a blogger for Change.org. The primary take-away here was to focus on the bigger issue, how to create awareness through social media tools to enforce and encourage realistic sustainability. Creating friction about taking a plane to the conference because of the pollution it causes is not a great argument, however, creating buzz around why purchasing a Prius might not be as fuel-efficient and great for the environment as people originally thought, is interesting and an important discussion. 
Another interesting session that I dropped in on was the Engagement 1.0 panel featuring Ivan Askwith from Big Spaceship, Abigail De Koznik, Assistant Professor, UC Berkeley and Henry Jenkins, from MIT. This panel highlighted US pop culture as having a rich history of fan engagement. It examined the involvement in immersive storytelling forms such as ARGs and MMORPGs; exploring how these interactive narratives can be better understood in comparison with longstanding fan practices. It’s so fascinating how “fandome” is such a common practice for humans, since the beginning of time. Social networking has just enhanced it by making it more accessible and viral.
The parties and dinners at SxSW were pretty fun as well . . . Some of my favorites included the Digerati dinner with Edelman’s Rick Murray, the Vidoop/Girls in Tech party, the WordPress BBQ, the imeem party and of course the Facebook party. Unfortunately Girls in Tech could not get into the Mashable party, however, we heard that it was a sticky, sweaty madhouse anyway.
All-in-all, a great time! It was such an immense pleasure meeting some of the Girls in Tech members and managing directors from all over the world. That was the true highlight for me.
