SXSW Roundup

This past week saw the closing of SXSW or "South By SouthWest"; an annual conglomeration of festivals celebrating art, film, online interaction and music in Austin, Texas. The event is held every March and 2007 marked the event’s 20th active year.

SXSW Interactive is a full on five days of exhibitions, trade shows, speaking engagements and events held to bring together many of the hottest and brightest creative Website Development businesses , professionals, and interested parties in the industry. Events and speakers cover everything from web standards and advanced technology to creative design and programming breakthroughs.

Highlights from 2007’s SXSW Interactive included:

• A brand new online panel voting interface that allowed users to select which upcoming events seemed to be of greatest value and relevance
• A larger, expanded Screenburg Festival, which is SXSW’s contribution to the online gaming community
• US Television news anchor Dan Rather spoke about emerging technological advances and their impact on social topics and headline news
• Interactive podcasts and audio recordings of key panels and speakers following the entire festival
• Phil Torrone, author and contributor to many books on design, hacking, and programming participated in a keynote presentation. He was joined by Limor Fried, a recent MIT master’s program graduate, artist, engineer, and hacker
• The opening remarks of 2007’s SXSW Interactive were delivered by Kathy Sierra who is the author of the "Head First" volumes and is responsible for the "Creating Passionate Users" website
• The 10th annual SXSW Interactive Web Awards continued to be a highlight with awards presented for categories such as "Music," "Technical Achievement," and "Blog"
• Interactive events featured at the George Washington Carver Museum featuring topics such as "Your Video Blog Can Save the World!"

Key points from this year’s SXSW were that social interaction is here to stay and that community sites and portals will soon be integrated into most online businesses. This wont simply be adding a forum or noticeboard, oh no, this social community expansion will require each new online site to be designed and engineered around the core concept of users being able to interact in new and exciting ways.

A good, current, example of this idea is the online loan lending website Zopa (www.zopa.com). Zopa took the basic notion of being able to apply for a personal loan online and added the social twist of being able to loan money from other Zopa users (instead of highstreet banks). Not only is this a more fun and unique way to borrow money, but each Christmas, Valentine’s Day and Birthday Zopa lenders and borrowers get to send each other personalised messages, helping to reinforce the social interaction.

Planning has already begun in earnest for SXSW Interactive 2008. User-generated content will be a main focus, as event handlers will plan many more avenues for user feedback from throughout the event. Organisers are already encouraging 2008 attendees to coordinate panels that they would like to have presented as part of the main fare. SXSW is a year round, staffed company that is continuously working to improve upon its excellent past endeavors. The SXSW Interactive main headquarters can be reached by email at inter@sxsw.com.