SXSW Interactive
March 13-17, 2009
The SXSW Interactive Festival features five days of exciting panel content and amazing parties. Attracting digital creatives as well as visionary technology entrepreneurs, the event celebrates the best minds and the brightest personalities of emerging technology. Whether you are a hard-core geek, a dedicated content creator, a new media entrepreneur, or just someone who likes being around an extremely creative community, SXSW Interactive is for you!
2009 Panel Ideas: Online Submission Process Now Open
Do you have a great idea for a panel discussion or a presentation at the 2009 SXSW Interactive Festival? If so, we want to hear about it.
The online application for submitting these ideas has now been launched – and it will remain live through Friday, July 11. Programming ideas submitted via this interface will be posted on the 2009 version of the SXSW Panel Picker, thereby allowing the web community to vote on which ideas they feel are most appropriate for 2009. Click here for more information on getting involved with next year’s event!
2008 Recap: Collecting Your SXSW Interactive Experiences
Check out the online event recap page with day-by-day summaries of keynotes, panels, parties and other fun activities. Got a SXSW-related link that you’d like to see posted on this page? The more the merrier! Send us the link and we will add it to this community archive.
Hear the Brightest Minds in Emerging Technology with SXSW Interactive Podcasts
Quench your thirst for all things SXSW Interactive by checking out the SXSW Podcast Page, which contains tons and tons of FREE audio content. Then make sure you are subscribed to our SXSW Podcast RSS Feed.
2008 Program: Complete List of Panels and Speakers Announced
The SXSW Interactive Festival features forward-thinking new media experts from across the United States and around the world. The bulk of programing for the 2008 has been posted online. Be sure to check out the Panels Schedule, as well as two new features for this year's event; Book Readings and Core Conversations. About 75% of programing for 2008 came via ideas from the online community, as generated by the SXSW Panel Picker.
Pictured above: March 9 keynote speaker Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook. Other keynotes for the 2008 SXSW Interactive Festival include Frank Warren (March 10) and Jane McGonigal (March 11). Opening Remarks (March 8) will be delivered by Henry Jenkins and Steven Johnson.
Live Chat About Interactive Panel Sessions with meebo
Meebo is a website for instant messaging and synchronous social activity. As the official live chat at SXSW Interactive, meebo allows you to discuss and interact real-time with other attendees at any panel during the festival. Visit www.meebo.com/sxsw to get your feet wet and dive full-force into the platform that is the next phase of instant messaging.
SXSW 101: Watch this Video and Know Where to Go
Where do I go to get my SXSW Interactive badge? How do I find all the panels I want to see? OH NO! I don’t have the slightest idea where to get my Program Book!! If thoughts like these haunt your dreams, send a chill down your spine and turn your stomach upside-down – or if you just want a sneak peek at the Austin Convention Center before the action starts on Friday, then get your own personal video tour of the new room layout for 2008. Whether you are a grizzled veteran of SXSW or this is your first time to the event, watching this video will help minimize onsite confusion.
Special thanks to the great folks at SUPER!ALRIGHT! for helping produce this content.
The Interactive Hub: Be Part of the SXSW Online Community
Event attendees (past, present and future) have a place to talk all things SXSW on the Interactive Hub. This community blog covers whatever you want to cover, from panels to Austin restaurants to ride shares to job openings to SXSW evening events. Posting is easy. Just create a user account, then you are off to the races! Got questions on how this all works? Contact us with any questions or concerns.
Upcoming Events
Below are events of interest to the SXSW crowd, many featuring former and current SXSW speakers:
March 14-15, 2009
ScreenBurn is the portion of SXSW Interactive that focuses on the newest trends in the video game industry. Located on Level One of the Austin Convention Center, the ScreenBurn Arcade enables attendees to play with the coolest new gaming platforms, titles and technologies. Get in on all the fun on Saturday, March 14 and Sunday, March 15.
March 13-17, 2009
2009 SXSW Interactive Festival
It is never too early to start planning for next spring! The 2009 SXSW Interactive Festival runs Friday, March 13 through Tuesday, March 17. Stay tuned to this website for complete details.
September 5
Located in Brighton, England, dConstruct is the affordable one-day conference for people designing and building the latest generation of social web applications. The theme for the this year’s event is “designing the social web.” 2008 speakers include Steven Johnson, Daniel Burka, Tantek Celik and Jeremy Keith.
September 1
Web Awards Entry Process Opens
The SXSW Web Awards showcase the hottest new trends in the new media industry. Entries for the 2009 competition will be accepted beginning Monday, September 1. Stay tuned to the Web Awards page for complete information.
July 30
It’s a Mashable invasion in Austin for the fourth stop on the U.S. Summer Tour. Mashable’s traveling team (Pete Cashmore and Karen Hartline) are meeting up with local Texan Masher, Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins and want you to join the party. Food, drinks and the best of the best are ready to rock for this way-cool event.
Today's Mantra: Internationalization
The Latest Bits + Bytes
Estro-tech: BlogHer '08 Begins Today in San Francisco
We are excited to be sending one of our own (Tammy Lynn Gilmore, who coordinates Press & Publicity for SXSW Interactive) to her very first BlogHer conference. This year’s event runs from Friday through Sunday at the Westin St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco. BlogHer is always a SXSWi favorite because it’s the place where many of our favorite personal publishers come to life. For 2008, the theme is Reach! and the closing keynote speakers will be Stephanie Klein and former SXSW Interactive festival speaker Heather Armstrong (pictured above) talking about what it’s like to “Live the Truman Show". BlogHer appeals to anyone and everyone who’s interested in any kind of blogging, from the personal to the professional to the political. Check the conference website for more information
Posted 07/18/08 in Latest News +
Coming Soon: Receipt Letters for Panel Submission Process
Friday, July 11 was the last day for submitting panel ideas for 2009 SXSW Interactive Festival. Indeed, we received quite a barrage of last-minute entries – more than 700 proposals from across the United States and around the world arrived on deadline day! So, if you sent us something, please be patient in regards to your receipt letter as this process is a little bit backed up at present. As for the Panel Picker voting interface, this application should go live on Friday, August 8. As always, please e-mail us if you have questions.
Posted 07/15/08 in Latest News +
Thomas Buchanan Wins 2009 Badge via July Listserve
Props to Thomas Buchanan (pictured at right), a former Peace Corps voiunteer and current freelance writer based in Austin. His name was picked from all the people who correctly answered the trivia question associated with the July listserve for the SXSW Interactive Festival. This month’s trivia question asked readers to tell us their favorite member of the 2008 SXSW Advisory Board (for the record, Thomas picked Ben Brown). Advisory Board members are extremely important in helping to select the programming for SXSW Interactive (as is the community feedback that we get from the Panel Picker voting interface). For your chance to win a free registration to the 2009 event, sign up here to subscribe to the SXSW Interactive listserve. The next edition of this information-packed monthly newsletter is scheduled to go out the week of August 4.
Posted 07/14/08 in Latest News +
Send Us Your Stuff: July 11 is Final Panel Deadline Day
Friday, July 11 is the final deadline for submitting your programming idea for the 2009 SXSW Interactive Festival (which occurs March 13-17). Click here for complete details on the submission process, click here to read the panel submission FAQ, and click here for tips on putting together an attention-getting proposal. Also, please remember that we will only accept two (2) ideas per person for 2009, so please don’t send us more than that. Finally, please understand that we are a bit swamped with ideas at present – so, if / when you do send us your proposal, you won’t get a receipt letter until next week. If you have any questions, e-mail us and we will try to provide you all the right answers!
UPDATE: The Panel Picker submission interface will remain open through 11:59 pm Central Standard Time on Sunday evening, July 13.
Posted 07/11/08 in Latest News +
Lynn Bender Wonders About Austin's Weird Ambition
Check out the blog post from GeekAustin founder Lynn Bender about Austin’s place in the tech scene. He writes: “I recently read Paul Graham’s essay on ‘Cities and Ambition’. It was a timely read, as I’ve been party to so many discussions regarding where Austin’s tech community is, and where folks want it to be. People come to me at GeekAustin events saying ‘If we’d all get together, we could compete with Silicon Valley,’ or ‘Austin could be really great if only we’d…..’ All of these folks seem to believe that the Austin tech community needs to be sending some message, or whatever message we should be sending …. doesn’t seem to be getting through. I wonder if the message the Austin tech community sends too often is one of envy.” Envy or no envy, Bender spoke on the “eBooks and eStories” panel at the 2000 SXSW Interactive Festival.
Posted 07/10/08 in Speakers in the News +
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