SXSWi

Whether you needed it or not, we present you with this SXSW Interactive 2012 infographic that comes to us courtesy of Dallas-based digital shop Agency Entourage, which culled info from the likes of our sibling site Social Times as well as other destinations such as Mashable, People Browsr and Business Insider. As anyone could have predicted, attendance numbers skyrocketed this year and yes, we’ll let this year’s fest go, once and for all, with this. Check out the full-size infographic, which gives a little year-to-year perspective, after the jump.

Read more

Launch a social media campaign that will build your brand and deliver results in our online Social Media Marketing Boot Camp starting June 7. Speakers include Abigail Cusick (Bravo Digital), Gregory Galant (Sawhorse Media), Alex Leo (Thomson Reuters Digital), Jim Tobin (Ignite Social Media), and many more. Read the reviews.

Just when we thought we were out, SXSW pulls us back in. This should probably be one of the last remnants, at least on this site, of what was at SXSWi 2012.  If you haven’t heard about this, well here goes. From what we’ve been told, a team from RAPP New York decided to activate four first-generation camera phones and go-a-photoblogging in Austin.

The end result is a Tumblr destination called “one.mega.pixel,” which shows you just how far our little handhelds have come in 10 years. According to the tipster who sent us the link (and who we assume is from said RAPP team), “In an era of apps that recreate nostalgic film quality like instagram, we use old digital technology to create an ‘old filter. Though the 2012 Interactive portion is now in the books, it’s perhaps worth taking a quick peek at some of the grainy goings on this year.

To sum up our literally 52-hour experience at SXSWi this year, we decided to just break down a couple of things that came to mind in terms of notes, what stood out and what was learned. Well, first of all,  yours truly literally flew in Saturday afternoon, dropped stuff off at the Embassy Suites on South Congress, got the press badge, and then met up with a certain partner-in-crime of mine here named Bob Marshall.

Read more

SXSW Interactive 2012 went out with a bang this year, as Tumblr and the Barbarian Group took over one of Austin’s most famous indoor/outdoor venue, Mohawk.

Aside from holding claim to maybe the best venue in Austin, the Barbarians were able to bring SXSW Interactive’s most-impressive musical lineup to the show, with the bill including the likes of Japandroids, Kool Keith, Bear in Heaven, Matthew Dear, and Wavves (pictured above). While advertising industry concertgoers schmoozed in the upstairs VIP era, the standing area near the stage was at a constant level of intensity, featuring relentless moshing and body-passing, especially during Wavves’ set.

Outside, the waiting line snaked around the block. But, a lucky few had access to the R/GA Shuttle, a double-decker bus that carted around R/GA employees and their clients throughout the course of the conference. Why wait in an hour-long line when you can peer over the fence from the comfort of a party bus?

The “Robotrip” party (I don’t know what’s up with the name, either) served as the perfect transition from SXSW Interactive to the Music portion of the festival. Sure, you could’ve celebrated across town at GSD&M’s “Industry Party,” or you could’ve rocked out with some Barbarians and a ton of non-industry, non-badge-holding music fans dancing feverishly to their favorite bands. To be frank, I’m happy I picked the latter. Now, on to Music!

Since yours truly is back home from SXSWi, figured I’d give the floor to someone who can offer some fresh, outside perspective on the Austin happenings. This little ditty comes to us from Tim Letscher, senior strategist at Carmichael Lynch, who like others can’t help but mention Highlight.

SXSW Interactive is called many things – geekfest, spring break for nerds, networking lovefest, etc. – and of course there’s the inevitable debate about whether or not it’s jumped the shark. But with thousands of tech/startup/marketing folks packing the streets of Austin, there’s no doubt that at SXSW we collectively crash into the future.

One of my personal highlights this year included Sunday’s keynote from futurist Amber Case, in which she boiled down the advancements in computer interfaces into the three properties of water – solid, liquid and air. Your thousand-button TV remote is a solid, with a tiny nub for every function. Your contextual iPhone keyboard is liquid, adding or changing buttons to suit any task at hand.  What’s to come is the invisible interface, one that is ambient and helpful based on the context of where and what you’re doing. Millions of us walk around with supercomputers in our pockets and bags. iPhones and Droids and Windows phones that know where you are, where your friends are, what time it is, what the weather is like, etc.  And we’re headed towards an even more connected future based on proximity and commonality.

Speaking of proximity and commonality, one app making a big splash at SXSW this year is Highlight, which uses data from your Facebook profile and in real-time shows you who is close by and if you have mutual friends or shared interests.  Already, a colleague noted that he “found” a friend he hasn’t talked to since junior high.  Pretty cool.

So where do brands fit in? Soon enough they will soon forge relationships around those serendipitous moments provided by apps like Highlight — though they must tread carefully, and it won’t be right for every brand. (Especially because of the potential creepy “Minority Report” factor.)  Done right, brands will augment these experiences in a way that’s useful and valuable to consumers. Done wrong, the damage to a brand’s reputation would be hard to repair.

In case you missed the rumor mill today, Austin is buzzing with the news of CNN’s acquisition of social media and tech journal, Mashable. Of course, just because everyone from Reuters to The New York Times is predicting the sale doesn’t mean that anything’s changed at the SXSW CNN Grill, where the show went on for the fourth consecutive day.

Brooke Baldwin, anchor of CNN Newsroom, sat down with two young Internet celebrities to discuss the world of viral Internet comedy. Kevin Wu, best known online as “KevJumba,” spoke of his move from MMORPG’s to online video. After his parents shut down his World of Warcraft account, Wu moved to the online stage to, as he put it, “make friends.” “Friends” of his have included the likes of NBA star Jeremy Lin as well as Chicago-based singer-songwriter, Richard Marx. Kevin’s online popularity has led him to become a YouTube partner, profiting off of the site’s revenue-sharing system it has in place with viral sensations.

Also featured on the panel was Issa Rae, best known for her web series, “Misadventures of an Awkward Black Girl.”  Rae began her rise to online comedy stardom as a student at Stanford University with a series called “Dorm Diaries,” focusing on what’s it’s like to be a black student at Stanford. Now Rae is setting her sights higher, saying, “I want to make a difference in the world.” With her Kickstarter campaign to raise capital for season two of “Misadventures of an Awkward Girl,” Rae raised over $56,000 in just 30 days, well exceeding her initial $30,000 goal. Recently, her videos have included cameos from the likes of Emmy-winning writer, rapper and star of NBC’s Community, Donald Glover.

Despite web popularity, Rae and Wu are finding it hard to break into mainstream media, predominantly because their racially charged humor isn’t all that appealing to traditional broadcast channels who find comfortability in “safe” content. Despite that hurdle, both are dedicated to using their popularity and celebrity contacts to continue their comedy. So, advertisers, if you’re looking for “hip” online sensations with a rabid fanbase to endorse one of your products or star in some viral content, look no further.

Stepping in front of that Austin audience may not sound hard at first, but public speaking pros warn that being an engaging and helpful panelist takes planning.

“Many people think they can just wing it — I’ve seen it a hundred times — but it’s important to do your homework,” said frequent panelist Nicole Williams, founder and CEO of the career website WORKS by Nicole Williams.

South By Southwest organizer Christine Auten advised, “Look [the panelists] up on LinkedIn and see what groups and organizations they’re part of.” By reading up on interviews they’ve given in the past, you can glean clues as to what they’ll say again and how you can add to that perspective or counter it.

For more tips on wowing the South By crowd, read How to Be a Great Panelist at SXSW (or Any Other Conference). [sub req'd]

“Celebrities are use to going through a gut-wrenching, soul-crushing process,” said Andrew Steele, a 12-year alumnus of Saturday Night Live and current  creative director of Funny or Die. “We don’t get in the way of that creative process, and it’s allowed us to thrive.”

SXSW attendees like the walls of the fourth floor of the Austin Convention Center, all yearning to get an glimpse inside what makes comedic minds behind Funny or Die tick. The highly successful media company’s famous founders, Will Ferrell and Adam McKay, weren’t on-hand for the hour-long panel, “Funny or Die: Fure of Comedy & Everything Else.” But Steele, CEO Dick Glover, president of production Mike Farah, VP of Marketing Patrick Starzan, and writer/actors Seth Morris and Billy Eichner were happy to regale attendees with tales of how the company was founded, their creative processes, as well future projects. The panel was broken up with trailers for Eichner’s “man-on-the-street” gameshow “Billy on the Street,” Morris’ new Yahoo web series “First Dates,” and Ferrell’s new spanish-language telenovela-based film,”Casa de mi Padre.”

The group emphasized the speed with which their production schedule works, saying their recent bizarre marketing campaign for Kia featuring NBA-star Blake Griffin went from concept to broadcast in just eight days. Though Funny or Die counts an office in Hollywood among its three (the others being in SF and NYC), Glover asserted, “The model is not the studio model… We’re looking to find projects that we love with people that we love.” Indulge in the viral hilarity at Funny or Die’s website here.

Once again, PepsiCo and its multiple brands dominated a sizable amount of floor space at the Austin Convention Center, and like last year, we enjoyed a conversation with one of its key execs. Instead of Bonin Bough, who split for Kraft a month ago, we had the opportunity to chat with Pepsi’s current director of digital media, Josh Karpf. This year, along with a real-time, “zeitgeist” data visualization board that you can see in the background in the pic above (that’s Karpf on the right in case you needed clarification),  the food/bev giant was touting its “What If Unconference.”

According to Karpf, the event consists of “…a series of structured brainstorms, throwing out themes related to digital, like how to use digital talent to affect organizations, digital startups, [and] we’ll have digital thought leaders facilitate.” As far as “digital thought,” what’s intriguing Karpf seems to be how fellow giant brands are making their presence known in the space. “This SXSW, There are a lot of brands you wouldn’t expect that are here that are announcing technology-focused  initiatives, like American Express’s Twitter project, Nike’s FuelBand. It supports our thesis on why we’re down here It shows where culture is going.

In addition to Interactive presence, PepsiCo is also delving into the Music portion via a partnership with Turntable.fm and is pulling double-duty in the Film realm via a Brisk bodega pop-up store that ties into the soft drink’s promotion of the Star Wars : Episode 1 IMAX release.

We recall that last year’s hot trend/tool was GroupMe, which somewhat faded into obscurity. So what’s the item gaining all the buzz at this year’s festival? Karpf says, “Looking at the coverage, people are taking about apps like Highlight and Hibachi. I think about it as analog meets digital. It makes your Faceook graph and presents it back to you in a way that’s useful to you right now. Taking all your information and presenting it in a way that’s useful as of right now in an elegant way.”

Yep, we made it to the “Weapons of Mass Disruption” shindig at the CNN Grill right across the street from the Austin Convention Center. After getting initially turned away due to overcrowding, we were directed to the happy hour bar around the corner, where we ran into none other than Ivan Watson, CNN foreign correspondent who’s based in Istanbul but covers, Syria, Iran and more. We discussed his thoughts on any threats from Iran and Syria, but for the most part, Watson remained diplomatic on our foreign relationships. Well, guess it was a party after all. He seemed to take enjoyment in the respite from war reporting (he’s the one in the middle. As far as the party goes, it was what you’d expect: Food, bevvies, schmoozing and the lot.