SXSW 2012 Recap: Top 5 Themes
So I made it back alive. After successfully surviving my first SXSWi, I wanted to share a brief recap of some of the top trends & themes from this year's event. Here are the Top 5, in no particular order:
Location, Location, Location
Foursquare (launched at SXSW '09) was still the dominant player, but lots of niche location based apps have cropped up.
The biggest winner this year seemed to be Highlight - a location based app that pings you when people w/ similar interests are nearby. My take: equals parts creepy & cool.
Ogilvy Notes (Data Visualization)
Why sift through tons on tweets from the most popular keynotes when you can get it all at a glance with Ogilvy's visualizations. Click here for the full set.
Crowd size > marketers crash the party!
Word has got out, SXSWi is the place to be to rub elbows with the who's who of the digital space. What began as a small conference for creatives & tech geeks to meet has quickly blown up into a 40k+ size interactive conference.
As a result, the registration line on Friday night was a full 3+ hours.
Transmedia
Social TV, 2nd Screen Experience, Transmedia Storytelling were talked about a ton throughout conference. Mashable put their money where their mouth was with a print edition.
Speaking of Mashable & Transmedia, rumor has it CNN is looking to acquire the digital news media company to enhance their tech coverage and aide the traditional media company's transition to the digital space.
Brand Spotlight
Rather than promoting the latest app, Chevy provided what SXSWi attendees needed most: A Ride.
Catch a Chevy was a fleet of free taxis that carted attendees from session to session around Austin. Brilliant offline execution that added tons of value and drove more than just mentions & tweets.
Honorable Mention: Google
Google took over block of houses in a neighborhood right beside the Austin Convention Center and branded it "Google Village."
Each house represented a different Google product (Maps, Android, etc). Really cool concept, but I thought the execution was a little lacking. There weren't many Google staff at the house I visited.
Final Thought
SXSWi is about 30 days of interactive conference content squeezed into 4 days. If you're thinking about attending next year, the best two pieces of advice I got were: "Wear comfortable shoes" and "Pace yourself."
You'll also want to plan ahead, using the very helpful SXSW website & mobile app to layout a plan of attack for which sessions or events to attend as the conference is spread out across about a dozen campuses.
INSIDER TIP: If you're unable to attend SXSWi next year, good news...you can get most of the content from home. Just search SXSW.com for particular sessions your interested in, find the associated hashtag, and hop on Twitter to follow along from home.
Hope you found my coverage of SXSW helpful and insightful. Thanks for following along!
Until Next Year,
John
