Bits & Bytes

Congrats to Trey Phillips (pictured right) for winning the FREE registration for the 2009 SXSW Interactive Festival that was given away at the Stephen Baker reading at BookPeople on Wednesday evening, November 19. Stay tuned to this website for more such gatherings in Austin and around the US in the coming weeks and months.

Are you registered to attend the 2009 SXSW Interactive Festival? Well why not put a button on your website or your blog to tell the world that you will be there? Click here to download the artwork for your site. And, if you haven't registered for SXSW yet, then what are you waiting for?

Introduced at the 2008 SXSW Interactive Festival, Core Conversations proved to be an extremely popular part of the event. Similar to panels, these Core Conversations last for 60 minutes. What is different is that Core Conversations remove the traditional speaker / audience interface. Instead, imagine one person in a chair surrounded by 30-50 attendees who are intensely interested in the given topic.

Are you still debating whether or not to sign up for the 2009 SXSW Interactive Festival?

By day, SXSW Interactive Festival attendees enjoy tons of amazing panel content, plus the hustle and bustle of the Trade Show & Exhibition and the ScreenBurn Arcade.

Kudos to London-based interaction designer Daniel Braithwaite (pictured at left) for correctly answering the trivia question that was part of the November issue of the SXSW Interactive Festival monthly listserve. Indeed, he knew that the panel that Saul Colt is leading at next year's event is titled "Building Personal and Company Brands with Web 2.0 Tools". How did Daniel know this information?

Purchase your registration badge by the end of the day on Friday, November 14 and you will save $95 on the walkup price. That's right, the price to attend all the panels, all the networking and all the fun of the SXSW Interactive Festival is just $400 -- but you have to act in the next week or you will pay more. Also, if you register by the November 14 deadline you will be eligible to win five free nights at the Residence Inn Downtown during SXSW.

Last Friday afternoon, October 31 at the SXSW World Headquarters in North Central Austin, SXSW Interactive hosted the 4th Annual Pumpkin Smackdown. This is an institution more commonly described as a "pumpkin carving contest"--however this definition negates the true spirit and creativity of the SXSW approach. This year, SXSW Interactive took home the Best Long Way to Go for a Short Joke and Best Use of Electronics award for our "Rickroll Pumpkin".

Two things to remember for this week. First, go to your local polling place on Tuesday and vote for the candidate of your choice. The process will not take too much time (particularly as compared to the amount of impact it will have on the direction of this country for the next four years). Seriously, our democracy depends on your participation. Please also remind all of your friends, neighbors and business associates to do the same.

The 2009 SXSW Interactive Festival will feature more than 180 panel sessions, as well as Core Conversations and Book Readings. Ranging from "The Future of Social Networks" to "iPhone Development for Experienced Web Developers" to "Sports 2.0: Engaging the Long Tail Fan Base," the preliminary list of content for next spring is now available online.