South by Southwest (SxSW for short) takes place every year in Austin, Texas. Primarily known for its music component, SxSW has, for the past several years included both a Film and an Interactive component. Though it is possible to attend all three festivals, due to some overlap in the scheduling, most people usually focus on one. For the past two years, I've attended the Interactive portion. As someone who keeps a personal weblog ("blog"), my initial impetus was to go to meet other webloggers. Despite the strong lineup of speakers and panels, I believe most of the other Interactive attendees value the social over the professional aspects of the conference. This was particularly true this year.
Back in the dot.com "Gold Rush," say, 2 years ago, the conference was dominated by corporations. There were a lot of "suits," as the kids like to say. The internet business at that time was dominated by venture capital, marketing speak, and a lot of people trying to get rich quick. Though I wasn't at SxSW in 2000, I read accounts from other people of all the corporate parties with free booze and expensive swag.
Last year, the bubble had recently burst. Though there was still a corporate presence, the exodus of the dot.commers was beginning. This year, the exodus is complete. Perhaps nowhere was this made more clear than at the industry trade show that accompanies the conference itself. More than half the booths were related to the SxSW Film festival, and the only web companies remaining were small, service-based companies like CD duplication houses. The swag was pitiful. I think I scored one or two empty CD cases, some earplugs (for what? to drown out the loud sucking noise caused by all the money disappearing?) and a Jim Beam keychain.
Yet, there was a general feeling that those who were still left standing were the diehards, the people who "got" the web. The panels reinforced this, with a new emphasis on freelancing and the "independent web." These are people who don't come to SxSW to "do business," but to share ideas and encouragement with like-minded souls. For that reason, most of the excitement at this year's conference took place outside the bounds of the "official" events. The "suits" used to call it networking or schmoozing, but the gathered webheads just called it partying. I can't fully describe how exhilerating it was to be surrounded by so many talented, intelligent and friendly people. I caught myself thinking numerous times that I wished these people could make money doing what they love instead of struggling with unemployment or looking constantly for their next freelance gig.
Some have changed their relationship to web work to the point where they are living and working as artists. Joshua Davis, perhaps the most brilliant Flash programmer the world has yet seen (and named by Shift magazine as the world's best web designer) declared that he is no longer doing commercial work, and was instead hawking a CD of all of his Flash work from the past year. I am strongly considering buying it, not so much because I use Flash, but just so that he can continue to create such beautiful and compelling work. Davis may not be the best example, since I'm sure his work could command thousands of dollars if he wanted it to, but overall, there's a feeling of alienation from the world of business and a mistrust of corporations that most web people have always felt. There's a feeling of being betrayed, of being wooed and then dumped, and I don't think most people want to go through that again.
The panels were mostly retreads of material covered last year, but there were signs of life. One area of potential interest is the convergence of traditional journalism and weblogs. The emergence of the sort of "personal journalism" practiced on sites like Metafilter and Slashdot as well as on countless personal weblogs poses a challenge to the current media conglomerates. The line is blurring between journalism from "on high" and journalism from below, and this has enormous potential. On a panel called "Peer to Peer: Journalism and Weblogs," Doc Searls observed that webloggers have the potential to be quite obsessive in their pursuits, and will often cover a very small area of news in incredible detail, doggedly following a story long after the traditional media have moved on to something else.
I also attended a lively keynote discussion between science-fiction writers Bruce Sterling and Cory Doctorow, entitled "The Death of Scarcity." They riffed on the subject of how file-sharing systems like Napster have destroyed current economic models by encouraging selfish behaviour (downloading as much as possible) in order to benefit everyone (by making more files available to everyone). This veered into fascinating territory more than once, but it was difficult to keep up with these two lightning-quick minds. An interesting discussion of the keynote appeared recently on Slashdot.
I can't mention SxSW without mentioning Fray Cafˇ. This live storytelling event grew out of the Fray website, which puts on an annual event called Fray Day every September. I wrote about Fray Day here. Featured speakers included many of the panelists and other web celebrities, including Fray founder Derek Powazek, John "Halcyon" Styn, Joshua Davis, Jeffrey Zeldman, Heather Champ, and Justin Hall. The open mic allowed anyone, even me, to participate. You can hear streaming audio of the entire event here.
One of the best parts of SxSW is that I actually got to meet many of the people whose opinions I admire. Not only did I get to eat dinner with Cory Doctorow, but I also attended a party at Bruce Sterling's home, not to mention sharing the stage with many of my web heroes and heroines. This kind of personal interaction is what makes SxSW a must-attend event every year.