Disclaimer: The schedule has been hectic, so I’m a little behind here.

Started off Sunday in “Responsible Web Design,” but it felt like a dry run of Adobe feature sets through the web space. Making a safe exit, I headed over to “Meet the Architects,” which was essentially my first choice anyway, since I’ve been a fan of architecture since I was 7 years old.

The panel was mid-stream when I entered, talking about how architecture relates to digital media through a variety of ways. From using tools like Flickr to creating elaborate 3D fly-throughs targeted for wide, public consumption. Although, this panel seemed out of place for SXSW, it was quite fitting as it fundamentally poses the question to the audience of how to apply their skills to any discipline. While I couldn’t immediately make the connection from architecture to what I do, it became clear that there is a heavy reliance on digital media artists to help support a virtually unlimited array of arts, crafts and sciences. This was one of the better panels at SXSW.

Data as Art was another winner with digital media visualists Peter Kirn and Joy Mountford. Most stunning were the displays of data served up in a pastiche of ways. A continuously updating “live” data stream of Yahoo Mail was captivating as it showed the traffic on a global scale in it’s purest form, a rotating image of a gleaming, white globe with blue towers rising up and down as time zones and the hours spun by.

Arriving late, and not finding our party who were holding seats for us, we opted to take up residence on the floor over on the left side.

From the moment Daft Punk roared up on the P.A. directly in front of our noggins, it was apparent that the crowd was clearly electrified for what would be the pivotal event of SXSW circa 2008. The electricity transferred itself to the feet of a few individuals, who turned the front of the auditorium into an oversized and well-lit dance club. It seems Julia Allison was one of the instigators.


Once Mark Zuckerberg and interviewer Sarah Lacy of Business Week took the stage, the crowd settled in for what would be hoped to be an insider’s take on the world of the Facebook founder. In a sign of things to come, Lacy took her first hit when she replied to Zuck’s tale about how FB was being used to organize resistance to Guerilla armies in Columbia. As someone grumbled behind me, she stated it was against the “government.” It was already clear she wasn’t listening. Her constant wiggling around and overuse of the word “right” came off as indicators that she was just feigning interest. In reality, she seemed more interested in spinning her own take on her “relationship” with Mark by reminiscing about past interviews and encounters, which was clearly beyond the scope of what the audience came to hear.

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