I’m back in my hometown, Austin, Texas for SXSW, here is a rundown of what’s up:
Most of Rocketboom crew is here: , Kenyatta (twitter), Jamie, Ellie , Joe and Sarah (twitter), come find us!
Ill be posting a lot of Twitter and Pownce Updates over the next few days:
http://www.twitter.com/andrewbaron
http://www.pownce.com/andrewbaron
+16bit SXSW Interactive 2008 Party:
One of the two major blowout parties on Saturday night is co-hosted by Rocketboom, Pownce, 30Boxes, Laughing Squid , Dogster / Catster , Joyent , ComicVine and Get Satisfaction. Saturday, March 8, 2008 – Sunday, March 9, 2008 (10:00 PM – 2:00 AM) at the Scoot Inn, 1308 E 4th Street : http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/428080/
+ The Austin Congress Ave bridge (just a few blks from convention center) has the largest bat colony in North America. Each night at dusk, hundreds of thousands of bats awake from the bridge and fly East away from the sun. Incredible sight from the bridge. http://www.batcon.org/home/index.asp?idPage=122
+ Mexican food and BBQ! Stubbs on Red River is probably the most famous for being the most bad ass. Las Manitas (1st Ave Cafe) on Congress and 1st Street is excellent for mexican breakfast. Trudy’s which is North of the University of Texas is my all-time favorite mexican food in Austin. South Congress is a funny strip with lots a great restaurants too, including Guerros and the famous Continental Club (hillbilly music)
+ BarCamp Austin. http://barcamp.org/BarCampAustinIII
+ Dorkbot Austin. http://modx.dorkbotaustin.org/meetings/sxsw-brush-sq.-park.html
+ Be sustainable. SXSW generates 263 tons of carbon emissions during the festival. [http://sxsw.com/sustainability/ ]. While the festival purchases renewable energy credits to offset it’s carbon footprint [http://sxsw.com/info/releases/feb182008_SXSW_Offsets_Emissions.pdf ], there are a few things you can do as an individual that, quite frankly, will make for a more relaxing time anyway: Don’t overload on the flyers and free schwag. Carrying less stuff is a good thing.
+ Most panels are boring. How much can you get from one of five people about one tpoic in under an hour? So dont be shy, get up and leave and find another one.
+ Remember that some of your most memorable conversations will probably happen in the hallways.
+ List of videobloggers attending the event:
http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/419988
+ Originally from Australia, one person you may not know who will be at SXSW that you should know about is Caitlin Hill, aka TheHill88. I was first drawn to YouTube from stumbeling on one of Caitlin’s videos a long time ago and consider her to be one of *the most talented* independent videobloggers out there. I’ve actually been working on a long blog post about her work, one day I’ll finallay get that published.
Photo by J.D. Lassica
