An overview of my time at South by Southwest 2010

1. South by Southwest 2010

2. SXSW 2010
Austin, Texas
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3. SXSW 2010
Austin, Texas
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4. SXSW 2010
Austin, Texas
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5. SXSW 2010
Austin, Texas
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6. SXSW 2010
Introduction
About
— 3 industry events converge in
a Texas-sized week
— Music since 1987, Film &
Interactive since 1994
— Keynotes, panels, discussion
groups, awards, parties
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7. SXSW 2010
Interactives
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8. SXSW 2010
Interactives
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9. SXSW 2010
Interactives
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10. SXSW 2010
Lego
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11. SXSW 2010
Keynote – Daniel Elk, Spotify
— Spotify is consuming more
internet bandwidth than Sweden
— “Spotify will never be a social
network, it’s not what we do.”
— 350,000 paid subscribers, 100
million playlists for 7 million users
— Showed Spotify on Andriod Sony
Ericsson
— “Music is like water” – the most
social object there is
— US launch in 2010, probably free
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12. SXSW 2010
Keynote – Evan Williams, Twitter
— Launched @anywhere app
- connect through content elsewhere
on web
- partnered with 13 companies initially
(Huffington Post, Digg, Bing)
— Openness is a survival technique for
businesses, be open to the idea that you
are wrong and open to other ideas
— Open v Transparency – “a window is
transparent but a door is open”
— Mass walkout
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13. SXSW 2010
Dennis Crowley, FourSquare
— FourSquare v Gowalla, at SXSW 2010
— Aim is to make check-in the most
enjoyable experience, through rewards,
games, etc
— “We just want people to get free beer”
— “Our job is to remind users to check-in…it
can be cumbersome to remember to
check-in”
— How do you make checking-in a more
passive experience?
— Privacy issues of passive check-in
— FourSquare experiments with brands, eg.
Pepsi, Domino’s – “some will work, some
won’t”
— “How do you reward the influencers?”
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14. SXSW 2010
#thelifegraph
— Facebook will be central hub for
location services – not FourSquare or
Gowalla
— Privacy rules change when we go into
a social world
— Passive check-in: apps should auto-
check-in when you stay put for a
certain amount of time
— Based on past locations, you can
calculate a 90%+ knowledge of where
an individual will be tomorrow
— Benefits of this in terms of city
planning, traffic, etc
— http://pleaserobme.com/
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15. SXSW 2010
#cityisaplatform
— The city is layer upon layer of time-based
meaning, waiting to be peeled back
— “Until our sidewalks and graffiti can tweet,
we’ll have to speak for them”
— http://seeclickfix.com/citizens is US version
of http://www.fixmystreet.com/
— Trash Track: MIT study (Biderman) to attach
sensors to trash pieces to track where it
goes http://senseable.mit.edu/trashtrack/
— @kenleyneufeld “When I became Library
Director at Santa Barbara Library, the first
thing I did was take down all the ‘No’ signs.
People came.”
— Manor Labs enables you to do good things
for your city, with FourSquare-esque
rewards:
http://manorlabs.spigit.com/homepagelight
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16. SXSW 2010
#notouching
— Once we get used to an interface, we get faster
at it (eg. keyboard shortcuts)
— Our hands are very complex, but we’re using
them in really simple ways. Starting to improve,
eg. touch devices with pinch and scroll etc
— Our body subtleties are also complex – how
well are we using them from an interface pov?
— Soft TV remote: twist, squeeze, pull ball to
interact with interface. Every viewer has
individual ball and interacts on-screen in their
own way
— Cute Circuit: sensors in clothing to vibrate your
arm when you get a call
— Mixed Initiative Dialogues: computer asks
questions back in voice-activated interfaces
— Touchless air guitar, with sound..!
— Not all gestural games work: http://is.gd/cfYyh
— Issues include appropriateness (do I look
stupid?), physical feedback
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17. SXSW 2010
#notouching – Pranav Mistry, Sixth Sense
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18. SXSW 2010
#sxswqr – QR Codes
— QR tool instantly recognisable, it’s almost a brand in its
own right
— In USA, 20 million QR codes downloaded onto phones by
end 2010
— 75% of people in Japan scan codes on a regular basis
— Most Android phones have QR code reader pre-installed
(on 2.2 million Android devices already)
— If design with multiple colours, make sure the foreground
colour is a lot darker than the background colours
— Harper Collins put QR code on Lauren Conrad book, ‘LA
Candy’
- rationale that they couldn’t get info on customers who
buy books once they’re purchased
- swap your location of where code is read for additional
content about the book/author
- keeps evolving as a marketing tool for years
- 9 months after publication it still gets as many scans as
when launched
— Facebook looking at giving everyone their own QR code
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19. SXSW 2010
#fundingfromthecrowd
— Kickstarter http://www.kickstarter.com/
— Reward-based crowdfunding: the more you fund, the
better the reward
— Backers only pay if the funding goal is reached
— crowdfuning for not-for-profits http://www.razoo.com/
— WindowFarms allow you to grow your food on an
apartment window
- http://www.windowfarms.org/
- raised $28,000 (target $25,000) – grow your own food
on an apartment window
- Rewards: $25 is handwritten postcard from team, $50 is
raffle for a prize, $100 is a digital book of the project
— Keep your strategy alive and evolving – your backers don’t
want to feel like they’ve backed a sinking ship
— Importance of creating a story in crowd-funding projects.
Create beats in the story to keep backers engage
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20. SXSW 2010
#mbsp – Maps, Books, Spimes, Paper
— Post-Digital – “screens are becoming boring”
— @localondon is just a Twitter page, no website
— Books in the age of the iPad – discussion on how to
put value back into a magazine subscription
http://craigmod.com/journal/ipad_and_books/
— There’s value in analogue/physical, but analogue
friction adds challenges (eg. delivering newspapers
to houses)
— Newspaper Club: http://www.newspaperclub.co.uk
— My Life in Tweets, book of all tweets of last year
(James Bridle)
— Digital hasn’t yet made souvenirs, unlike physical
things
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21. SXSW 2010
#mbsp – Maps, Books, Spimes, Paper
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22. SXSW 2010
#mbsp – Maps, Books, Spimes, Paper
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23. SXSW 2010
Other highlights
— #contentme
- adding relevant recommendations
to content increases dwell time by
40%
- Adaptive UI: interfaces should
change depending on the user and
the actions the user takes from click
to click (Maher Roberts)
— #mobilecommerce
- in 2009, 750,000 unique visits per
day on ebay mobile generated $500
million in mobile sales; an item is
sold on ebay mobile every 2 seconds
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24. SXSW 2010
Other highlights
— #perfectlyirrational, Dan Ariely
- Ariely sold $20 bill in auction,
starting at $1. Winner keeps it (pays
for it), but runner-up also has to
pay. Winning bid was $23 so Ariely
got $45 for his $20 bill
— #ai2010, Artificial Intelligence
- Robot team to defeat world cup
winners by 2050
http://www.robocup.org/
- goal of AI is for robust, fully
autonomous agents in the real
world
- defining ‘normal’ – constantly
evolving criteria
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25. SXSW 2010
Automotive at SXSW
— General Motors dedicated 30%
of its marketing budget to
digital this year
— Chevrolet
— road-trips to Austin in Chevy
cars tracked via Twitter,
Facebook and OnStar
— Gowalla tie-in: users check-in &
get offers (eg. check-in at Austin
airport for free ride downtown)
— affixed QR codes on hoods of
cars that launched microsites
— released iReveal app to view AR
models of cars on Austin streets
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26. SXSW 2010
Automotive
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27. SXSW 2010
Film
— The Hurt Locker, 2009
— 2010 winners: http://is.gd/csPBm
— #cinematictitles
- Life 2.0 case study, titles by Tronic:
http://vimeo.com/8913892
- front-load the film with visual style
- use title sequence to pass on the
film’s messaging and help train eyes
of audience
- title sequence as own little movie
- Morgan Freeman gets credit before
the title, written into his contracts
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28. SXSW 2010
Close
SXSW 2010 presentations on Slideshare:
http://is.gd/csO1J
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