MixedContent

I just got back from my third trip to SXSW and all I can say is what a blast. The mix of Spring Break, BBQ, Rock’n'roll and geek fest seems to agree with me. It was great to catch up with old friends and colleagues like the crew formally known as Bryght, as well as meet a few new folks.

Highlights included:

• Eating BBQ at IronWorks, where the central ornamentation on the table is a large roll of super absorbent paper towel, and the “kids portion” of tasty ribs is just about right for me.
• Seeing Moby and Lou Reed play “Walk on the Wild Side”, with back up choir doing the “Do, da do, da doo’s” to a small crowd. Did I mention there were free drinks?
• Finding out that rock band is the new twitter, and that Dopplr will be the next RockBand.
• Hacking away on Rilli
• Learning all about FireEagle from Tom Coates himself. Very excited to integrate this into Rilli.
• Listening to great panels, like the one on “Building Portable Social Networks” which focused on how OpenID, microformats and OAuth will let us build open, user-controlled networks. Jeremy Keith was sharp on the mike too - wish I could find a video of it. The other participants - Chris Messina, Leslie Chicoine, Joseph Smarr, and David Recordon - were no slouches either. It’s great that (finally) the pieces are coming together, and that ‘we’ (as users) are poised to be in a position of control, rather then servants to the services we use. After all, they’re *my* friends, not Facebooks, for example. This talk, more then any other at SXSW, made me feel as though the original principals behind the creation of the early internet (interoperability, open access, etc) are still alive and well.

Can’t wait for next year… I’ll certainly be back. And maybe with a mobile version of my gig guide.