OneSpot @ SXSW - Day 4

March 16 2009, 11:21pm

Day 4 is done and there is only one more day of interactive left (then the music kids come to town!). For those of you who spent all day grabbing all the free swag you could as the trade show closed for the last time, here is what you missed:

The Weblog Awards, aka the Bloggies, was today and I must say I liked it better than the Web Awards… and not just because sites other than Hulu stood a chance. Confessions of a Pioneer Woman took the top award (as well as a couple of others) and Cake Wrecks took multiple awards as well. There were a lot of female bloggers taking awards too, which was quite refreshing (represent!). Dan Rubin performed a great bloggies song before the grand prize winner was announced which was very entertaining (if anyone has lyrics or the mp3 or the video, let me know!) Check out the winners here and congratulations to all!

There was a great panel this morning “Beyond Aggregation,” but the panelists made things too complicated. Not too toot our own horn, but you don’t need to create a Google Reader then contact your friends to see what’s in their Google Reader and do searches and… well, I think I got lost at step 1. OneSpot allows anyone to discover, curate, and share the best of the web for your audience, in one simple online app. My life is complicated enough people.

It was really sunny and warm today. REALLY! For those people who left on Sunday, Austin is rarely rainy and dreary. You all missed it! (And, of course, it got super sunny on day 4 when everyone is doubly hungover. Figures.)

Maybe I’m just uncool, but I didn’t really get the importance of the keynote today. Maybe someone else could explain to me why laser tagging/laser graffiti is panel-worthy? I tuned in and out when he was talking about some girl’s derriere and how shopping at Wal-Mart to create his lasers was “Open Source.” I think I really just didn’t get it…

The panel Kick Ass or Suck was in another one of those chairless rooms (which sucked), but the discussion was great. Just a note to SXSW: these core conversations are really valuable and everyone wants to be in them but they are in the smallest rooms. I realize that in order to keep the conversation going, you need to keep it small, but perhaps you could book the same conversations at multiple times? (Example: Twitter for Marketers on Sunday and Tuesday?) Or, you could just do what Austin Film Festival does (and what you do for some of the film panels) and have people pre-register for those conversations. Might help cut down on the opening and closing of doors…

There’s just one day left for Interactive. The trade show closed up today, panels are starting to thin, and parties are getting smaller and smaller. On this last day of SXSWi, I would love for you all to think about the best moments, the worst moments, and all in between and let me know what you thought of the fest this year. Was it better/worse than previous years (if you are not a newbie)? Are you attending next year? I’d love to hear your thoughts below.

That’s all for day 4. Keep following us on Twitter @OneSpot and grab our widget for the latest in SXSWi news!