SXSW Conference: Blog or be blogged!

The first thing that hit me about South by Southwest is the sheer amount of recording. I'm talking video, audio, photo, blogging, twittering, pownceing, dodgeballing,  and I even saw one guy taking notes with a pencil.

In a way, it makes sense: This place is a locus of tech innovation culture, and what's big in tech now is rich media -- that is, being able to create and distribute any kind of media you want, to as many people as you want. The ease with which we can all do this now makes everyone into a kind of reporter.  Just speaking for myself, I've got my laptop, iPhone, digital voice recorder, digital still-slash-video camera, and a notepad.  I'm like a full-service media organization.  But in that regard, I am totally un-special.

A few minutes ago, I saw Mahalo Daily's reportrix Veronica Belmont  being interviewed by a guy with a camera (I forgot to write his name down, and she couldn't remember who it was either!) in the hallway with a camera. Right after that interview she turned around to be interviewed by Brian Tong of CNET, and after that I approached her about an interview about everyone interviewing everyone else.

"It's not all that new," she said of the meta-media phenomenon, "but I think it's just a lot easier now with the way technology is evolving."

Seemingly everyone here has a blog, vlog, show, or website.  During a panel on whether to quit your job and pursue video blogging professionally, one audience member approached the microphone to ask a question. Or was he an audience member? The guy had a video camera and he was taping himself asking the question.

(My picture of a guy taking a picture of Brian Tong interviewing interviewer Veronica Belmont)

The guy's question was: what advice do you have for aspiring vloggers?

"What's your name?" asked panelist Lindsay Campbell of the video blog Wallstrip online news show Moblogic.tv. 

"Brian Agosta dot com," said Brian Agosta.

"Yeah," said Campbell, her main piece of advice illustrated: "Promote yourself." 

Comments

[Tig]

SXSW is a serious waste. Once upon a time, SXSW was a place where one could see new music, good films, and Ok people.

Now...ugggh. All the music is the same same. Bad, or poor 'films' made by complete idiots. Mostly docs. that are totally bland ( have you seen the trailers...yips!).

Don't any money going there.