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The South by Southwest Interactive Festival has a bit of a reputation as a coming-out party for hot new social technologies. Twitter and Foursquare rose to prominence after making waves at the show in 2007 and 2009, respectively. Last year saw Foursquare and Gowalla duke it out for the location-network crown.
But this year was a little more complicated. I’d love to tell you that I have been to Austin and I have seen The Next Big Thing — but I didn’t see one big story this year. Instead of one hot technology, I felt like there were three conversations that kept popping up at this year’s panels, parties and meetups.
I expect to be talking about these three areas again and again over the next year:
Small-group networking: If any one network came close to breaking out at this year’s conference, it was GroupMe, a service that allows users to send text messages to predefined groups of people. The network was a popular choice for conference goers looking to make sure they ended up at the same party as all their friends. It’s a great tool, no question. But I feel like it was just a part of a larger conversation about small-group networks.
GroupMe faces its fair share of direct competitors, such as the Facebook-owned Beluga. And there was decent buzz around a handful of other applications that use the small-group concept in other ways, such as the photo-sharing application LiveShare or Locaii, which lets users create conversations based on their physical location. I felt like the conversation wasn’t so much about GroupMe as it was about the notion that social networks aren’t one-size-fits-all anymore. Instead of treating everyone you know as one big online family, you can segment your conversations to fit your life.
Games are great, but… : I felt like there was a sea change in the conversation about games and marketing at SXSW. In his keynote speech, SCVNGR CEO Seth Priebatsch proclaimed that the next 10 years will be the “Decade of the Game Layer” — but that’s not the same as saying games are The Next Big Thing. In fact, Priebatsch’s talk wasn’t about traditional games at all; it was about game mechanics.
The drumbeat of social gaming has gotten louder over the past year — but the tone of the conversation at SXSW was markedly different from what I’ve seen at other social media conferences. The question on everyone’s lips wasn’t, “Where will the next Farmville come from?” but rather, “How can we use ideas from the world of gaming to build engagement?” That shift makes the conversation much more universal. Games may not make sense for every organization, but engagement is something everyone can benefit from.
Yet that conversation is still theoretical for many brands. I didn’t get the sense that Priebatsch or anyone else had a concrete notion of how to marry game mechanics to organizational goals in a holistic fashion. The questions are getting more interesting, but we may have to wait until next year’s show for someone to put forth a compelling answer.
Topical marketing: This is my dark horse pick for the year. The notion of latching on to current events to drive social media marketing isn’t new; yet it’s a topic that seemed to be increasingly popular at this year’s show. These conversations about responding to trending topics and riffing on viral memes weren’t being driven by new technology so much as a more sophisticated understanding of viral content. It’s harder to get people to talk about your brand on its own than it is to be part of a conversation people are already having.
Being able to react to the Web at large in real time can be a challenge for most brands, but based on what I heard at this year’s SXSW, it wouldn’t surprise me if we saw more companies work to develop faster, more agile processes for capitalizing on Web memes and other popular discussion topics.
Of course, lists like this one are subjective. These are observations gleaned from panel talks and chatting with fellow attendees, not hard data. And I didn’t go to every session or talk to every attendee — that would be impossible. You could easily have attended the same show and have come away with a very different list. So let’s hear it. Sound off in the comments and tell me what I missed this year.
What were the big trends you noticed at this year’s SXSW?
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I recorded 20+mins of it on my iphone. when i download it, I will let you know.
I'll agree with you on this one Jesse, I saw topical marketing as huge at this year's SXSW. We've heard "content is king" for ages now, but it seemed more than ever that CONTEXT is as well.
Agree gamification was big, and discussed in a larger context at SXSW. I summarize Seth Priebatsch's SXSW keynote points in a new post on my blog – Deconstructing Gamification’s Big Thinkers: Sebastian Deterding & Seth Priebatsch http://bit.ly/gt4xJL
I also agree with the addition of "social giving" as another underlying theme. How to donate to charity (aka Japan Tsunami victims), or how to set your organization up to raise funds for whatever charity was at least mentioned if not featured in many of the sessions I attended.
You are so right–this year felt like a transition year, where there was more talk about optimizing what we have and grappling with the move to mobile. There were few big ideas, for sure. I definitely agree about gaming and small group networking, but not so sure about the third. Also, the social change theme has continued to get bigger and more pervasive (which I appreciate). I also really liked the emphasis on analytics–not simply numbers, but narratives about impact and what those numbers really mean.
Jesse and Emily – Not sure if you made it to the @GaryVee keynote, but he was riveting (and thankfully I recorded most of it). It was the only session I witnessed where the entire "ballroom-sized" crowd gave a standing "O." Gary's entire focus was about the idea that context in social is truly the name of the game.
I believe an official video will be posted to the SXSW website in the future (and I agree, I was there and it was well worth the time); he also has a book about the Thank You Economy that probably communicates the same ideas.
Emily- I think you are alluding to content curation strategies. Context becomes the engagement platform with opt in as mandatory. Creating communities of meaning vs. simple interest through facet development.
Surprised the buzz wasn't higher at SXSW based on what can be done today with this technology today.
My recent post A new way to connect businesses with customers
I agree with most everyone here. Context is revolutionizing the landscape. And I agree with Terry, Gary's trailblazing the path of scaling relationships and how "giving a crap" is building tremendous momentum within social! I attended two days of SXSWi and I also found that Hashable was a huge hit down there – I was introduced to the power of the new application while in the crowds at the Convention Center – people were exchanging information with swipes of their thumb and capturing meaningful relationship data – and I guess recently they allow you to geo-tag those interactions!
Maybe this is natural evolution. Companies/marketers haven't gotten their arms around current social media tactics in order to tie-back to measurement and objectives. It's like taking a breath and getting your bearings back to what is useful v.s. hype.
Gaming and Gamification was center-stage at SXSW 2011 but you didn't talk about the best Gaming Session! Jane McGonigal talking about how "Gaming can make a better world" Here is a link to her TED talk http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_ca…
Great speaker and gripping subject matter.
My recent post Twitter Weekly Updates for 2011-03-13
Better group discussion will be baked into Facebook. Using yet another third-party app is a big fail in terms of large-scale adoption.
We have been discussing context for years, why in the world is this considered new? Few seem to really understand context and behavioral marketing except the companies serving up ads, and that "intelligence" is pretty ignorant, a decade later after this all started.
Content curation and facet development? Why not throw in resurfacing and recontextualizing while we're at it
I keep hearing generic topics and shake my head when they are considered "hot" and "new." Maybe I need to write more about this stuff and get out in front of the curve because I've been having these conversations with clients for many years.
Better yet, I should get my tail down to SXSW and see it all firsthand.
I was thinking along similar lines. My take is that people like to choose who they're going to believe and associate them with the novelty because they are listening to them. Also, with GaryV, there is the thought that he's done it at a personal level, and this crowd respects that. I was at SxSW speaking solo about influence, and context was part of it
My recent post Connecting the Stream with Action- Media Embraces Real Time
Unfortunately we weren't able to attend SXSW this year, so appreciate this post. I totally agree with this perspective "I felt like the conversation wasn’t so much about GroupMe as it was about the notion that social networks aren’t one-size-fits-all anymore. Instead of treating everyone you know as one big online family, you can segment your conversations to fit your life." The social networking space is changing rapidly and my guess is that you'll see more and more new players entering the game, targeting vertical markets. Think about how you relate to your social groups in real life…they're all different so why would you want to group them together? And I believe that we're starting to see an increase in social networking fatigue because of the random and irrelevant conversations we have to sift through on a daily basis. GroupMe is pretty cool. But also check out Zenergo if you have a few minutes. http://www.zenergo.com
Let's see if I get this right. The "big" news was:
a. Mailing lists and USENET groups are back (they actually never went away)
b. Games are getting retreads
c. Advertising driven by events continues to be popular.
Man, I sure hope the parties were worth the expense.
PS I applaud that the concept of "community," as in online communities, is finally synching itself up with real communities, where when you join in, you're expected to do something for the common good. The very first online communities evolved from that concept of giving. It only took about 20 years to rediscover this ethos, now that the gadgetry has (properly) become boring and beside the point.
Fantastic post! I agree with you on topical marketing – I think it's set to become a determining factor in social media strategies. (In so far as businesses can strategise for something so real-time.)
I agree, I felt like I was going to be exposed to the latest and greatest in upcoming online technology, and was a little let down. Some of the panels had nothing more to say than what we could Google and find out ourselves. This was my first SXSW so maybe the bar was set too high. However, there were some panels that did a great job preparing and delivering . And you are right on with this year's themes Gaming, Location based tracking and Social Shaping.
[...] Looking back at #SXSW: 3 ideas that dominated this year’s show [...]
Grateful for this succinct summary! I was unable to attend, and this post was like watching the last five minutes of the championship NCAA basketball match–not everything, but at least everything I need to know right now!
[...] http://smartblogs.com/socialmedia/2011/03/17/looking-back-at-sxsw-3-ideas-that-dominated-this-years-… [...]
We live in a bubble in tech/advertising. All these years after twitter's launch and 94% of US consumers still don't use it. But inside the industry it is talked about and used constantly. I think LBS Games are going by the wayside and are over hyped. I still have been unable to use SCVNGR even though it's on my Droid.
My point is normally the Next Big Thing are only big to us and not widespread as our egos tend to wish them to be.
Great round up. Topical marketing is definitely a trend. But has SXSW got too big? We think our parody of the Downfall Meme sums it up nicely – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z66_RnVLOJQ&fe…
Hi Jesse,
Great post – I love seeing how others are grouping the things they saw and heard at SXSWI. I agree with your comment about topical marketing – it's an important way to build relevance. The idea that resonated the most with me was having a "story arc" that would be expressed across channels and media..and sometimes the story would find itself expressed (perhaps by one of the story "characters") in response to something topical happening in the real world.
Here's my own SXSWi synopsis post, Jesse. It's entitled "SXSW 2011: Transmedia Content Marketing" http://bit.ly/fvE7Lz
My recent post SXSWi 2011- Noteworthy Exhibitor Profiles