SXSW Interactive Community Blog

Here’s a little bit more about Ektron’s Day Stage presentation for web developers and designers, “Putting Buzzwords to Work on the Web.”

Ektron’s chief technical officer Bill Cava, a former architect at Lycos and a man with a serious passion for Internet technology, software architecture and user-centric interface design, will be discussing Web 2.0 buzzword technologies, such as blogging, RSS, tagging, AJAX and threaded discussions, and their practical application using web content management tools.

During the 30-minute session, Bill will take you through:

·         The promise of interactive websites – what the whole Web 2.0 concept can mean to your organization
·         Content, content, content – create, organize, search, syndicate
·         Community-building with your website – building community is about facilitating conversation between you and your site visitors and among the site visitors themselves using site membership, structured blogging, threaded discussions (AKA forums), surveys, alerts and RSS, and other cool social networking tools
·         Common challenges in site design and development – what do you want your website to do?
·         Knitting disparate technologies together – many individual Web 2.0 technologies work on an ASP/hosted service model, but you need to keep control over your data, uptime and security. What can you do?
·         The importance of standards – current standards can help you gain some benefits around search-ability, accessibility, reach (cross-browser and cross-device) and maintenance/scalability
Come see the show at 4:30 p.m. on Sunday, March 12, or 11:00 a.m. on Tuesday, March 14. You can also talk hot web technology with Bill in Ektron’s booth, #L5, and register to win one very hard-to-get Xbox 360.

I asked the always friendly and approachable Hugh Forrest what his advice was for parking, and here is what he said:

i’d aim for the Austin Convention Center lot at 5th & Red River (just east of Hilton)

this lot is one block from Austin Convention Center.

cost to park per day is $7.00 (i think it is cash only)

Here’s a great SXSW Interactive win-win: Enter to win an XBOX 360 AND discover the Web CMS that’s being used to power some of the most buzz-worthy interactive sites on the Web today. How? Stop by Ektron’s Booth at SXSWi (Booth L5) to get your name in the game for the XBOX giveaway. At the same time, spend 360 seconds with us to see the Web tools behind sites such as Dove’s worldwide Campaign for Real Beauty and DecibelMagazine.com (up for the Best CSS Site in the SXSW Web Awards).

You can also catch Ektron on the Adobe Day Stage Cafe twice during SXSWi for “Putting Buzzwords to Work on the Web.” These 30-minute sessions cut through the hype and show you how Web 2.0, blogging, tagging, AJAX, and other buzzwords can be put to work in your Web projects using new Web content/site management tools. Times for Ektron on the Day Stage Cafe are:

• Sunday, March 12, 4:30 to 5 p.m. and
• Tuesday, March 14, 11 to 11:30 a.m.

A collegue and I are finally making it down to SXSW for the Interactive conference. We are representing our interactive marketing agency, and are really interested in meeting any new and emerging media companies. If anyone would like to meet and discuss the state of online marketing, we would love the opportunity to chat.

Please leave a comment or contact us here. Thanks.

We’re quarantining off a small area on the first floor of the Austin Convention center and filling it with Legos and other kinds of modular toys. When panels are too crowded or you’re just looking to get creative and make new friends, swing by the Playpen. Build something no one else would think of.

We’ll be adding a Flickr feed at the playpen’s blog to share all photos tagged with interactive playpen or iaplaypen.

If you don’t have anything to bring, why not give us a small donation? We’re not organized or financed by SXSW, but we want to make sure we have enough fun to go around. Thanks for your help! Afterwards, the toys will be donated to a (TBD) Austin area organization.

Just want to let everyone know about a little competition we’re running this year at SXSWi, giving away two ipod nanos on every day of the event.

We wanted to come up with something that will help people get to know each other, because really that’s what SXSW is all about.

Everyone’s conference lanyard will have this URL printed on it, which should get lots of people taking photos, uploading them, tagging them, and hopefully making some new friends in the process.

Just getting the word out early about this so that as many people as possible know what’s going on.

I made it (finally) to my first SXSW last year. Spoke on two panels. Met a few heros. Saw a few bands play live. Had a great time. This year I’m moderating the final panel on the final day… we’ll see who straggles in. It should be a good one, though, featuring a few people from Make Magazine and a few other D.I.Y. media production types. The panels called “Consumer as Producer” or something like that. More on this when I’m not in a hurry to get out of my office and get to a political meeting. (Or didn’t you know that Democracy for America is still going strong?).

Meanwhile, check out my personal blog, of course, or the one I write for the man!

Hi, my name is Angela. This year will be my virigin voyage to the Austin area and the SXSW festival. Currently, I publish a running blog called, Tulip’s Blog. I got involved with blogging as a result of my husband. There is so much to learn and so many other blogs to visit. I am very excited to attend the festival and explore the area.
Are there any pointers that those of you returning would give to me, the novice, about the festival?