Digital Lifescapes

The following is a list of exhibiting vendors or companies that presented at panel sessions and captured my attention at the SXSW Interactive event -- last week in Austin, Texas. I encourage you to check out their Web sites to learn more. Music Metric provides insight and understanding into consumer behavior online globally for the entertainment industry. They aggregate and analyze all music related information available on the web. From websites mentioning an artist or release, the social networks frequented by music fans, peer to peer networks used to trade music and anywhere music fans leave a comment, they aim to be there and to be tracking the activity. OverBlog is a blogging platform in constant evolution. They say it's the biggest blog platform in Europe (based in Paris, France) and right now is undergoing massive development for a new release in 2012. OverBlog already has many features: including communities, monetization agreements, lots of statistics and a user g...

The following is a list of exhibiting vendors or other companies that presented at panel sessions and captured my attention at the SXSW Interactive event -- earlier this week in Austin, Texas. I encourage you to check out their Web sites to learn more. LeNewz is based on data discovery technology that mines and analyzes news feeds to identify main topics and group them into a picture. The power of leNewz is twofold: it summarizes today's news on a single screen, and enables zooming in and out of news pages from multiple media sources. Storify is a way to tell stories using social media such as Tweets, photos and videos. You search multiple social networks from one place, and then drag individual elements into your story. You can re-order the elements and also add text to give context to your readers. Yapper allows anyone to simply build mobile applications without writing a single line of code. It goes beyond simple mobile apps to offer a mobile publishing platform for m...

Brand marketers in a variety of different industries are beginning to accelerate their multimedia production and distribution efforts. They're acting more like non-fiction storytellers and commercial publishers, as they create new forms of digital content. This established trend was one of the significant themes at South by Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) 2011. In addition, the early-adoption of Transmedia Storytelling techniques -- by a relative few forward-looking organizations -- was the noteworthy emerging theme. I attended several conference sessions on these topics. Here's my summary of the commentary shared at the event and the apparent implications to savvy marketers. Don't You Dare Call Them Journalists "Brave New World: Debating Brands' Role as Publishers" produced a lively discourse among panelists who believe that purchasing ad space in a trade publication is obsolete. Instead, now marketers just create their own site on the topic. Howev...

I’m attending SXSW Interactive once again in March. As in prior years, over the course of five days, I’ll assess the overall themes that garner my attention and then write a summary of the most compelling storyline that emerges. Based on the buzz leading up to the event, and having reviewed the current schedule of SXSWi Sessions, I can somewhat predict three key theme possibilities: The previously independent Music, Film and Interactive festivals will continue to converge around common-ground -- as an example, with Transmedia or cross-communication projects becoming more mainstream activities this year.   The term “User-Generated Content” will likely disappear as a description applied to all low-budget content creators -- it’s inappropriate for the multitude of talented writers, musicians and videographers that produce quality digital media.   Bloggers that contribute to Content Factories (aka content farms), and the companies that host their material, will be targeted as...

The following is a short list of exhibiting vendors, service providers and others that captured my attention at the SXSW Interactive event earlier this week in Austin, Texas. I encourage you to check out their Web sites to learn more. The two basic themes I noticed were new tools that aggregate your online presence on various social media sites -- most are attempts at creating a dashboard-like solution. The other noteworthy theme was a variety of easy to use do-it-yourself content management and microsite publishing tools, with a resurgence of basic HTML page designs (SEO-friendly CSS rather than Adobe Flash). Awareness has created what they call "social marketing software" -- it's an integrated good-enough solution to building online communities for those who prefer not to apply the free best-of-breed tools that essentially do the same thing. Sobees created what they call "my social client" -- the latest release adds Digg to the list of supported ser...

As the South by Southwest Festival of 2009 comes to an end, let's acknowledge the open unConference events -- as people from all over the world connected together and joined their Indie Music or Independent Film "community of interest" while in Austin, Texas. I've launched the GeoBrava Media project, in celebration of all the independent talent that stays true to their art-form -- passionately creating new digital media content -- regardless that their work is considered unCommercial by the legacy big-media companies. Free and Open Distribution Models The rise of the unLabel music production and open distribution model is a revolt in response to the traditional record label's business practices. Ditto, with the rise of the unStudio video production and open distribution phenomenon. A multitude of social media networking sites are creating the new open marketplace online, where the vast market supply is freely exposed to the awaiting eclectic market demand. The ...

There once was a time when a few big media companies ruled over the news and entertainment industry. All was calm, as long as everyone in a position of power agreed to play by the same dysfunctional rules. Access to the legacy content distribution ecosystem was tightly controlled and longstanding restraint of trade barriers were successful in ensuring that most attempts at innovation never saw the light of day. Tactics like pay-for-play payola schemes were able to perpetuate the content scarcity model that fueled the industry's efforts to limit and manipulate what was considered popular (pop), and how it was going to be marketed to the awaiting mass-media audience. The macroeconomic theory of supply and demand can not reach its full potential in a closed marketplace model that restricts access to the chosen few participants. However, the oligopoly regime of legacy big media companies loathed any notion of creating an open market. Re-Booting the Media Business Model Make no mis...

Austin, Texas, is the most Digital Savvy city, according to a new market analysis from consumer and media research firm Scarborough Research. Twelve percent of Austin adults are Digital Savvy, and they are almost twice as likely as the national average to be in this leading-edge consumer segment. Las Vegas, NV, Sacramento and San Diego are also leading Digital Savvy cities, with 10 percent of their residents having this higher level of technological orientation and adoption. Nationally, six percent of all consumers are classified as Digital Savvy. The ranking of Digital Savvy cities is part of a just-released Scarborough market study report. In terms of purchasing patterns, Digitally Savvy consumers are a luxury-oriented group. They are 56 percent more likely than the average consumer to own or lease a luxury vehicle; 175 percent more likely to have spent $500 or more on men's or women's business clothing during the past year and 49 percent more likely to own a second home. Onl...

AngelouEconomics has released their first comprehensive economic impact assessment on the City of Austin from the South by Southwest (SXSW) Music, Film and Interactive Conference and Festival. Few entertainment industry events in the world can compare to the depth and breadth of SXSW -- given the range of activities, performers, presenters, and visitor attendees. In 2007, SXSW featured nine days of industry conference activities, six days of trade shows, a five-night music festival featuring over 1,500 artists in more than 70 venues, plus nine days and nights of film festival with more than 275 screenings in six venues. In total, it's estimated that the event last year was attended by more than 125,000 people. According to the AngelouEconomics assessment, the 2007 SXSW events were directly and indirectly responsible for injecting about $95 million into Austin's local economy. Digital Media Entrepreneurs That said, while the creative residents of Austin contribute to the city...

Scarborough Research found that Austin, Texas; Portland, Oregon; San Francisco, California; and Seattle, Washington are the top markets for people who read or contribute to blogs. Fifteen percent of adults in Austin are bloggers , and they are 78 percent more likely than the national average to be in this consumer group. Fourteen percent of Portland adults are bloggers; followed by San Francisco and Seattle, with 13 percent of adults blogging in these cities. Nationally, eight percent of all U.S. consumers are bloggers. The top cities for bloggers have tech savvy and youth in common. Thirty-seven percent of Austin adults are between the ages of 18-34; they are 20 percent more likely than the national average to be within this age range. Adults in Austin and Portland are attracted to new technology. Austin adults are 17 percent more likely than adults nationally to be a part of a household that owns a DVR and 51 percent more likely to be a part of a household that owns a PDA. ...

Austin City Limits is being webcast live once again, sponsored by AT&T. If you have a broadband connection, then select the 500k radio button on the top right corner of the page for the best audio/video reception. Enjoy!

This year the South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive Festival, a conference targeting web technology innovators and digital creatives from across the globe, will celebrate the 10th anniversary of its SXSW Web Awards, designed to honor web designers and developers who fuel the online world. Finalists in sixteen categories have been previously announced. Winners will be revealed at the upcoming SXSW Web Awards Ceremony presented by Adobe on Sunday, March 11 at 7:30 pm, during the SXSW Interactive Festival. This event will be hosted by web celebrity Ze Frank, best-known for his popular and comedic online videoblog, "The Show with Ze Frank." Over the past ten years, SXSW Web Awards entries have been a indicator of online trends and there's been a significant improvement in the overall caliber and complexity of entries with the evolution of dynamic content, web standards and coding technologies such as CSS. Current trends such as Web 2.0 and the growth of social networking si...

The South by Southwest (SXSW) Film Conference and Festival announced its complete lineup of panels, short films, retrospectives, and new additions to the feature film schedule. The panels lineup will conclude on Tuesday, March 13 with a special session entitled "Ready for Primetime: TV Comedy Today" featuring notable TV performers and producers such as Seth MacFarlane ('Family Guy'), Al Jean ('The Simpsons'), Rob Corddry (Fox's new show 'The Winner,' 'The Daily Show'), and more. Other notable additions to the panels lineup include: "A Conversation with Bill Paxton" on Saturday, March 10, the addition of filmmaker John Cameron Mitchell ('Shortbus') to the Monday, March 12 session "Sex Scenes Stay Hard," and a multimedia presentation by acclaimed animator Emily Hubley. The complete panels lineup and schedule will be on the SXSW Web site on Friday, February 16. "The panels aspect of the SXSW Film Festival has a...