SXSW has become the barometer for the web. While SXSW gets people to vote on what they would like to see I want to take a look at what has been submitted and accepted as possible options. I’ve sorted this list so we can see who the big players are. You can meet me at the bottom of the list for a little analysis.
content (28)
business / funding / entrepreneurial (26)
web design / graphics (24)
community (20)
miscellaneous (19)
social networks (18)
education / sociological (17)
hacks / programming (16)
blogging (15)
branding / marketing (15)
work / career (15)
web 2.0 (15)
DIY / creativity (14)
how to (14)
user generated / open source (13)
gaming / virtual worlds (12)
web audio / web video (12)
politics / social activism (12)
wireless / digital convergence (11)
CSS / standards (11)
browsers / web apps (9)
usability / accessibility (9)
social networking (0)
Content is king. No surprise there but users are the ones making it now. I don’t see this getting smaller any time soon. If user generated content doesn’t have it’s own conference yet I think it will be coming up in the near future. This is also inline with how high up the list community is.
Business and Entrepreneurship is still a large topic while we are in this web boom. It was also a big topic last year and I mostly found it annoying. If you read the blogs about web start ups and how tos these panels do not bring much else to the table. I think at this point even I could run a panel on “How to Shoestring Your Startup”.
Design seemed a bit light last year so hopefully that will pick up. There is a good amount of traditional design mixed in with new techniques and ideas. I’m excited.
The extremes are more interesting so lets jump to the bottom.
Not much on CSS, just like last year. Most of these panels seem a little stale. I can only complain about the W3C so much.
Accessibility is still small and the web still has a long way to go. I can’t tell if this will stay a niche topic or if it will ever take off like CSS did. Most people seem to be awear of it but don’t want to do much about it.
No social networking? Okay I’m biased since I work at one. I think social networking is starting to loose some of it’s shine. Facebook jumped the shark when they claim they were worth 2 billion and MySpace jumped when they added horoscopes and books. They are little more then a portal now. Social networks have been so successful they are just being integrated in to everything. That’s why the bill in the Senate to block MySpace also accidentally blocks 90% of every other web site on the web.