Hoard the Hangovers, SXSW Interactive Kicks Off

First in a series of articles by Ariel Waldmen covering the famed SXSW Interactive Show in Austin.

South by Southwest (SXSW) Interactive kicked off on Friday with a panel dedicated to "pop the cherries of the SXSW virgins". The How to Rawk SXSW panel was headed up by a variety of familiar names and faces, including Min Jung Kim (Photobucket), Glenda Bautista (Agendacide), Tantek Celik (Technorati), Nick Douglas (Look Shiny, formerly Valleywag), Andrew Huff (Gapers Block), Lynne d Johnson (fastcompany), and our friend Tony Pierce (LAist). Sharing swigs out of a bottle of Jack Daniel's the panelists calmed the crowd's expectations.

Overwhelming seems to be the sense on the street about SXSW. With hundreds of panels, speakers, and parties to attend, it's easy to lack time management. Thankfully, the panelists help tell you where to cut out the excess fat from your daily intake. Conferences are known to load up on the junk advertising, and this one is no exception. With his Jack Daniel's swigs well underway, Nick Douglas flipped through the multitude of junk. "Wired is the Cosmo of tech magazines," Douglas stated as he threw another conference magazine handout into the trash pile.

Equipped with hipster glasses and widgets, Tantek Celik educated the audience on how to effectively stalk fellow SXSW attendees. Obviously, with an array of bloggers, educators, and industry experts it can be difficult to manage the inevitable "blogasm". Dodgeball, Consumating, Twitter, and Flickr were all recommendations to keep track of the fire hose of content coming through. "What happens at SXSW, stays on Flickr", Celik grinned. Despite Celik revealing his tool to the audience, there's always secret happenings going on at SXSW that no tools can help you with. Unless of course, they're the tool managing the guest list.

Our SXSW photo album can be seen here.