SXSWi Roundup

 

 

DirecTV last week "gave viewers a front row seat to the legendary South By Southwest (SXSW) music festival with DIRECTV SXSW Live, a live broadcast concert series featuring 24 performances broadcast in HD and 5.1 surround sound direct from Austin, Texas."

Along with Miller Lite, DirecTV was also one of the festival’s sponsors. But the festival wasn’t all just punk rock and debauchery (well, depending on where you went); there was a strong element of green responsibility to be seen and heard among all the live acts. The Festival purchased Renewable Energy Credits (RECs) from the City of Austin to negate its carbon footprint of 263 tons generated during the planning and delivery of its 2007 event. For 2008, plans included:

…offering all delegates 24/7 access to biofuel made from cotton seed waste for their vehicles; eliminating all bottled water for staff and volunteers and using municipal water fountains instead; featuring environmental issues in the conference programs and offering tips to delegates on how to have a greener SXSW.

Of course, bands and music performance all around Austin is cool, and indie films are always interesting. But the Interactive Awards presented are what really strike our Really Rocket Science imagination. 

The list of finalists alone is worth a good day of web-browsing. From the intriguing World Without Oil to the useful Wikinvest, a person could kill a large part of a Monday (ahem) just perusing the creative websites.

Also noteworthy are the winners and honorees of the Dewey Winburne Community Service Award, honoring the memory of one of the key co-founders of the SXSW Interactive festival.

Finally, we’ve long been fans of the XO Laptop, better known as the $100 (now $200) laptop. In Dallas, the XO users group had their 4th meeting to coincide with the SXSW festival, while at the festival itself, David Seah used his OLPC as a conversation starter to meet new people. (Meanwhile, the city of Birmingham recently inked a $3 million deal to provide XOs to every child in grades 1 through 8.)

So if you missed the festival — get browsing