SXSW Interactive
Conference and Festival

In celebration of “the most innovative and finest self-published books and the people behind them” Blurb has launched The Photography.Book.Now International Salon and Symposium. Photographers can submit their books to compete for a number of prizes, with a grand prize of $25,000. Photography.Book.Now includes a traveling salon showcasing the winners of the book competition. The salon will be on view at the San Francisco Awards Ceremony, international Meet-ups, and at the Photography.Book.Now symposia in San Francisco, London, and New York.

Blurb was one of the innovative companies exhibiting at the SXSW Interactive / Film Trade Show + Exhibition this year. Contact Katie King to learn how your company can get exposure at the 2009 SXSW Interactive Festival.

From best to not-so-best, what follows are panel ratings from the 2008 SXSW Interactive Festival according to feedback forms completed by attendees at the completion of each session. Each panel title is linked to its description on the SXSW website.

Ratings are based on a 1 to 5 scoring system, with 5 being the most favorable rating and 1 being the least favorable. Panels NOT listed on this page received 10 or less total feedback responses.

Also posted below are the average ratings for each day of the event. The figure in parenthesis indicates the rating for the corresponding day of the 2007 SXSW Interactive Festival.

A brief word of caution: these ratings are by no means a foolproof or scientific method of evaluation. For many sessions, one registrant will say he / she absolutely hated the panel, while the next registrant will say that the session at hand was their favorite presentation of SXSW. Perhaps this very wide range of ratings is attributable to the diverse range of people who attend the event. One improvement we plan to implement in 2009 is to better label whether sessions are geared for beginners, intermediate or experts in the given topic.

Please feel free to comment on what your favorite panel at the 2008 SXSW Interactive Festival is by emailing interpanels@sxsw.com. Your feedback is always valuable for us in continuing to improve the event.

Friday panels - 3.81 (3.65)
Saturday panels - 3.92 (3.82)
Sunday panels - 3.92 (3.64)
Monday panels - 4.15 (3.72)
Tuesday panels - 4.20 (3.55)

Average overall rating for 2008 - 4.00 (3.68)

Individual panel ratings after the jump.

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Yahoo, Microsoft and Google… what do these companies have in common (other than plays for world domination)? All three exhibited in the Interactive / Film Trade Show + Exhibition this past March. The three-day exhibition is where tech players big and small come to strut their stuff. Get your brand in front of the tastemakers that make up SXSW Interactive next March.

Contact Katie King to receive the 2009 marketing brochure as soon as it hits in August.

Above image courtesy of Vicki Lalwani.

Headed to Webvisions later this month? Then don’t miss Bike Hugger Mobile Social Portland on May 21. What’s a “Mobile Social Event” you ask? According to the folks at Bike Hugger, it’s “like a Tupperware party for bike enthusiasts, only without the beehive hairdo or weird cult-like party games.”

Similar to the event during SXSW Interactive this past March, the Portland version will feature an urban ride, reception and plenty of schwag – including a free registration to the 2009 SXSW Interactive Festival.

Click on over to Bike Hugger for complete details on this event that celebrates bicycle culture like no other.

SXSWclick is a year-round initiative created to showcase short-form storytelling via mobile devices and the web. Entries for this year’s competition are now being accepted, so make sure to enter your innovative short film or video before the final deadline for submissions on June 13.

In addition to cool software and prizes (from Productiontrax.com, Gear Software, Mariner Software, Eye Scream Factory and Movie Outline Software), winners in each of the five categories will automatically be invited to screen at the 2009 SXSW Film Festival next March! Confirmed jurors include veterans such as Doug Benson, Ron Mann, Eugene Mirman, Jeffrey Tambor, Anish Savjani and Mary Sweeney.

Visit SXSWclick.com to watch top entries from 2007 and find out how you can get in on all the small-screen action.

Pictured above: Peterson’s Savings and Loan took home both the “Old-School Shorts” and “Popularity Contest” awards in 2007.