SXSW Interactive 2011 was a whirlwind. Equal parts inspiration, education, networking frenzy and frat party, this year’s attendance up 40 percent (est.) which overwhelmed just about everything from internet connectivity to the participants themselves. An event of this scope is impossible to sum up neatly, so rather than try, here’s a few trends I picked up on.
1. Gaming the system
Seth Priebatsch, “Chief Ninja” at SCVNGR, gave a great presentation on the “game layer” which was both inspirational and insightful. SCVNGR is like a Groupon or Gowalla, but with more focus on rewarding actions by incorporating game style rewards into real world activities. He made a compelling case that while the social layer has defined the last decade, the game layer will define the next one and will have make an even bigger impact on our lives.
The premise is simple, everything in life can be viewed as a game. People like playing games because they tap into deeply ingrained motivational triggers. If we can align our goals with sound gaming mechanics like reward schedules, inclusive ownership and communal game play, we can solve everything from cheating in schools to global warming to selling more deodorant.
This notion of communal game play was a common thread through much of SXSWi and showed up in surprising ways. Even personal improvement got a community game play makeover. ‘Life hacking’ threaded through panels like “Can the Internet make us happy?” where Veer Gidwaney discussed Dailyfeats which views life as a series of daily accomplishments that earn, wait for it… real-life rewards. Completing tasks like getting up at a decent hour or eating fruits and vegetable can earn you a gift card.
Charities and social action fit nicely into this thread. A multitude of “Greater Good” panels discussed practical ways of leveraging communities and moving from Corporate Social Responsibility to Corporate Social Value so companies can make money by doing good. In other words, aligning with sound gaming principals.
SXSWi and its participants weren’t all talk, they put their money where their mouse is. Powered by CasueVox, the SXSW4Japan site launched within 24 hours of the beginning of the disaster, and raised over $50,000 after 3 only days. This is a great example of Real Time Engagement Marketing for Good executed flawlessly and should be viewed as a case study.
SXSW4Japan
2. Moving beyond the keyboard
Between Augmented Reality (AR), touch screens, device convergence (and operating system divergence), Kinect’ed TVs one thing was clear, how we interface with computers and data is changing fast. First the obvious, tablets, are in widespread use. Excluding smart phones, I’d guess that about 40 percent of the screens being used to blog/like/comment/tweet/note were iPads and a handful of tablet competitors.
Touchscreens were ubiquitous and utilitarian. Multiple panels explored the new design challenges this presented. Microsoft’s Kay Hoffmeester noted that we’re in the very early stages of touch interfaces and are limited by our ability to envision new ways of interacting with computers.
Combining touch gesture interfaces with augmented reality is where the magic happens. Panels with titles like “Non-Visual Augmented Reality and the Evaporation of the Interface” and “Augmented Reality for Marketers: Future of Consumer Interactions” explored what the “outernet” will look like. Augmented Reality allows us to view imagery and information on top of the real world which has widespread implications.
Right now we have clunky implementations like Yelp Monocle and the Layar AR browser which require users to hold up a phone to view AR. But at least two speakers swore we’ll soon all be wearing goggles which superimpose keyboards, data and inevitably advertising on top of the real world. The value beyond seeing restaurant recommendations is clear when you see Word Lens in action, which translates words on the fly.
- Word Lens In Action
Devices like the XBOX Kinect brought this brave new world back to earth and made it all seem achievable. Hacking the Kinect for serendipitous entertainment was a huge hit at the Frog Design Party. Now picture Kinect-like devices all over your house. No more remote controls. Just a few finger swipes in the air. Put on your AR goggles and you’re living in Snowcrash.
3. Community and Location-Based Services are still the killer apps
Even if the social layer is old hat, it was still a big part of the program. Now that social media is de rigor and part of every discussion, the focus is on refinement of tactics, usefullness and increasingly sophisticated uses for applying data from the social graph. The trade show was chock full of new ways of managing and leveraging social data and connections at the enterprise level. Phrases like “leveraging Facebook’s aggregated credibility score” were thrown around causally. Many tools for organizing social group communications were being hyped and seen in action in the wild. Some popular tools included:
- GroupMe which lets users start groups with the people already in their contacts. When a message is sent, everyone instantly receives it, like a private chat room that works via SMS on any phone. This was great for herding the cats to parties and networking events.
- LocalMind is a bit like a mashup between Yelp and Quora.
- Crowdbeacon was another similar service just brought to my attention.
These tools all lost their value when the phone and internet connections slowed to a crawl. Phones became the only reliable working tool. Surprisingly, my calls never got dropped.
