SXSWi – Last day at the geek airport

The future of Radio
This panel featured one of the best (if a little over gesticulating) panel chairs who really directed the conversation regarding the interaction of internet radio vs. traditional terrestrial radio. The panel itself is pretty impressive, with a DJ from Soma, Roman Mars the guy from This American Life, the president of Bjorks label, Celia Hirschman, and the owner of Pandora, Tim Westergren.

Whether you like it or not starbucks is a gatekeeper of a certain type of culture…indy, non-tradtional radio does the same thing. -Hirschman

Interesting thought, that there are certain cultural entities that introduce us to whole cultural components, (e.g. Starbucks to Latte’s). Since you can have 80,000 songs at your finger tips in the form of your ipod these days, it becomes overwhelming and unmanageable. The radio stations act as the cultural gate keepers for music.

Bennie Burns Keynote

Who owns these (internet) clouds that are raining money ?
– Burns

What’s coming: the end of the free access to the network cloud. (interesting parallels between the the new AT&T logo and the second death star). Content providers will begin charging the users and original content producers for the privilege of using their networks. Of course everything the guy said last year was dead wrong, so here’s hoping he’s going for a repeat.

The End…

The music crowd has started to show up today, with a lot more distressed-emo-types with pink hair roaming the building (or hell a purple suit with purple boots, whatever flaots your boat, man). If anything this festival makes this town even weirder which is a good thing. I will say this about the interactive portion: Just because you know alot about a specific subject matter, doesn’t mean you should get up and talk about it…there’s been some really wretched public speakers at this thing. My overall experience is good, but there’s room for improvement.

That and $5.50 for a four inch pizza is just plain stupid.

Bruce Sterlings up next, and then a blessed day off…

He says it better than me:
Bruce Sterling

They bureaucrats are so busy trying to monetize this country, that they’re turning us into a bannana-republic with rockets…

Only in America do dying phone comapnies lobby the federal government successfully….

If I’ve learned anything hanging out with Eastern-European dissidents, it’s never make a descison out of fear…

When you can comprehend poetry, it means your hearts not broken…
-Sterling

At least that’s what I think he said. I was fairly engrossed. Man he opens up on American culture and the death of it by obesity, creationism and stupid politics.