As mentioned in our Top 10 SXSW Interactive stories, SXSW 2009 has come and gone. While I didn’t spend much time participating in the music portion of SXSW (too busy recovering from interactive), I heard it was great: full of great bands and secret shows, as well as the usual the people versus the RIAA battles. Here are the Top 10 stories we found from SXSW Music 2009:

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SXSW 2009 is officially over. The geeks have gone back to work, the musicians have packed their instruments, and everyone finally has coverage back on their iPhones. This year, SXSW was an event to remember. Here are the Top 10 stories we found from SXSW Interactive 2009:

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• SXSW: AT&T;’s Spotty Service Frustrates iPhone Users | Epicenter from Wired.com (tsurch.com)
• The Real Purpose of SXSWi (socialmediatoday.com)
• Switching off the Twitter hashtag overload (nevillehobson.com)

SXSW Interactive 2009 has come and gone, and the final day ended with some hits and misses. For those of you who spent all day packing and driving to the airport, here is what you missed:

• Panels on the last day are typically pretty sparse considering many people have headed back to their real jobs and the few that are left are either exhausted or hungover (or both). I went to one early on, though, that was pretty darn good: UR Blog Sux and Print is Dead. Of course, any time you have the guy from Stuff White People Like and I Can Has Cheez Burger on a panel, it’s bound to be informative and funny. One of my favorite questions to come out of the panel was “It’s easy to end a book, but how do you end a blog?” Great question because once you start a blog, it can be difficult to end it. I’d also like to thank I Can Has Cheez Burger for the cool cat giveaway. He is so fat and cute! (Definitely check out this panel’s podcast later. You’ll laugh and learn.)

• Has anyone else noticed all the Macs present at the fest (not just all the iPhones)? There have been very few PCs. Is this because the PC people followed my advice (and others’ advice) and left their computers in their hotel room? Those 17 inch Macs are kinda hard to climb over…

• The keynote today between Guy Kawasaki and Chris Anderson was pretty good, and very packed. The first five or so minutes were dedicated to making fun of Sarah Lacy and last year’s crazy keynote with Mark Zuckerberg since there had not been a noteworthy moment like that yet this year (oh SXSW… have you not learned that safe can be boring?). Chris Anderson did a good job talking about the psychology of free and business models around the “freemium” concept. His book, releasing in June, should be a good read.

• Interesting idea came out of the keynote: in large, popular panels, you should have to pay to ask a question. That way, when you plug your company throughout your question (was there a question in there?) at least we know you paid to advertise. The going rate at the keynote was $20 to a World Hunger Fund. (Can I get a tax receipt when I pay/donate for my question?) The pay-per-question model also forces an answer from the panelist(s). As Guy said, “Hey, he paid 20 bucks, you have to answer!”

• The music kids slowly started trickling into the convention center today to register and check in their band mates. You can always tell when the music section starts because everyone starts to get more eccentric. Though, for the past couple of years it has been girls with 60s bangs and Amy Winehouse/Duffy cat-eye eyeliner and guys in skinny jeans and flat ironed hair. Pretty much a bunch of Gwen Stefani and Jonas Brothers look-alikes. Way to fight conformity…

• One of the best panels I went to during the fest was the last one of the fest: From Blog to Book Deal. Guy Kawasaki was on this panel as well, but it was panelist Stephanie Klein who really stood out in my eyes. She had a couple of very interesting tidbits during the panel. First, when you are a blogger who gets a book deal, you have to be prepared to talk in addition to writing. Most people don’t think of the public engagements a relatively isolated blogger must make in order to sell a book. Also, you have to get creative when marketing your book yourself, you can’t just wait for your publisher to market your book. For her book Moose: A Memoir of Fat Camp, she went to Torrid (a teen plus sized clothing store) to sell her book in their stores. I think her advice translates well to small businesses as well. Overall, a great panel to end on.

That’s all for SXSW Interactive 2009. It’s been fun! Keep following us on Twitter @OneSpot for curated news around the web and OneSpot updates. And, if you are going to SXSW Music, be sure to grab our music widget for the latest news in parties, panels, and more!

Day 4 is done and there is only one more day of interactive left (then the music kids come to town!). For those of you who spent all day grabbing all the free swag you could as the trade show closed for the last time, here is what you missed:

• The Weblog Awards, aka the Bloggies, was today and I must say I liked it better than the Web Awards… and not just because sites other than Hulu stood a chance. Confessions of a Pioneer Woman took the top award (as well as a couple of others) and Cake Wrecks took multiple awards as well. There were a lot of female bloggers taking awards too, which was quite refreshing (represent!). Dan Rubin performed a great bloggies song before the grand prize winner was announced which was very entertaining (if anyone has lyrics or the mp3 or the video, let me know!) Check out the winners here and congratulations to all!

• There was a great panel this morning “Beyond Aggregation,” but the panelists made things too complicated. Not too toot our own horn, but you don’t need to create a Google Reader then contact your friends to see what’s in their Google Reader and do searches and… well, I think I got lost at step 1. OneSpot allows anyone to discover, curate, and share the best of the web for your audience, in one simple online app. My life is complicated enough people.

• It was really sunny and warm today. REALLY! For those people who left on Sunday, Austin is rarely rainy and dreary. You all missed it! (And, of course, it got super sunny on day 4 when everyone is doubly hungover. Figures.)

• Maybe I’m just uncool, but I didn’t really get the importance of the keynote today. Maybe someone else could explain to me why laser tagging/laser graffiti is panel-worthy? I tuned in and out when he was talking about some girl’s derriere and how shopping at Wal-Mart to create his lasers was “Open Source.” I think I really just didn’t get it…

• The panel Kick Ass or Suck was in another one of those chairless rooms (which sucked), but the discussion was great. Just a note to SXSW: these core conversations are really valuable and everyone wants to be in them but they are in the smallest rooms. I realize that in order to keep the conversation going, you need to keep it small, but perhaps you could book the same conversations at multiple times? (Example: Twitter for Marketers on Sunday and Tuesday?) Or, you could just do what Austin Film Festival does (and what you do for some of the film panels) and have people pre-register for those conversations. Might help cut down on the opening and closing of doors…

• There’s just one day left for Interactive. The trade show closed up today, panels are starting to thin, and parties are getting smaller and smaller. On this last day of SXSWi, I would love for you all to think about the best moments, the worst moments, and all in between and let me know what you thought of the fest this year. Was it better/worse than previous years (if you are not a newbie)? Are you attending next year? I’d love to hear your thoughts below.

That’s all for day 4. Keep following us on Twitter @OneSpot and grab our widget for the latest in SXSWi news!

Day 3 is over (after what seemed like a much longer day). For those of you who spent all day in the lounges or in line for drinks at the Block Party (#9), here is what you missed:

• There were some great panels today on social media (beginning to think the phrase of the week is “social media”). Twitter still seems to be the champ with marketers, though many of them still seem like they haven’t reached their best practices with it. Someone mentioned to me after a panel that they hadn’t heard MySpace brought up at all which surprised them (didn’t really surprise me). I told him I though the reason was it was organically heading back to it’s core of music promotion and discovery, plus a ton of teens and tweens adding sparkles to their modules. But what do you all think? Why has MySpace been seemingly absent from these all important conversations on “social media”?

• Anyone else need a chiropractor after sitting on the floor through panels? I felt like it was story time in those core conversation rooms. Would chairs have really made that much of a difference in the number of people they could jam into one room? I’m getting too old for this…

• In years past at the Trade Show, there has always been one booth that has had a free beer happy hour. Pretty popular. This year, SXSW decided to have many MANY booths with a happy hour today, calling it the Block Party. Saturday at 4, the trade show had moderate traffic. Today during the Block Party, it was crazy busy. I overheard someone say, “It’s amazing what free beer will do for a trade show.” I’m not sure it helped the participating booths at all because everyone was just looking for the best mojitos and beer offerings, not necessarily paying any attention to the companies distributing the drinks.

• Mr. Spam (@MrSpam) arm wrestled Jungledisk’s (@Jungledisk)Pink Gorilla today on the East Balcony. I missed it because I couldn’t find the East Balcony (darn that convention center!) Who won? Anyone got pictures or video of the beat down?

• Did anyone attend the keynote today? Who was it even? For those of you who missed the Tony Hsieh Zappos keynote yesterday, here is a graphical representation. I think most of us today were either trade-showing, lounging, or at the ever entertaining and “ooh and ahh”-ing Adobe Panel: Getting the most out of CS4. Holy cow, it is amazing what advances have been made from CS3 to CS4. Let me sum it up for you: Greg Rewis had PS, DW, FW, and FL running on a laptop at the same time. There were many a speechless designer in the audience. (Too early for a Christmas wish list?)

• The Web Awards were tonight! You can tell it’s day 3 when the drink line is shorter than the food line. Priorities change when you are recovering from recovering (could be most got their fix at the Block Party). Food looked pretty good though, the lines were just too long and the plates too small for me to partake (and what were those green noodles!). Congratulations to all the winners!

That’s all for day 3. Keep following us on Twitter @OneSpot and grab our widget for the latest in SXSWi news!

Day 2 is done and has continued to meet (and in some cases exceed) expectations. For those of you who spent all day recovering from last night’s parties, here is what you missed:

• The lounges this year are great, and much easier to find than last year. My favorite, though, has to be the Mashery Circus Mashimus lounge. It’s just fun to be there… the popcorn, coffee bar, and quirky t-shirts don’t hurt either. On the other hand, when I visited the Tech Set bloggers lounge, there were 20 or so people all with their noses in their laptops (it might have gotten more lively later, but when I went, that’s the way it was). If I wanted to try to talk to people busy typing away at their laptop, I might as well stay in the first floor hallways. It’s a shame, too, because their Rat Pack party last night was pretty decent.

• Trade Show this year was well populated, despite the economy. What was surprising, though, was the number of film booths there were. In years past, major companies like Yahoo and Google would take up huge blocks of the floor, with very few film reps sprinkled in between. I think it’s great for the film folks because now there is actually a reason to enter the trade show other than free t-shirts and goodies.

• Everyone knows the Zappos keynote was good. That’s because everyone was in that room or in one of the simulcast rooms. We apologize to the other panels during that time (I’m sure we’ll remember to check out your podcasts later…).

• The travel blogging panel (#sxswtravel) had grab bags for each attendant ready on our chairs when we walked in. I felt like a Fashion Week attendee! The bag had better swag than the official interactive panel (did anyone else get the leather notepad. How sweet was that!) What made it even better was that the panel/discussion was really good. Made me want to start traveling and blogging about it myself!

• I learned at the Entrepreneurs’ Lounge about a new live music search site that launched today: Turn2Live.com. It’s currently only Austin based, but the site has an interesting search engine that plays upon psychographics within genres. So you could search for pop and then use a Simon looking color wheel to select subsets like “quirky” or “sunny.” Not sure if it will beat Do512 and their music gurus, but you might check out their launch parties tomorrow, Sunday during interactive and Thursday during Music.

• Parties, per usual, were lined around the block. You meet more people in the lines than you do inside (maybe because you can actually hear what other people are saying outside). On that note, someone next year needs to throw a vegetarian/vegan party. I have never seen so many sausage and beef tips trays in my life (and thank goodness for the powerbars in my purse (#4)).

That’s all for day 2. Keep following us on Twitter @OneSpot and grab our widget for the latest in SXSWi news!

Day 1 has come and gone (or still going for some), and it has been a pretty good day. For those of you who spent all day in the registration line (use the elevators and line jump, people!), here is what you missed:

• Panels on day 1 are usually pretty empty, at most half full. This year, in my first panel at 2:00, I had to sit on the floor along with the 30+ overflow (as I mentioned in my Survive and Thrive guide, fire code goes out the window here). Registration, at last week’s count, was up 30% and it shows.

• In years past, SXSW has only utilized part of the convention center. It would have been fun exploring these new sections of the building if I hadn’t been out of breath from hiking the 4 blocks to get these hidden panels (there needs to be a “you are here” map or a tour guide or something).

• How to Rawk SXSW was good, per usual, though going through the bag too much less time (maybe because it is lighter this year? Anyone else notice this?). Still funny, though, and still packed.

• Some of the panels are in split ballrooms and you can hear cheering from the other panels through the walls. This led to a cheering match at the 2:00 panel earlier today. Not very productive, but amusing.

• Tech Set party line looked daunting, but really only took about 20 minutes (not the 1.5 hours of Google last year). This quick movement could have been because they let people in despite people not going out. It took me 20 minutes just to exit the party (and I apologize to anyone I stepped on. Wear real shoes people(#5))

• Austin Interactive Showcase at Fogo de Chao was great. Thank you so much to Porter Novelli for putting that together. There are some great companies in Austin and great people!

That’s all for day 1. Keep following us on Twitter @OneSpot and grab our widget for the latest in SXSWi news!

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