Every year SXSW takes on a slightly new dimension so it's never the same experience twice. Change is inevitable and I always have a good time at the event. However I always find myself harking back to years gone by. I guess that's age for you.
As you're no doubts aware I'm an unabashed conference junky, so it will come as no surprise to you that I've spent the last couple of weeks in the States attending three such events. First up was "ETech":http://en.oreilly.com/et2009/, the emerging technology conference from O'Reily. Moved from it's spiritual home in San Diego, this year it was help in the Chino wearing capitol of Silicon Valley, San Jose. The event was much smaller than last year and the tone was somewhat downbeat. However I don't think this was necessarily down to the economy as a lot of people were speculating. ETech is an amazing place to showcase new technologies and is where start-ups like Flickr made their debut. However if there are no new breakthroughs on the horizon, the events obviously lacks its reason d'etra. I think that was the case this year.
I was recently interviewed by the Independent on Sunday to get a design perspective on why Friends Reunited ultimately failed. However rather than the design of the site, I think the design of the system was ultimately to blame.
Each year, hundreds of assorted geeks will get the chance to speak on a panel at SXSW, many for the first time. I've witnesses some truly inspiring and thought provoking sessions at SXSW. However I've also had to sit through my share of turkeys, from the mind numbingly boring to the painfully embarrassing.
A lot of companies make money by driving traffic to their sites through marketing or SEO campaigns in the hope that some of their visitors will turn into customers. This makes sense when attention is plentiful and online marketing is cheap. However as marketing costs rise and attention becomes increasingly scarce, companies need to look outside of the traditional marketing funnel. Rather than simply increasing traffic, companies need to start focussing on conversions. After all there's no point spending large sums of money pushing people to your site if they leave when they get there.
The traditional approach to product development involves coming up with new idea and then driving as many people towards that product as possible, in the hope that some of them will want it. As such we adopt the language of marketing, and talk about marketing funnels and conversion rates. If our marketing department has done a good job they will have created a campaign that not only generates traffic, but creates a previously unrecognised need. Tired? Need a break? Why not have a KitKat?