Though getting a job at the interactive festival used to involve a little luck and more legwork than it was often worth (sort of like being a Private Eye at the circus), the grooming and handshakes can now be saved for the first ever Tech Career Expo at SXSW. The official expo will be held at Austin Music Hall on March 9th and 10th and will be available to the 20,000 plus attendees as well as any locals who won't be throwing down for a badge this year, but are looking for work nonetheless. Engage Digital, who is putting on the event (they also do the excellent GDC) has confirmed 24 companies have joined so far and expect 10 to 20 more by the curtain. There's a boatload of jobs on their already (that's MR. Data Scientist to you) and only two companies have posted so far. more ›

Take a moment to read Andy Budd's thoughtful consideration of SXSWi 2011. "In reality in think SXSW jumped the shark in 2008/09 and is now an entirely different conference. It’s just taken me a couple of years to reconcile the difference and develop a new set of coping strategies. This year I finally gave up on the conference itself, going to a handful of sessions. I met many more who hadn’t seen a single session and several who didn’t even bother buying a ticket. Instead people spent time seeing friends and maintaining the weak ties in their social graph. I say that somewhat wryly, but SXSW really has become about networking in the most real and genuine sense of the word." more ›

• After additional train runs during SXSW boasted ridership, Capital Metro is now considering adding more train runs on Friday and Saturday.
• Pinetop’s passing noted by the BBC.
• Pete Cashmore, the CEO of Mashable talks about the emergence of the private-group, location-based services that were big at SXSW. Even if you have no interest in tech, there are worse things to do than listen to Cashmore and his awesome accent.

• Fabulous video that captures what SXSW felt like this year.
• The “paper of record” covered SXSW. They also liked the bands Joy Formidable and 1,2,3!
• Yes, there really was an official British invasion of SXSW.

The incredible sensory candy of Chroma, a collaboration between artists, designers, fashion models, musicians and stylists, blew away the SXSWi crowd at the Mohawk on Monday night. The event showcased artists working before the audience creating art based on beautiful models wearing vivid fashions and incredible make-up. Combining forces ConceptArt.Org, The Art Department and Art Seen Alliance brought designers such as Ayers Design, Body Art by Mirabai Design, awesome models such as Eva Strangelove, and musicians such as Moldover, the "Godfather of Controllerism." The experience ended with a performance by the band The Burned. more ›

Much like Craigslist, Zaarly matches people who want to buy things with people who sell things. Unlike Craigslist, Zaarly focuses on the person in need, not the person selling the goods. more ›

A combination of hungover veterans and bright-eyed newcomers swarmed the Austin Convention Center Saturday morning for day 2 of SXSW Interactive. Another blustery day was met with excitement as more panel discussions and networking loomed ahead. Kicking off with The Last Broadcast: Entertainment is Social the panel was comprised of Intel employees as well as other smaller tech companies. The discussion fluidly switched topics from branding to current trends to implementations. The first key takeaway: Don't wash all negative comments on Facebook/Twitter/etc away. more ›

Techcrunch was downtown to meet the man who was first to buy an iPad 2 at our pop-up Apple store. more ›

Upon arriving at the venerable Austin Convention Center on a blustery Friday afternoon, the first thing all the SXSW Interactive participants encountered, before even entering the building, was an onslaught of advertising for all kinds of companies - mobile apps, websites, media and on and on. After standing in 2 separate lines (one for badge and one for bag swag), the time arrived for panels. First up: Programming and Minimalism, presented by Jon Dahl from Zencoder. By describing programming as "defining complex precesses in a precise way", Dahl went on to draw parallels to craftsmen. more ›

DIY powerhouse Etsy.com will be hitting Austin this weekend as a part of SXSWi. The crafty crew will be hosting a party at Venue 222, celebrating with make-and-takes, music, mini-conferences with the Etsy team and a DIY Fashion Show, brought to you by Burdastyle. more ›

Friday night brings the Steampunk shabang [or geek-pun alert: a shebang #!] Big Bang Bordello. Headlined by the Flametrick Subs, with sets by That Dammed Band and Luna Tart & The Cocktails, the event will feature a numerous attractions from the more risque side of the entertainment spectrum! more ›

South By Southwest Interactive has countless panels on the latest and best digital ways to get together but there are only a few panels on "getting together" the old fashioned way. Chief among these is the Sexual Survival Guide for Geeks led by the sex -positive columnist, podcast, author and one-woman brand [warning: this link to Blue's website is NSFW] Violet Blue. more ›

The 2011 South by Southwest Interactive Festival gave fans their first glimpse at the upcoming program as it released the names of three keynote speakers and the first 200 panels. more ›

We found this guy wandering around the SXSW Web Awards Pre-Party last week. He had his own badge and everything. You can follow his adventures on Twitter: @thetweeture. more ›

Last week at SXSWi, Nicholas Carr spoke about his new book, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. It's coming out later this spring. In total internet fashion, I asked him for a quick summary: more ›

For South by Southwest Interactive, one of the party-est parties was the Saturday night event, Happy Cog'aoke 2. It was the kind of event where you felt like anything could happen! more ›

The online service Spotify has energized music lovers in Europe with its ease of use and streaming of millions of songs to anyone with an Web connection. Spotify's 27-year-old CEO, Daniel Ek, didn't give specifics as to when the service might come to the United States during his keynote interview Tuesday at South by Southwest Interactive, but even a brief demo made clear that Spotify could have a huge impact when it does arrive. more ›

Williams and interviewer Umair Haque casually covered such topics as the importance of openness, how Twitter acts as a force for democracy, and the principles under which Twitter runs its business. more ›

Austinist photographer Steve Hopson has been running around town to give us a visual update from the SXSW Interactive conference. Enjoy! more ›

Sure, I've logged countless hours of Fresh Air-listening time, and yeah, I think I've heard every episode This American Life has to offer… but despite this intensive training and study, I somehow still have not mastered the art of the interview. Actually, let's just say it's really hard- no wait- excruciatingly painful- to listen to myself asking people questions on tape. The, um, number of, like, pauses… and stuff… is really, uh, like, totally a lot. You know? more ›

The winners of this year's SXSW Web Awards have been announced. Check out the best of the best, from activist sites to the most innovative entrepreneurs online. And the winners are... more ›

One of the topmost events during the last two years of SXSWi has been the Tocquigny Martini Marketing Mixer. The best reason to go to the event is the amazing sunset views from the 17th floor of the Frost Building. more ›

CNN's chief medical correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, and his brother, Sunil, opened the day's sessions talking about the Kahani Movement, a project designed to build a community to tell the stories of the South Asian immigrants that came to the United States in the 1960s and 1970s. "Kahani" means "story" in Hindi and the Guptas said the goal is to help capture untold stories from first-generation South Asians in the U.S. and provide those stories with a platform to be heard. more ›

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I was sitting here trying to put into words why an interview - or a panel- about 'dignity in online advertising' is relevant to more people than those of us who are oh-so-lucky to be involved in the industry. And as I was engaged in one of those all-too-frequent Google-powered, attention-deficit-inspired, search episodes looking for something or other, I came across this piece on Coudal.com titled, 'What We Talk About When We Talk About Work.' Now in addition to the title making me smile a whole bunch, it hit on something really important. The piece ends with, "We suppose there are a lot of reasons people don't say what they mean. We just can't think of any good ones." It's copy so smooth that even Don Draper would be jealous. But the best part is, it's true. Common sense. And often times, it takes a whole lot of talent and smarts to realize that sometimes the obvious answer is the best answer. So when I talked to Jim Coudal about the concept behind his ad network, 'The Deck', I wasn't surprised by his general thoughts on the matter. Why not just be honest about this whole advertising thing, right? "Making it simple… makes it simple," he said. more ›

The first full days of panels and workshops got underway early Saturday at South by Southwest Interactive, with the first sessions of the day kicking off at 9:30 am. Plenty of intrepid attendees showed up on time after Friday's late-night parties, and the ones who stuck around all day got a full dose of insight. more ›

Emergency alarms went off just after 5 pm at the Austin Convention Center. Officials quickly determined it was a false alarm, but many on the first day of SXSW Interactive took the opportunity to get an early start on evening parties. more ›

I sat down with Alex Jones (@BaldMan), user experience manager, web technologist and self-proclaimed information junkie, to discuss the big concepts at SXSWi this year... and to find out why something called Stickybits should actually be taken seriously. more ›

While there are a ton of entertainment events to choose from on the Friday night of SXSWi, there's one event we;re totally stoked about, and that's Pastries and Pasties 2. more ›