Here is a summary of this keynote session at SxSW. SxSW is over and it was an amazing event. Really outstanding results from the PhizzPop design challenge yesterday night. Will blog more about this soon but now let’s switch gears to MIX09… the clock is ticking… what is going to be announced? Follow this blog and me via twitter to get updates and get more info about all the new and amazing features that are about to be announced for our platform and tools at MIX09. You can’t miss it!

#sxswi end of keynote. Amazing session, fun… And “almost free”…

#sxswi Guy Kawasaki now charging for questions here at the keynote! Hilarious. Monetizing the “free”.

#sxswi question “why does YouTube doesn’t charge for premium contetnt? I’d be willing to pay”.CA “u get premium content at hulu.com and free

#sxswi CA re: economical crisis “how does crisis change free?” people are not as “dis-empowered” this time…

#sxswi GK “people fear losing something they have or fear of not getting something they want?” CA “FREE doesn’t frustrate,no fear,no scary”

#sxswi GK “free is free. One penny is not free”… How come “1 penny” cost be perceived so different from totally free, 0 pennies.

#sxswi this business models apply to “online” digital services… How would this work with analogous business? Like Starbucks?”

#sxswi Kawasaki “why not give your book for free to ur Tweeter followers?”… Good idea to provide value to ur “fans”

#sxswi CA”writers/publish companies might have a similar relation and future to what is happening on the music industryrecord label/artist”

#sxswi CA re: what is harder, to achieve popularity or to monetize popularity “harder to monetize, tweeter facebook…help becoming popular”

#sxswi CA re: future for Wired “paper magazine still with long life. Online mag is instantaneous info. Both formats good”

#sxswi Chris Anderson (Wired) re: how can Tweeter make money? “free to consumers but charge companies who are making money out of Tweeter”

#sxswi is definitely not a “design” event but a ’start ups’ event. Lots of inspiring ideas to help u think out of the box

Hello!, here is a summary of the activities Microsoft will host during SxSW. Hope you can join us! lots of opportunities to talk about Expression, Silverlight, Windows Mobile, Web Standards. Lots of parties too :)  Also in the Microsoft Tradeshow booth you can play with our new Microsoft Interactive Canvas… a great way to play with a wall panel with screens that react to your actions.

And on Monday 7pm don’t forget to be there for the PhizzPop Design Challenge finals!

For a full listing of sessions and after hours events, please visit the following sites:

SXSW Sessions
Parties/Lounges  

You can also follow Microsofties using Twitter:

@wtschumy | Will Tschumy - UXE
@chrisbernard  | Chris Bernard - UXE
@shanemo | Shane Morris - UXE
@arturot | Arturo Toledo - Product Manager
@seanseven | Sean Seibel - UXE

These are our daily activities during SxSW Interactive:

10am-6pm | Fri - Tues |INTERACTION AREA | Microsoft Interaction Area
Convention Center, 4th Floor NW Corner

High traffic physical presence in the main corridor of the Convention Center that will highlight Silverlight and Surface demos (to include partner applications), a lounge area, and attendee surveys to include a plant a tree reforestation incentive along with a Website Named Desire Poster giveaway incentive.

1pm-6pm | Fri – Tues | LOUNGE | TechSet Blogger Lounge, Sponsored by Windows Mobile
Convention Center, Austin Suite, 3rd Floor

Area in which bloggers can crash and work. In addition to broadband, a video recording area for podcasters and video bloggers will be provided.

12pm-6pm | Sat - Mon | EXPO BOOTH | Visit us at the Microsoft Expo Booth!
Convention Center, Grand Ballroom

Visit  us at the SXSW Tradeshow Floor with Expression Studio, Live Search, Azure Services Platform (to include partner applications), and MSN demonstrations. Meet the experts, ask questions.

2pm-6pm | Fri - Mon | VIDEO GAMES | ScreenBurn Arcade: Video game element of SXSW Interactive.
Convention Center, 1st Floor

Brings together new media, music, film, and video games.

FRIDAY, March 13th

8pm - 10pm | PARTY | The Rat Pack, Sponsored by TechSet and Windows Mobile.
Belmont Lounge, 305 W. 6th Street

SATURDAY, March 14th

10am - 11am | PANEL | Is Privacy Dead or Just Very Confused? with Danah Boyd, Researcher, MSFT Research
Convention Center, Room A

While many assert that “privacy is dead,” the complex ways in which people try to control access and visibility suggest that it’s just very confused. Rather than throwing the baby out with the bath water, let’s discuss people’s understanding and experiences of privacy and find ways to 2.0-ify it.

11:30 - 12:30am | PANEL | Microformats – A Quiet Revolution with Karsten Januszewski, MSFT Sr. Tech Evangelist
Convention Center, Room 10

Microformats are quietly changing the landscape of the web, achieving some of the original ideals of the “semantic web.” In the past year, we’ve seen increased adoption from web designers and popular web sites, improved browser support for microformats in both Firefox and IE, and search engines beginning to support microformats.  Come hear from the leaders who are driving these changes in the industry, and find out what the future holds for microformats.

3:30-4:30 | PANEL | Everything I Needed to Know About the Web I Learned from Feminism with Danah Boyd, Researcher, MSFT Research
Convention Center, Room 9

Feminism teaches “the personal is political” and the web shows that the personal is now public. Christmas newsletters and recipes are the social media of their time, and women are the key social nodes of our culture. In her comic and thought-provoking style, Heather Gold brings together 4 very different feminist and web thinkers to discuss what makes social networks strong and predict where they’re heading next online.

6pm-8pm | PARTY | SXSW Interactive Opening Happy Hour hosted by Razorfish
The Madison, 307 W. 5th Street

8pm-11pm | PARTY: SxSW Interactive Opening Party hosted by frog design
Mexican American Cultural Center, 600 River Street

Official kickoff of the 16th year of SXSW Interactive

SUNDAY, March 15th

11:30-12:30 | PANEL | Violating the Warranty on Your Touch Computing Device with Chris Bernard, MSFT UXE
Convention Center, Room 10

Simple touch computing is taking the world by storm in desktop, mobile, and environmental computing. The best and brightest are taking their gloves off, drawing inspiration from Star Wars to James Bond, and going beyond the conventional bounds of touch computing. See what design and technology leaders are doing next with technology like Microsoft Surface and other touch computer platforms.

11:30-12:30 | PANEL | Taking Responsibility for the Quality of Your Life with Brian Yeung, MSFT Design Strategist
Convention Center, Room 5C

How can we live so that things that drive us to be great don’t have to make us miserable every step of the way, and that the way in which we make great things can also make us happy in and of itself? This talk will discuss ways to think about goals, personal expectations, and boundaries, and how to take control of your own personal happiness.

2pm-3pm | PANEL | CSS3: What’s Now, What’s New and What’s Not? with Sylvain Galineau, MSFT PM; Chris Wilson, MSFT IE Principal PM
Convention Center, Room 8

This panel explores how major browsers implement CSS3. The focus is on finding effective and efficient methods for developers to unleash their creativity while maintaining cross-browser compatibility. The panel covers current implementations, future plans from the major browser vendors and some discussion of the current progress on the standard itself.

2pm-3pm | KEYNOTE | Nate Silver, fivethirtyeight.com interviewed by Steve Baker, Business Week
Convention Center, Room A

9am-11am | PARTY | FG Squared Party
Lucky Lounge, 209 W. 5th Street

Gathering of influential interactive marketers

MONDAY, March 16th

10am-4pm | START UPS | SXSW Accelerator, sponsored by BizSpark
Hilton Downtown, 500 E. 4th Street

Pitch competition featuring 16 top startups and showcasing some of the Web’s most exciting new innovations.

11:30-12:30 | PANEL | Browser Wars III: The Platform Wins with Chris Wilson, MSFT IE Principal PM
Convention Center, Room Hilton C

We’re doing *so darn much* with the Web platform these days, from cross-domain access mechanisms to new drawing and graphics tools. But in the end, we still have to deal with different web browsers. This discussion brings the leads from Mozilla (Firefox), Microsoft (IE), Apple (Safari) and Opera (Opera) together for yet another incendiary discussion about the future of the web.

11:30-12:30 | PANEL | Entrepreneurship in the Belly of the Beast with Chris Bernard, MSFT UXE
Convention Center, Room 18 BCD

Small is beautiful at SXSW. From Getting Real to starting up, the ethos is largely anti-large corporation. This attitude overlooks one of the most satisfying professional accomplishments: doing your own thing while working for The Man. This presentation uses examples to offer strategies for making the corporation work for you.

11:30-12:30 | PANEL | My Car is Talking to Me But What’s It Saying? with Jason Kriese, MSFT Autos UX PM
Convention Center, Room 9

We call it the 60 MPH User Interface. Challenges abound in designing multi-modal voice and touch interactive user experiences in the car, for directions, traffic, information and communication. Come learn guiding design principles, see examples from today and talk about the experience of tomorrow.

2pm-3pm | KEYNOTE | James Powderly, Graffiti Research Lab, interviewed by Virginia Heffernan, NYT Magazine
Convention Center, Room A

4pm-8pm | PARTY | Rackspace Cloud Lounge Party
Brush Square Park West Tent

BizSpark hosting partner sponsored party.

5:30-7pm | DEMOS | Sensorium: Exploring the Digital Universe with Next Generation Interfaces
Pangaea, 409 Colorado Street

Live demonstrations focused around how Microsoft is coupling computing hardware with software and Web services. Presented by Microsoft.

7pm-10pm | PhizzPop Design Challenge: Tour Finale
Pangaea, 409 Colorado Street

Register for FREE! Here…

Winning teams from each city present their applications in the final square off. Get more info here.

TUESDAY, March 17th

10am-11am | PANEL | Cloud Computing: Defending the Undefinable with Yousef Khalidi, MSFT Engineer
Convention Center, Room 8

The brave new world of cloud computing is radically changing how we build web applications. What is a platform, what is a service, and how will the future of web applications be built? More importantly, how do these various clouds compare, and what do the differences mean? Are they ready for your world-rockin’ startup? In this panel, we’ll get nerdy with technical details, you’ll yell at us, and we’ll argue why your app should already be in the cloud.

10am-11am | PANEL | Latino Digital Drive: Why this Audience Matters with Javier Farfan, MSFT Zune Sr. PM
Convention Center, Room Hilton A

An in-depth look at the growing Latin music market, why this demographic represents an alluring audience, who and how they should be targeted and in what language. What’s the secret and should there be an English crossover? More and more artists are noticing this community - even Beyonce singing in Spanish.

10am-11am | PANEL | Collabotition: Can Companies Work With Their Competitors with Niko Chauls, MSFT Managing Editor
Convention Center, Room A

Costless organization of people, ideas, and information has changed how we collaborate and compete. Social media companies that might be competitors are working together to beat each other; sharing gossip, using each other’s products and making the battle a bit more efficient. Will the cream rise to the top?

2pm-3pm | KEYNOTE | Chris Anderson, Wired Magazine; Guy Kawasaki, Garage Technology Ventures
Convention Center, Room A

3:30pm4:30pm | PANEL | Brave NUI World: The Fearless Future of Device Interaction with Kristen Alexander, MSFT Xbox
Convention Center, Room 9

Designers and engineers are focusing attention on the NUI - Natural User Interface. As computing becomes more powerful and ubiquitous, ways we interact with computing will shift from classic keyboard/mouse to natural intuitive interactions. NUIs present new opportunities and challenges, as they become the next wave of computer/human interaction design.

Hello!

One more drop of content. I’m heading to SxSW tomorrow morning and I’m expecting lots of folks will want to learn more about using DeepZoom Composer to create immersive photo experiences with the help of Silverlight. We have four videos right here that will help you create DeepZoom experiences in a snap. It is a 3 step process… very simple and you can get DeepZoom Composer for free here…

Mastering DeepZoom Composer Series - 6 videos (only 4 available below…) - We will publish the other two in the Expression Community site soon.

DOWNLOAD ZIP file > 58MB

1. Composing DeepZoom Layouts
2. Exporting to PhotoZoom
3. All About Exporting DeepZoom Composer Project
4. Inserting an DeepZoom Composer Project into an Expression Web website
5. Inserting a DeepZoom Project into an Expression Web website (coming soon)
6. Simple Manipulation of a DeepZoom Control with C# (coming soon)

Hello! We’ve published new training content for Expression called: Silverlight for Designers Getting Started Guide. This content is available in the Expression Community site.

This content includes a manual, assets and 11 videos. The content was produced by AGI (AQUENT). It’s very useful ‘getting started’ content created for designers. In summary this week we released two new Getting Started Guides, the Silverlight one I just mentioned and the Expression Web guide too…

Remember that we have tons of videos at microsoft.com/videos under the Expression Studio channel :)  Enjoy! and let me know what you think about the content. We are producing content permanently. If you feel like we missed a topic or you have a question about Blend or Web please send and we can answer.

These are the videos and topics available in this Guide: 

• What is Silverlight? An Overview (this video)
• Understanding and Working with XAML Code in Expression Blend
• Creating Vector-Based Artwork with Expression Design
• Applying Color and Effects to Projects using Expression Design
• Organizing Your Project using Layout Containers in Expression Blend
• Editing the Appearance of Your Project Items using Expression Blend
• Exploring the Objects and Timeline Task Pane in Expression Blend
• Customizing Silverlight Video Players using Expression Blend
• Optimizing Video for Silverlight Playback using Expression Encoder
• Adding Interactivity to Silverlight Projects using Expression Blend
• Publishing Silverlight Projects to the Web using Expression Blend

Hello! I just signed up to Twitter. Actually I did months ago but never used it. Now I want to get started. It seems pretty easy to use but still confused with the @reply or @ this or that not sure what it is… If you have tips let me know.

Follow me @ http://twitter.com/arturot

I will be using Twitter and this blog to broadcast from SxSW which is a massive event in Austin beginning next weekend. Microsoft, like many other software vendors and design industry professionals will be part of this over the weekend gathering where we will witness amazing sessions and meet tons of interesting and creative folks from all around the world. My friend Miguel Jimenez from Spain will be there, he is a gifted mind who understands Design and Development and is skillful with WPF and Silverlight. He traveled all the way from Spain to join us at Redmond for the MVP Summit (Most Valuable Professionals), then he rented a car and is currently driving from Seattle and all the way to Austin TX!… that a good few thousands of miles away!… Anyway… just like this guy, many others are heading down to Austin, TX. You can only imagine the energy that will be gathering down there.

Follow this blog and my Twitter if you want to get updated on what is happening in SxSW. There will be thousand’s of souls in there, twitting and blogging… me, I will focus on Microsoft UX updates as well as other cool things I get to see there.

My first rant in this blog: The only thing I really didn’t like about SxSW is its *terrible* website! man! for being a design conference, such a huge popular and amazing event the website is crap. When I signed up I felt I was going back to the early 90’s when no one knew anything about web design or usability… It was hard to sign up, steps through the process didn’t flow. The look and feel for the site is null. The site is so poor in its design, let alone the visual part, but the usability of it that I even think they did on purpose, may be they were trying to convey a message about, I don’t know, something. Less is more? but here less is less… May be they on purpose don’t want to make the site too prevalent? or stand out too much? Anyway, if it was for the website only and I was totally new to SxSW then I would think this was a low scale/cheap event. It is not, it is indeed the most important creative design gathering of the year. No doubt about it… I’m not saying I wanted “flashy” webpages with animation or effects, but there is just no readable concept in the usability or design or the site.

Lori and Patrick in the Expression Community site have just published a new Expression Web Starter Kit. This kit was produced by AQUENT and includes a reference booklet, assets and a collection of videos. Hope you enjoy!

Remember you can always download the videos or watch them full screen.

Very shortly we will publish another Starter Kit called Getting Started with Silverlight - for Designers.  The UI Design for Developers video series will also be made available in the Expression Community site soon.