I came to South by Southwest 2007/Interactive, not knowing what to expect. The only information I had was that there were good parties at night. So I was pleasantly surprised when I can honestly say that I learned a thing or two about web design, as well as the story behind Lonelygirl15 from its creators, Miles Beckett, Greg Goodfried, and Mesh Flinders (med-school drop out, lawyer, and film director wannabe) and how Genghis Khan obliterated the Russian knights in the 13th century (“The Ten Ways to Run a Startup like Genghis Khan“) from an Asian American dude named “Kevin Hale“.
All in all, the people were normal folks (as normal as Web designers from the Bay Area can be considered normal), not snooty NYC design types, and mostly very friendly. I heard the attendance numbers were 5000+ (up 60% from last year) so that may have something to do with the normalization of the attendees. Maybe not as edgy as it once was, and certainly not as entertaining as its Film and Music cousins, but it was certainly a worthwhile professional conference.
Good times…
