SxSW Recap: Great People, Good Food, and Halo

I think I am finally back to 100% after this years SxSW which was indeed an experience.  Outside of meeting a lot of great people for the first time we also got to catch-up with a few of you in person which is always a treat.  I got in late friday so unfortunately missed the Blacks in Tech meet-up hosted by Ogilvy, from all that I hear it was great.  You can check out pictures from the event on Flickr, Cheryl Coward has a great set over there.

Some of the panels we attended were:
Bootstrapping Your Start-up
Scored some great promos for free targeted advertising on AOL, I’ll definitely be giving this a try
Politics, Technology, & Pop Culture
Can Social Networking end Racism
Can the Afroshpere Survive in the Age of Obama?
Digital Urbanites

Outside of the panels there was still lots of great things to do.  For instance Markus beat me to the punch in playing w/ the Microsoft Surface but he was nice enough to go back up to the 4th floor with me while I checked it out:

We also got a chance to stop by the Mashup Circus and get a walk through of Best Buy’s open API for their product catalog, its called Remix.  You can use it for ANYTHING and also link it with your affiliate ID if you like which makes it extra easy for those who use affiliate programs.  I asked if anyone had built a Wordpress plugin based on the API and as of yet no one has.  You can find out more about Remix at Remix.BestBuy.com.

I lost my ID on the way to Austin so unfortunately I didn’t really get to hit-up any parties outside of hanging out w/ @lynneluvah @misterjt @tiffanybrown and @denisejacobs on Friday night.  They got enough dancing in for all of us.

After we played w/ the Surface and checked out Remix we hit up the Trade Show where I got the BEST.  MASSAGE.  EVER. form a chair hidden way in the back, it retails for about $6k but the $5 for 5 mins was a nice recharge and well worth it.

After that I felt like I had a shot of espresso so we headed down to Screenburn which is the Acrade that is set-up there for gamers.  We both got a quick shot of Moutian Dew at their station right before Markus saw his old bedroom equiped w/ a Sega console and all:

After stopping by many of the booths we were about to roll when Markus saw the dude from Halo, he just HAD to get a pic w/ him, lol:

Monday we spent getting ready for our panels which as most of you know was streamed live.  THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ALL WHO ATTENED.  Markus’ panel is recorded but I’m afraid mine is not, so I you missed it you are out of luck…that is until they release the podcasts of all the panels there, we’ll keep you posted.  After the panels we were startved so Markus, Fred (@ybpguide), and I stopped by Iron Skillet which is said to be the best BBQ in Texas, I can’t say I disagree:

I can’t believe I ate the WHOLE thing!  Since we were scheduled to leave on Tuesday morning it was an early night for us both to sift through the swag bags to figure what would come home with us or stay in Austin.  We had fun as expected and of course can’t wait until next year.

Updated:  Forgot to add some other great recaps, if you were there and I missed your please add it to the comments for the benefit of the group.  Thanks!
YBP Guide
JBrotherLove