SXSW: forecasting how we will read, write and create

‘It puts you in the position of a journalist, in a way’, said Margaret Atwood late last year when asked how the Internet has changed her relationship to her readers. ‘You become the journalist of yourself. Which is really weird.’

Margaret Atwood has not only enthusiastically embraced life online, but has also gone one step further, into innovation, into throwing parties in her kitchen that are live-streamed on Twitter, iPhones and the web. Atwood is a huge Twitter fan, declaring that ‘Twittering’ is the most fun to be had on the Internet. (Twitter creator Jack Dorsey feels similarly about Atwood.

Ostensibly, many people are enjoying life on Twitter and it is undeniable that Twitter has changed the way in which people read and authors write. Twitter has, in effect, changed the way 32.1 million people read and write online.

Twitter was launched at the South by Southwest Festival (SXSW) in Austin, Texas in 2007 (in 2007! How our lives have changed over the past three years). Originally one of the largest music festivals in the United States, SXSW has evolved into three separate conferences running over the duration of the festival: the SXSW Music and Media Conference, the SXSW Film Conference and the SXSW Interactive Festival.

Evan Williams, Twitter CEO, gave the keynote interview at this year’s SXSW Interactive, stating that Twitter’s first guiding principle is ‘to be a force for good’ and that its millions of users means Twitter ‘has become the single best way to disseminate critical information worldwide.’

The SXSW Interactive Festival is the preeminent industry-event for ‘uber-geeks and digital creatives who push the cutting edge of technological change.’ Designers, web designers, content developers, gamers, bloggers and new media entrepreneurs are but a few of the interested parties flocking to the festival, considered ‘a launching pad’ for innovation.

Here are some highlights from this year’s conference that could change and challenge the way we read, write and create.

Context in journalism
More debate than technological development, this panel analysed the importance of context in online media. Journalism is now a tidal wave of real-time information on current events. How do we process the ‘constant torrent of episodic’ journalism: headlines, Twitter, sound bites, and move onto covering ongoing stories? How should journalists provide a contextual framework for readers to examine and comprehend the bigger picture?

Steve Myers live blogged the panel if you want to catch up on the fine print and continuing debate.

The iPad and media consumption
The iPad is seen as ‘a new market’ between the laptop and the smart phone that will put to bed the old ‘print vs digital reading experience’, because it ‘mimics the experience of reading a book like nothing else does’.

‘It makes a Kindle look like black-and-white TV in the age of HD (with 3D on the way)’, says Mark Briggs of Lost Remote.

One panelist predicted that the iPad will rely on multimedia journalists – videoing, photographing and writing within limited timeframes.

Ideas covered:

• Typing 85 words within 10 minutes
• The creation of new kinds of content and new opportunities for content creators
• Intelligence that is interactive and digital
• Wired’s developments for online content, which they sometimes spend years working on (one custom typeface has 10,000 kerning pairs vs. 500 for a regular print font)

Watch Wired’s demo

Award winners
One of 2009’s winners was Six To Start for their digital story-telling collaboration with Penguin Books: We tell stories. The basic idea was that Penguin would commission writing specifically for the Internet from six well-known authors who would retell literary classics using the defining qualities of the online experience: ‘immediacy, connectivity and interactivity’.

SXSW 2010 saw some outstanding forays into online experiences, some of my favourites being:

• Actvisim – [Waterlife](http://waterlife.nfb.ca/) (takes a while to load but both exceptional and educational)
• Amusement – [Atlas Obscura](http://atlasobscura.com/) (a collaborative compendium of this age's wonders, curiosities, and esoterica)
• Blog – [The Vile Plurocrat](http://www.thevileplutocrat.com/) (exposing the excretions of the entitled class)
• Business – [They make apps](http://theymakeapps.com/) (an interactive agency specialising in creative digital strategy, product design, and social media marketing)
• Motion graphics – [We choose the moon](http://www.wechoosethemoon.org/) (an interactive recreation of the Apollo 11 landing)
• Technical achievement and Best in show – [Wolfram Alpha](http://www.wolframalpha.com/) (try typing in 'what is the capital of Portugal' to begin with…)

How to be black
Future 15, a session on diversity on the web, saw web editor and politics editor for The Onion, Baratunde Thurston, offer his perceptive of the Black experience online:

So if you feel beleaguered by the new media army and growth that seems to be advancing without you, remind yourself of Margaret Atwood, who only moved onto the Internet in August last year, and ask ‘What would Margaret Atwood do?’