Posted By
Jamie Beckland on 03/12/2010
On some level, it’s a little odd that the digerati get
excited about South by Southwest. I
mean, in theory, the Twitter stream is available at any moment. You don’t have
to pack a bag, you don’t have to squeeze yourself onto a packed airplane to get
to Austin, you don’t have to fight traffic to get to a hotel, and you don’t
have to put up with creepingly slow wireless coverage. You just search a
hashtag and jump into the conversation. To mix metaphors, Twitter is like a
warm blanket—it is comforting because it’s always there.
But, that is precisely why SXSW is so important: industries
need moments to coalesce. Having Twitter “always on” means that there are an
infinite number of important conversations you miss all the time (what an
overwhelming thought). Gathering together in one time and place means that you
greatly increase your chances of hearing about the latest meme—and from the
people that are thinking about that topic the most. Moreover, innovation
doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Convergence moments force progress. And, the
Twitter stream has no convergence moments. So, think of SXSW as the annual lake
that the Twitter river flows into.
We’re human beings, after all (even engineers, despite their
attempts to go feral). It’s the vibrant exchange of ideas that make these
in-person moments so essential. The high barrier to entry (planes, trains,
automobiles, etc) means that those that attend are committed to the concept of
Agora—the Greek marketplace—in a real, tangible way.
And that’s worth getting excited about.
Tags: Blogs, Web Communities, Social Networks
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