I’m just back from the South by Southwest conference, a bit earlier than I expected. Wanted to stay for the last day to hear presentations by Po Bronson, Cory, Richard Florida (“The Rise of the Creative Class”) and others. But had to get back for family affairs. Had planned to blog there but was too caught up bouncing between rooms and chatting up people I had only known online before (Derek Powazek, Phil Kaplan, many others) to do it effectively.
Some quick takeaways, and photos, from my trip:
Our Sunday panel on New vs. Old Journalism — with Dan Gillmor, Matt Haughey and Josh Benton and moderated by Texas Monthly editor Evan Smith — went well, I thought. I wanted to make a quick point about the artificial barrier between media experts and members of the “former audience,” as Dan skillfully puts it, and so I went into the audience and snapped this photo of Ben and Mena Trott, founders of Movable Type:
I’ll be posting the gist of my comments about how we need to move beyond the debate over whether some weblogs are or aren’t journalism and recognize their valuable contribution to the media ecosystem by acknowledging the increasing intersection of blogs and traditional journalism. More about that in the coming days.
Meanwhile, here’s one blogger’s transcript of our panel. Jeez Louise, and he’s not even getting paid for this.
The bionic man
Another highlight was the hourlong talk by Kevin Warwick, professor of Cybernetics at the University of Reading in the UK, author of “I, Cyborg” — and the world’s first bionic man. Warwick gave a riveting account of artificial intelligence and the surgical procedures he underwent in pursuit of his craft. Here’s a photo (click to enlarge):
Casanova on mpeg4
Frank Casanova, director of QuickTime Product Marketing at Apple, gave an interesting talk about the promise of Mpeg4, which he described as “Mpeg for the Internet.” The Mpeg4 codec is is 10 times amller than uncompressed CD quality audio and a third of the size of DVD-quality video. Casanova expressed disappointment that Microsoft has not adopted mpeg4 on the Windows Media Player, while Real has done so. He showed off a nifty film short by BMW Films.
One tidbit I wasn’t aware of: CNN, ABC and adult entertainment sites that charge customers for access to their video have to pay a licensing fee for use of mpeg4, but sites that don’t charge have the fee waived.
Lessig’s speech
The highlight of the conference so far was the stunningly effective hourlong presentation by Larry Lessig, in which he met head-on MPAA chief Jack Valenti’s claim to the moral high ground in the file-sharing debate. The Lessig-Valenti duel can’t be easily summarized without doing an injustice, so I’ll just quote a few snippets from his talk:
“We have never in our history had a time when fewer interests have controlled more of the creative process than now. Never.”
“An architecture that forces you to call my lawyer every time you want to clip a picture onto your web site is insane.”
“The law is not the engine to seek the reasonable middle here.”
“Let me tell you about us (lawyers). We believe in control. We work for clients who come to us and we create structures of control. It makes us feel weve given our clients something. But its not the space in which the broadest range of creativity and innovation can flourish, and you know that. As the lawyers come down to regulate this space to benefit not you generally but a few in particular, as we come do this to you, you need to stand up and push us out of the room. You need to reclaim this space to reclaim for you because we dont belong there.”
He also showed a hilarious video (second one down) from an inventive group in Sweden that satirized President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair to the duet Endless Love — the kind of innovative use of digital technologies endangered by government and private sector restrictions.
It was an amazing speech. Lessig received a rousing standing ovation — the only standing ovation at the convention.
Before his speech, I chatted with Larry and last night he sent a few suggested contacts for the book I’m writing on digital rights, intellectual property, file sharing and piracy.
Meantime, looks like Larry is back blogging.
More coverage
Bloggers are doing an excellent job covering SXSW:
Adam Greenfield
Post-panel highlight
Spent Saturday evening hanging with my good bloggin’ buddy Ernie the Attorney. A dozen folks in the crowd at the reception told us everyone was heading to Guero’s, on Congress across the lake. Turned out we were the only ones who made it. But still managed a great time, and found it to be a first-rate Mexican restaurant.
JD Lasica, founder of Inside Social Media, is also a fiction author and the co-founder of the cruise discovery engine Cruiseable. See his About page, contact JD or follow him on Twitter.
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