Some Lifestreaming Panels and Other SXSW Info

The annual pilgrimage to SXSW is upon us once again. Last year was my first time there and I had an amazing time. This year I feel a bit more prepared and plan to take full advantage of what I learned. If you’re new this year, or just want some good tips, ReadWriteWeb has created a handy list. There were plenty of complaints around coverage for iPhones but I’ve read that AT&T says their network will be ready this year. If that’s the case then you better make sure you’re prepared for the overtime usage your phone will be getting. I’ve purchased 2 iPhone 2200 mAh backup battery packs at Monoprice.com (sorry, can’t link to product page since site is down). These work great and are only $14 each. I recommend you seek a similar option for your mobile phone as well.

The SXSW website has created a nice personal scheduling section this year along with an iPhone app but I do still like the Sched.org version which offers some additional features as well as showing who else is attending panels and more. Also be sure to check out the new service by Sitby.us which aims to help you let your friends know which and exactly where you’ll be sitting at panels.

So there were 5 panels with some form of Lifestreaming proposed (one of which I was on) but unfortunately none of them got selected. Kind of a bummer since social media aggregation has really become such a dominating strategy for even the big players now. I still was able to look at the panels and find a few that are worthy of attending if you feel as letdown as I had.

Here are a few Lifestream related panels worth considering

ActivityStrea.ms: Is It Getting Streamy In Here? – This appears to be a primer on what has become the leading Lifetreaming open standard adopted by many.
Gmail: Behind the Scenes – Some of the engineers and product managers behind Google Buzz will be talking here.
Can the Real-Time Web Be Realized? – Judging by some of the panelists there may be some Lifestreaming nuggets strewn across their talk.
The Life Graph: You Are Your Location – While sounding like an LBS talk the description mentions what could be some interesting topics around Lifestream data.
Time + Social + Location. What’s Next In Mobile Experiences? – Description a bit vague but may offer something interesting.
Engines of Sociality: 2010 and Beyond – “…transformative technologies and paradigms on the horizon in 2010 that will power the new augmented sociality, including the social filtering, personalization, and contextualization of real-time messaging.” Could be interesting.
Beyond Algorithms: Search and the Semantic Web & Social Search: A Little Help From My Friends & also Search Patterns: Tangible Futures for Discovery – May offer some thoughts on Lifestream data and search.
2010: The Year We Broadcast Our Credit Card – Thoughts on Lifestreaming and privacy.

So as you can see there’s still a few topic based talks that should offer some insight into were Lifestreaming is today and where it may be going. Last year there was also an Activity Streams meetup at the end of one of the days and I’ve heard they’re planning another one. Also, I’ll be attending the Mashable party which is being sponsored by the very good Cliqset Lifestreaming service.

But I also know that many of these discussions will also occur in the hallways where I had many good ones last year. In fact last year I was glad to have met many great people including readers of this blog whom I talked to about Lifestreaming. I look forward to more of the same this year so if you happen to see me wandering around please say hello. You can check out my profile on the SXSW site or on Sched.org so that we can connect. You can also see many places I’ll be headed to on Plancast or better yet stalk me on FourSquare, Gowalla, or Brightkite along with Twitter.