I traveled over 20,000 kilometers to attend SXSW interactive – a conference referred to by some as ‘spring break for nerds’. Two weeks ago, when I started writing this post (apologies for the delay, family emergency), I had this grandiose plan that I’d write one brilliant post summarising all that I’d seen and learned. I now realise that’s not going to happen because 1. I’m sober now, and 2. SXSW is more about the people you meet (usually over margaritas: see #1) than the panels and keynote speakers.

BUT, since that isn’t much help for the handful of you that weren’t there, here are 4 of my takeaways:

Photo credit: Caroline McCarthy/CNET

Location, Location, Location
(no surprise here)

In the main event of the ‘Geolocal Showdown’, location-based-services (LBS) Foursquare and Gowalla competed against one another not only for publicity and check-ins, but also for top honours in the mobile website category of the 13th Annual Web Awards Ceremony (Gowalla won). Bragging rights and egos were put on the line as both companies hosted parties on the same night just down the block from one another (IMHO, Foursquare totally won for bringing Ashton Kutcher to the party).

At the same time, smaller LBS providers such as Loopt, Brightkite, Plancast and Whrrl quietly fought their own battles for attention in the geolocal space. This all sounds overwhelming, huh? Never fear, SimpleGeo launched Vicarious.ly which aggregates check-ins from all these services into one place! And for those that want to know before they go, two Digg employees launched Wheretheladies.at.

Everyone has their own loyalty, so it’s difficult to discern who came out on top. What is clear, however, is the fact that location is the place where everyone wants to be.

Who are all you people?

Apparently I’m not the only one who’s a sucker for hashtags and guacamole… the interactive portion of the conference attracted over 14,000 people (a 33% increase from last year), surpassing music in terms of attendees for the first time ever.

All the usual suspects from the NYC, San Francisco and growing Austin tech scene were there, but who were the rest of the people? Although the increase in size wasn’t all good (crowded hallways, overcapacity panels, way too long of a queue at the bar), it was interesting to meet the different sorts of people that attended – client side, agency side, academia – and of course the aspiring fameballs. I think Vanity Fair is partially to blame for the massive crowds. Or maybe it’s hip to be square, again.

It’s not all about the tech

SXSW is admittedly one big geek show-and-tell, but there was a strong presence from typically “untechie” consumer brands. Pepsi was all over the show, actually it seemed as though they pretty much owned the damn conference (I’m clearly still bitter about being unable to get a simple can of Coke anywhere near the convention center); Chevy sent 8 teams of digerati from across the US on roadtrips from their hometowns to Austin. And as far as swag goes, SoBe kept attendees hydrated and drunk by serving up unlimited free cocktails in the Lizard Lounge, ZonePerfect spruikers were on every street corner trying to ensure the waifish crowd could power through on only a few hours sleep (but we all know it was the free cigarettes American Spirit handed out that really kept kept them going).

Whilst everyone at SXSW wants to know who the new Twitter is going to be, I was also refreshed* by the number of discussions about big picture topics such as media democracy & journalism, online privacy and social change.

*damn you, Pepsi.

Is Twitter the new Twitter the new Twitter the new Twitter?

As you probably know, Twitter launched at SXSW in 2007. When 2008 failed to produce an equally major launch (and the Twitter craze continued), Twitter was proclaimed the new Twitter. Although Foursquare was born at the 2009 conference, it was a relatively quiet launch and Twitter again dominated the scene – making Twitter the new Twitter the new Twitter. Flash forward to SXSW 2010 – who is the new Twitter? Some say Foursquare, others say location-based-services in general, I say Twitter (mostly because I like saying Twitter is the new Twitter is the new Twitter is the new Twitter).

But in all seriousness, Twitter’s been doing some interesting things. During his keynote, CEO Evan Williams launched @anywhere – a framework for adding the Twitter experience anywhere on the web; it’s basically Twitter’s version of Facebook Connect.

In addition to this, Twitter began giving US users the ability to include location data alongside their tweets and revamped their homepage to make it more dynamic by showing real-time info about who is tweeting, trending topics and popular tweets (I don’t actually see this update, so I’m thinking it must be another US-only launch). Twitter added: All of our recent changes embrace the notion that Twitter is not just for status updates anymore. Zing, Facebook!

SO, Twitter’s having launched @anywhere, adding location data and giving Facebook the middle finger earn it my vote for being the new Twitter.

Facebook began six years ago today as a product that my roommates and I built to help people around us connect easily, share information and understand one another better. We hoped Facebook would improve people’s lives in important ways. So it’s rewarding to see that as Facebook has grown, people around the world are using the service to share information about events big and small and to stay connected to everyone they care about.

- Mark Zuckerberg: "Six Years of Making Connections"

I could still feel the warm fuzzies from Zuckerberg’s note when I logged into Facebook and the top post in my newsfeed crapped all over my kumbaya – “I’ve had the new facebook layout for all of 45 minutes and already my fb chat reliability has gone down 90%. F*&$ you Facebook.”

Ah bless, the resistance has begun. But it’s really no surprise; it’s been a tumultuous relationship over the past 6 years…

September 2006 – The News Feed
The News Feed feature was introduced to help users filter through the noise to see the newest, most relevant actions and updates from their friends. However, users felt as though their dirty laundry was being broadcast without their permission and immediately formed groups and petitions in protest.

Response: Zuckerberg posted an open letter on the Facebook blog that began, “We really messed this one up….”

November 2007 – Beacon
Beacon, Facebook’s new social ad system tracked users’ activities, registration and purchases on partner websites and published them to their profiles. Once again feeling as though their privacy had been compromised, users were furious and MoveOn.org, an advocacy group, started a full-scale campaign against Beacon. Facebook and a number of Beacon affiliates were later named in class-action lawsuits over the ordeal.

Response: Zuckerberg again apologised, saying “We’ve made a lot of mistakes building this feature, but we’ve made even more with how we’ve handled them. We simply did a bad job with this release, and I apologize for it.”

September 2008 – The Profile Redesign
Almost 2 million angry and confused Facebookers joined groups and signed petitions when all users were forced to adopt the redesign, which changed the layout of personal Profiles from a box-like structure to the Wall and tabs structure. Common complaints were that it was more difficult to find profile information and add photos and looked ‘too much like MySpace.’

Response: Zuckerberg’s initial response was a blog post thanking everyone for their patience and support throughout the evolution, but it did little to placate angry users. The following day Facebook added Pirate to the site’s language translations (in honour of International Talk Like A Pirate Day) – for a few brief moments, all was forgotten.

February 2009 – Terms of Service
Facebook didn’t tell anyone when they changed the ToS to retain “irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license” even after content is deleted. This made users mad.

Response: Over several posts Facebook tried to clarify that users do own and control their own content. Shortly after, the ‘Terms of Service’ was canned in lieu of the more democratic sounding ‘Statement of Rights and Responsibilities’.

A TechCrunch Post on Facebook's Poll: 94% Of Users Don't Like Redesign

March 2009 – Pages Redesign; Homepage Redesign (Stream + Publisher + Filters)
Brands that had invested in design and creative probably weren’t happy when the layout of Pages suddenly changed to mirror Profiles’ tabbed design, but corporate protocol didn’t allow them to throw much of a stink.

Users on the other hand were vocal about their dislike of the homepage redesign and the disappearance of the iconic “Kristen is … ” prefix for status updates. They created groups and posted angry comments – a handful of the more salient ones were chronicled by the NYTimes Gadgetwise Blog:

• “I hate the ’share’ button. It’s so California.”
• “The images in the status feeds have rounded edges.”
• “Your OWN pic appears every time you post an article on your wall.”

December 2009: Privacy Controls
When Facebook adjusted privacy controls, it first appeared to be done in users’ best interest. However, savvy users were skeptical – and for good reason – as the default on some personal information was viewable by everyone. But this backlash spanned beyond the usual outcropping of harsh words, petitions and Facebook groups – this time the U.S. Federal Trade Commission was summoned.

Response: Facebook changed a few things in response to complaints; Zuckerberg set out to show the Internets that it’s okay to share things about yourself by sharing some of himself with us…

He’s a fan of Taylor Swift and proud of it.

One time he and the gf had a lightsaber duel in the office!

And you know what, even the youngest self-made billionaire needs a tender moment with his teddy bear every now and again.

February 2010 – Present Day
Facebook turned 6 and got another facelift; users are predictably angry.

So what can we take away from examining the trials and tribulations of our 6 year relationship? A few of my observations:

Facebook has and will continue to tread through new territory in terms of privacy, data collection and revenue models for a community of over 400 million people. They will misstep and make mistakes. They might not always have our best interests at heart, but they certainly don’t want to seriously piss anyone off… or get sued.

Facebook users are incredibly irritable and averse to change. We generally can’t identify what we want, but we sure know it when given something we don’t want (although we then sometimes later learn that we actually did want it but didn’t even realise.) This probably won’t improve as seniors and baby boomers continue to join Facebook at an alarming rate.

And with all that said, I think it’s time to pour myself a drink. Cheers to you, Zuck, it’s been quite a ride.

Wowza, Facebook just turned 6! That’s really old. It’s even older in the sense of social network years (whose ratio to calendar years must be something like 11:1). And, like any good cougar vying for young’uns, it celebrated the big day with a face lift to its homepage.

My account rolled over to the new homepage today; it’s all about navigation and accessibility this time around:

• The left column menu has been souped-up into what Facebook refers to as a ‘dashboard’ which makes it much easier for users to find and access content, applications, pages and groups. (You may recall that in the last iteration this was accessed via a menu hidden in the far left side of the bottom toolbar.)
• The global navigation puts a more prominent emphasis on notifications, new friend requests and messages. (But, you mightn’t notice this unless there’s something new for you to see, in which case the button is highlighted). The search input box is huge! …And sits front and centre.

The last redesign was all about the stream; as Facebook’s response to Twitter, it highlighted the latest content in real-time. However, there was major backlash (weird, that never happens) with the main gripes being clutter and lack of user-friendliness.

This latest layout seems to be more in line with traditional web design… could it be that 6 years of wisdom has taught Facebook to put more thought into good old fashioned usability than looking slick? A logical idea considering that baby boomers and seniors are Facebook’s fastest growing segments.

[...I guess that means I should probably take back the whole “vying for young’uns” part.]