Day Four recap: My "encounter" with Craig Newmark of Craigslist & Gary Vaynerchuk
This of the type of awesomeness that only happens at SXSWi.
- Today completely restored my faith in SXSWi. For many reasons.I'm going to be honest, I was on the verge of not wanting to come back for Monday's sessions. This weekend was a nightmare. The crowds were too big, I was sick, I feel like I haven't slept in two weeks, etc. But I went to bed at 7pm yesterday, and when I woke up this morning, I felt refreshed.The day started off on a seriously strong note. I was fortunate enough to watch Al Franken talk about net neutrality.
- I won't rehash what I wrote earlier today, but net neutrality is an EXTREMELY important issue for all of us. I left this talk wanting to run through a brick wall. So kudos to Sen. Franken for a great speech.
- As I was leaving the Franken speech, I saw journalist/author/professor Jeff Jarvis and asked for his impression.
- From there, I sat in on a little bit of Barry Diller's talk with CNN's Poppy Harlow. Diller also touched on net neutrality, saying not having net neutrality is the only serious threat to the Internet.
- Next up was another fascinating talk, this time Pete Cashmore of Mashable (one of my mancrushes) interviewed Dennis Crowley of Foursquare. I'm not a location user, but it's hard to ignore the popularity of it, and it was inspiring to hear Crowley's vision for the future. (I get into that a little bit later with my interview of Jon Swartz from USA Today.) As many females in the crowd said, Cashmore is a beautiful man.
- I then left the convention center to head to a private suite at the Four Seasons to meet my friend Jon Swartz, the tech writer for USA Today. And I just realized that sentence sounds creepy. What I should say is one of Jon's friends got a suite for journalists to work out of. It was a great set-up and it's always good to pick at Jon's brain. One thing though - the guy is a brilliant tech writer, but has a PC and a Blackberry!
- Just giving Jon a hard time. We eventually talked about all the growing pains at SXSWi, and Jon heard from some reliable sources that the crowd isn't 30-40% bigger than last year, like SXSW is claiming. It's actually 100% bigger. That's insane. Jon then talks about the app he thinks will come out of SXSWi as the next big thing.
- After running back to convention center, I noticed a familiar face while on the escalator. It then led to this back and forth on Twitter.
- That, my friends, is the type of awesomeness that only happens at SXSWi - a place where Internet pioneers and giants talk freely when us regular Joes who are simply fascinated by their work and are trying to make our own difference in some small way.The awesomeness didn't stop there though. I caught the last few minutes of Gary Vaynerchuk's speech. I mentioned earlier about wanting to run through a brick wall...it's hard to listen to Gary and NOT be motivated for greatness.
- Even better, I got to interview Gary on the way out of the convention center.
- It doesn't get much better than that, folks. That's why I love SXSWi.
