Valleywag isn't entirely wrong - SXSW is one giant party. Just about every major tech company, from Facebook to Google to Frog Design to Digg to Tumblr to Blogher to...well, everyone, had a party, and most also had a major presence on the trade show floor and in the panels.

Missing from hosting parties (to my knowledge) but at the conference itself in force were Microsoft and Sun, who both had large and impressive booths. Sun had some really good demos of JavaFX running while Microsoft talked up the finer points of Silverlight and Windows 7 on the trade show floor and had demos of Surface and PhotoSynth going in another part of the conference center.

There were a few major differences between SXSW and the other conferences I've been to. First, it was full of more agency-style companies, meaning there was a much greater and much-welcomed emphasis on design and user experience, along with some emphasis on design and advertising. Second, the sessions didn't seem to be that important to many people attending. The largest group I saw in any session I attended filled about half of the room, and I didn't hear a single person mention the keynote. Rather everyone was focused on the evening events, which is to say the parties.

SXSW seems to acknowledge this, and is nice enough to organize their conference around the social events. Nothing starts before 10 AM, most things don't start before noon, and all of the sessions are panels (leaving the presenters free to party a bit more the night before.)

But all of this isn't to say that there wasn't some great information presented. My favorite panel was a discussion of technology in automobiles lead by a great group of designers from many different companies, and Nate Silver from fivethirtyeight.com gave a great interview about the predictive science used by his site.

The 2009 Web Awards were fantastic. Hosted by Baratunde Rafik Thurston, the awards represented some of the best work on the web during the last year. Baratunde was a great host, hilarious in between presenters and good at keeping things moving.

If you have the option to attend next year I definitely recommend it. Even if you can't afford the registration, consider flying down to Austin and just hitting as many of the social events as you can. It's a great way to network, and the parties themselves aren't bad either.

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