Blog P.I.

While in Austin last week, I wrote a blog post for New Media Strategies about what I saw there:

For better or worse, the just-concluded SXSW Interactive festival in Austin, Texas carries the weight of massive geek expectations. The big reason has to do with Twitter: it was at SXSWi in 2007 that the now-ubiquitous messaging service first gained wide exposure. The buzz from Austin traveled far and wide throughout the blogosphere and, up in Washington, I was inspired to join Twitter three years ago yesterday. The rest is history.

Each subsequent year, the question buzzing around the Austin Convention Center has been the same: “What’s the new Twitter? What’s the new big thing?” With a few years’ distance, it’s clear that the rise of Twitter is sui generis, like the blogosphere itself. SXSW is a great launching pad for new services (here’s one from this year called Lunch.com), but no law of the universe dictates that every March in Central Texas, something new and wonderful will take world by storm.

And a funny thing happened this year: I don’t recall anybody asking about the next big thing. I think I know the reason, and it is not that there wasn’t something to talk about. It’s that the next big thing was obvious from the first day.

Read the whole thing at: At SXSW, Last Year’s Next Big Thing Was This Year’s Actual Big Thing.