It’s that time of the year again…time to slide on your cowboy boots (only the most fashion forward ones, of course – we’re talking about Austin here), and perk up your listening ears, because SXSW is here.  We’re so excited to be attending the Interactive Conference in Austin, TX for our first time ever. We’ll be seeing all of the new films, listening to all the live bands, and checking out all the new gadgets and technology available, and of course, reporting back on everything that’s going on to you guys.

Each year South by Southwest (SXSW) conquers the film and music screenings by providing viewers with the most desired gadgets, eclectic music, and exposure of the hottest, up and coming creators. A staggering expectancy of over 12,000 people to attend the festival leads it to be single handedly one of the largest and highest revenue-producing music festivals in the country.  With the availability of listening to new bands, seeing new films, and testing out the newest technology…what’s holding you back from going?

Here are a few of the most talked about and anticipated events of the festival:

The Official SXSW Interactive Kick-Off, Sponsored by Ustream – Limited to the first 500 badge holders; experience the live performance of the Gym Class Heroes, Fall Out Boy’s Pete Wentz, and other special guest appearances.  The atmosphere itself is enough to want to attend…so get there early and see the show!

Mozilla SXSW Happy Hour Party – only available to the first 250 guests – so hurry up and don’t miss it!  Join Mozilla for drinks and appetizers at Cedar House and learn what’s going on in the world of web today.

Diggnation LIVE at The Bigg Digg Shindigg – Digg and Revision3 are performing live and for free at the well-known Stubbs BBQ on Saturday, March 13.  It’s going to be a combo of old school beats with new age rhythm.

All the events are within the same eight days with 1,400 reported artists playing in over 80 venues.  The overall focus of the festival is new directing talent which goes hand and hand with creative technology and innovative ideas.  Having the creative talent meet the potential consumer of film, song, album, video game, or website.  Click here to find out more information about each event; including times, places, and who is involved in each performance. Are you going to SXSW this year?  If so, what are you most excited for?

We’re going casual with this TV on Tuesday, with a brief comedy clip about technology now, and technology in the future. It’s funny, but listen closely – it’s also thought probing (probing – that’s a scary word when thinking of tech of the future). Take a look, laugh, and let us know where you think tech is going. Will you be getting a chip implanted into your head in your lifetime?

Just how many of us have a Facebook account in the world? To even think about it you know the number is going to be astronomical; the question is “who doesn’t have a Facebook account?”  By December 2009, Facebook single handedly attracted 469 million visitors, putting them at the No.4 most viewed website in the world.  Sound like just a number to you?  More than 31 million people signed onto Facebook in December 2009 then in November – Yahoo had 31 million viewers in the entire year of 2009.  That’s right, Facebook had that many hits in just thirty-one days.  The social networking site is quickly climbing the ladder to becoming the third largest Web property in the world (booting out Yahoo as number three, and closely behind Google (No.1) and Microsoft (No. 2)).

All in all, Facebook has grown by almost 250 million viewers in 2009.  If Facebook continues to attract this number of people, it will surely pass Yahoo as the third most viewed website in the world by the end of 2010.  But how many viewers does it need to take on the No.2 and No.1 websites? To pass Microsoft, Facebook would need well over 727 million hits worldwide, and Google of 899 million viewers, which may take more time then the 11 months left to 2010.

On the other hand, Facebook surpasses both Yahoo and Microsoft in many other aspects.  For example, Facebook’s page views grew an estimated 141% last year to 193 billion in December, Yahoo only received 100 billion while Microsoft pulled in 109 billion.  Although Facebook passed these two head honchos, Google still holds the top spot for 274 billion a month. When all’s said and done, Facebook is making exceptional growth in today’s market of most viewed websites. So keep checking out your friends, updating your status and pictures, and let’s move Facebook to the number three spot!

In the recent post by Twitter’s CEO, Evan Williams, he tweets: “Across all metrics that matter, yesterday was Twitter’s highest-usage day ever. (And today will be bigger.)” All well and good, but this raises the question:  why the concern? Why the defiance? Twitter’s doing all right… isn’t it?

Doing a bit of sleuthing, we uncovered the following social media trends over the past year:

Facebook’s number of visits, as perhaps expected, are on an upward trajectory. But Twitter and LinkedIn are a different story: the number of visits are completely flatling.  The website Compete allows comparison between various sites. Go to Compete’s website > click the green “try it for free” link > create a login. Once thats done you can click on the link “compare sites” and fill in the boxes with sites you want to compare statistically. We put in Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, and clicked the one year link to see the data over the past 12 months.  This is what we saw:

What do you think are the reasons for this?  Are LinkedIn and Twitter simply trends that have passed their prime?  And what allows Facebook to be eternally popular – the increase in services, the changing interfaces, or simply the wider market?  Let us know your thoughts!

CES  – the world’s largest consumer technology trade show – just ended in Las Vegas, leaving the internet abuzz with the latest unveilings in technology.  Here’s a few of our favorites – the tech we’re most excited about for 2010:

Plastic Logic’s QUE has a touchscreen that lets you gestures through page turns, contracts with the Wall Street Journal, Forbes and Fast Company, and supports Microsoft Office.  It’s rich interface has a home page with drop down menus, calendars, and drag-and-drop features.  It is, in essence, a businessperson’s best friend.  While the QUE is going to start at $649, the additional features and gorgeous design make it high on our list.

The Lenovo Skylight Smartbook weighs 1.95 pounds, offers 10 hours of battery life, and has Wi-Fi and 3G connectivity.  The 10-inch screen has a HD-friendly 1280 by 720 resolution, and it costs less than $500.

The Zink Zero-Ink printer fits in your purse or briefcase, and prints startlingly clear 4″ x 6″ images.

Everyone’s buzzing about the as-yet-to-be-confirmed Apple Tablet, but Microsoft beat them to the punch by announcing this touch screen tablet PC.

The Ford Sync system lets you control everything in your Ford, Lincoln or Mercury car, from GPS directions to your iPod music, with only your voice.  It now includes Wi-Fi and apps like Pandora and Twitter with Sync, allowing you to have the full computer experience in your car.  Now you have no excuse to be disconnected – even on the road.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.  Other revealings included a transparent laptop,a case that waterproofs your Kindle, and the Tivit mobile TV.  What tech innovations are you excited about for the future?

Many people are attributing the success of Avatar to the influence and vast reaches of social media. At first, we shook our heads in denial. You see, having seen Avatar we would like to say that Cameron’s one billion dollar profit (one billion dollars!!) is directly related to the stunning visuals, thought-provoking themes and truly inspiring characters created in the film.

Nevertheless: It must be grudgingly admitted that the team at Avatar’s commitment to social media is almost as impressive as their commitment to pure awesome in the actual film. The facts are these: Avatar has Facebook, Myspace and a Twitter page. On Twitter they have 20,245 followers, and even more impressive they have 725,707 friends on Facebook. This allowed already fascinated more polite word for obsessed) fans to post, tweet and get involved in the geek event of of the season. Some might argue that Twitter, Facebook and Myspace accounts are fairly usual now as Hollywood has jumped on the bandwagon and realized the importance of online marketing – enter Avatar’s interactive trailer…

The piece de resistance, the straw that broke the camel’s back (or in Cameron’s case, gave the camel a gold saddle worth one billion dollars) is the interactive trailer. You need to download it but it’s worth it. The genius of this trailer is that there are 10 hotspots, where you have the option to click for further in depth information. such as cast interviews. Once you have had your fill of Jake Sully, you can click to resume the remainder of the visually stunning trailer. Not only that, but you can get all of the latest Twitter, Flickr and YouTube feeds right from the trailer.

In conclusion, the social media force cannot be underestimated, It is a powerful tool that even such powerhouses as James Cameron cannot ignore. But as cool as tweeting, Facebook posting and clicking on interactive trailers are, still go and see the movie.

And bring your 3D glasses. It’s an awesome look.

Twitter recently posted “Top Twitter Trends of 2009”; which shows that in 2009, Tweeters tweeted about just about anything. Twitter conversations, issues and dialogues spanned from Obama’s inaugural speech, to Harry Potters, Susan Boyle and beyond.

So on any given day in 2010, how can an individual tweeter hope to know exactly what is happening in the Twitterverse? The answer? Trending hashtags! Hashtags are tags that consolidate tweets on a particular topic so trending hashtags show the main topics that are occupying Twitter at any particular moment.

You may look at the results for 2009 Twitter trends and think…er…What is the point of looking at trending hashtags if it only confirms the enormous ground covered each day by tweets? We’ll tell you: This way, we can be involved in dialogues that matter – we can see what Tweeters are mainly interested in and jump right on the bandwagon.  Of course, due to the nature of Twitter, tweets that matter are forever changing. In order to be ahead of the game, or at least fast on its heels, check out Wthashtag.com: It shows the currently trending hashtags for tweets and if it can, dishes out a brief description as well.

So, today we will leave you with the tending hashtags as of this moment in 2010: They are (drumroll) #nowplaying, #meant4directmessage, #ThingsYouDontSay, #willgetyourejected, #uksnow, #whatsfunnierthan. All of these a testament to the vibe of 2010 in the wake of the festive holidays: Completely irreverent and nothing to do with turkey.

The decade has come and gone and the night of New Year’s Eve is now behind us, leaving just one question that lingers into 2010: what did you resolve? And, more importantly, how’s technology going to help you keep your resolutions? We have something for pretty much everything these days – personal trainers that yell at you to do the last 5 push ups, websites that generate automatic shopping lists, and iPhone applications to do, well, pretty much anything. And now we have Dorthy, the web based know-it-all best friend who will make sure you keep your resolutions. And what a best friend she is. Specify any goal – seriously, upon browsing previous entries everything from “I want to be a chef” to “I just want to be loved” comes up – and Dorthy will help you get there, by creating a “dreampage” with news articles, blogs, photos, videos, and links to other users, all created with the intent to help you achieve your goal. I typed in “become a better blogger” and got articles on blogging basics, technical info on how to tweet information from a blog or upload content more effectively, various video clips, and a suggestion to get in contact with a one “Stephan from Taiwan” who apparently would like to be a famous blogger. Dorthy thinks we might have some stuff to talk about. Visit Dorthy to see what she thinks for you.

[via Mashable]

Welcome to our first installment of TV on Tuesday, where we bring you our favorite clips from around the web.  They could be funny, they could informative, they could be irreverent or simply irrelevant…but every Tuesday, they’ll be here, waiting for you to click and view.  Today, we bring you Alexis Ohanian, the founder of Reddit, as he gives a Ted Talk on the naming of Mister Splashy Pants.  While this talk is certainly humorous (and how could a talk about Mister Splashy Pants not be?), at its heart is a message about how social media changes how we process information.  When using the web to convey the message, we are essentially setting it free; we are relinquishing the control that newspapers, television and other, older forms of information conveyance have both used and relied on for years.  So, without further adieu, we set this clip free and bring you:  How to Make a Splash in Social Media, with Alexis Ohanian and, of course, Mister Splashy Pants.

With Hanukkah here and Christmas around the corner, we’re all scrambling for those last minute gifts. This year, let technology make it easy…

We love these great digital gift ideas for social media lovers from Mashable’s Barb Dybwad!

1. iTunes Gift Certificates

The iTunes Store makes it easy to give songs, albums, playlists, audiobooks, music videos, movies, and TV shows to anyone. Or give iTunes Gift Cards and gift certificates and let them choose for themselves.

2. Dropbox Subscription

Dropbox is a cloud storage, sharing and backup option. You can buy a Pro account (100 GB of storage space) for under $20/month. Great for students or anyone trying to keep multiple computers in sync!

3. Flickr Pro

Give the gift of unlimited photo and video uploads, storage and bandwidth with a Flickr Pro account.

4. Amazon Gift Certificate

A personal favorite, Amazon lets you give gift cards by e-mail, snail mail or printable versions.

5. Last.fm Subscription

The music social network, discovery engine and personalized ratio station allows subscriptions for uninterrupted music streaming…ad free and only $3/month!

6. Steam Gifts

Got a gamer friend? Give the gift of steam. You can purchase games from the popular digital game distribution platform for current or new users. Download Squad can help you pick which game.

7. Netflix Subscription

Got a non-netflix member friend? Now is the time to convert them! Netflix is the best way to rent movies unlimited by mail. Subscriptions are available from 1 month up to 1 year.

8. Evernote Premium

An Evernote subscription allows 500 MB/ month of uploads, broader file type support, syncing, PDF search, premium support and other benefits. Good for an already Evernote user…or not!

9. Audible.com

This would be a great gift for a commuter or anyone else who listens to audio books. You can choose a certain amount or a monthly subscription to various books on tape!

10. Newegg Gift Cards

Newegg gift cards may be used toward the purchase of any in Newegg’s vast selection of computers and computer parts, televisions, monitors and other gadgets.

Any other great digital gift ideas? We would love to hear about them!