Time for Voting!

The crowd-sourcing portion of the panel-selection for SXSW Interactive 2009 (scheduled March 13-17, 2009 in Austin, Texas) is underway.

The SXSW online panel picker is open for voting and commenting and you are invited (indeed encouraged) to sign-up (you know the drill) and vote for your the panels you think are most useful.

You don't have to be an attendee or planning to attend to vote - just be someone who's you know, interested. Questions about all this SXSW panel stuff? Check the SXSW Panel FAQ.

Stepping up

As the risk of shameless promotion, the topics listed here all seek to deliver solid practical skills along with discourse on the fundamental issues and the details.

If you have questions/comments/curiosities about the pitches, please consider leaving a comment on the SXSW panel picker - sure it takes an extra few moments but will help the selected panelists hone their messages if they are indeed picked. Also offering props publicly helps spread the voting goodness.

Do you have an awesome panel in the mix? Drop a comment and let's get the vote out!

Every year during the Vancouver International Digital Festival (VIDFEST) the POPVOX awards are handed out to the winners selected by the Voice of the People! The POPVOX awards celebrate and recognize all the fields of digital media in a variety of categories. The winners are annunced at the Gala event scheduled May 23rd (pretty soon) so buy your tickets.

Nominees submit their projects and the masses then vote for their favorites online (that's why they are the people's voice awards right).

The Vancouver International Digital Festival is an event for the top creative minds working in digital media. Attracting visionaries from games and digital entertainment, Web 2.0, interactive design, animation and mobile applications, it is an annual ‘must-attend’ in Vancouver, Canada.

VIDFest is Vancouver's International Fest for all things around the new and interactive media space and is produced by New Media BC and Telefilm.

KK is on duty as a poster boy for the event - his hoodie sweatshirt and scruffy face adorning magazine ads throughout Cascadia and the event kicking off next week, so here's a quick guide to get you up to speed.

First, be sure you are subscribed to the VIDFest RSS feed and friend up the VIDFest Flickr photostream.

There are several parts to the May 21-24th event - well really, 11 parts when combined with the two-day Vancouver International Game Summit 2008. Here's the official blurb:

VIDFEST is eleven events over four days, including conferences, an awards gala, an international partnering forum, a pitch fest, and a recruiting fair.

The gang down the block at Strutta share many an interest with us at Raincity Studios - they enjoy good times, coding tough and working hard while enjoying a beverage and a laugh at the end of the day. We eagerly collaborate, share code trinkets, but (me at least) stay away from their manic Rock Band forays.

You see, the Strutta folk are hyper-competitive by nature and this desire to excel at every tasks - no matter how mundane - drives their newly launched video competition site. No doubt there are plenty of video hosting sites out there, complete with (often inane) comments and kinda community building features, but Strutta is like a specialized video contest party where all the videos feature someone intentionally showing their mad skillz - whatever that skill may be.