Clearly, it will be a shitshow. Last year, there were 30,000 people, with Interactive surpassing Music for the first time. (How’s that for your favorite culture-shifting stat of the day?) This year, I predict 40,000. So expect lots of people complaining.

Also, GroupMe will explode. Not quite as multiplying as Twitter or Foursquare, but it will be the big hit. And it will reveal a new techno-sociological phenom: the live backchannel. Suddenly, people will worry they aren’t part of the right groups, haven’t been asked to join the exclusive chat rooms.

And thus, for the first time ever, SXSW will start to feel privatized. Between all the corporate sponsors and the non-public chatter and the VIP private parties, it will be the beginning of the end.

The full quote I gave for this story where nearly everyone said exactly the same thing: group messaging will be huge. But not everyone was as grumpy as me. (via fimoculous)

My thought to that is, what HASN’T had a backchannel for the last 8-10 years? We have all been banging on IRC at “BloggerCons” for years now, and who could forget about this incident featuring Mena Trott from ‘05?

The backchannel is NOT new, it’s just the new new, and it’s on your phone. Easier, yes. More widely spread, yes. But new? No.

Source: fimoculous

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