Live from Austin, Texas it's the SxSW show where hipsters and geeks congregate to pat each other on the back and pitch their next web 2.0, social networking, tag clouding web-app of the future. What a perfectly good excuse to get out of my blogging hiatus.

Austin is warm, hot even but this didn't stop be from eating the biggest bloody (literally) steak in existence. Everything is big here, cars, roads, restaurants, distances, rooms, bathrooms, taxis... I've been taking a lot of pictures, I constantly look like a tourist.

One thing that SxSW will teach you: good bloggers do not always make good speakers. Without naming any names, certain panel discussions were dogged by low voices, awful pacing and just plain drab content that was just too obvious to be of much value. Lack of passion from the speakers, lack of passion from the crowd. It's been said that SxSW is more about the networking than the content and I am inclined to agree.

But all was not lost, the keynote by Jason Fried and Jim Coudal was a definite highlight with both presenters as eloquent as you'd expect. Jim Coudal was particularily engaging and very funny. Jason Fried was once again kean to preach the benefits of shelving the spec doc and just getting stuff done. Andy Budd and Andy Clarke both put together a very good, very professional presentation and kept the crowd entertained with a some ad hoc superhero themed banter.

Overall, I have enjoyed my first day and while some presentations have been drab and I've lost my complimentary goodie-bag I'm looking forward to tomorrow. It will be interesting to see Kottke speak and maybe get my hands on another bag. I'll be wearing my limited edition, super-elite UX Magazine t-shirt so I will obviously be mobbed by groupies.