Disconnected at SXSW

There’s a lot to like about South By Southwest. The parties are great, Austin’s a beautiful and fun city, and the conference is a great chance to catch up with a lot of my American geek friends (and a few of my international ones, but there’s not much of a global flavor to the conference.)

But I gotta say – in 2007, in the United States, there’s something slightly insane about an “interactivity” conference that doesn’t have usable net access. There’s internet here – occasionally, for a few moments at a time, my laptop can connect. But it’s a rare occasion. And I’m getting used to walking a couple of blocks to the Taco Shack, which has excellent internet and tasty food.

But it makes the idea of blogging a conference more or less impossible, unless I were to do it from a Blackberry or Sidekick. I’ve been hanging out with danah boyd, who’s getting buried in data smog on her Sidekick from Twitter. (I’m told that Twitter is required for finding the cool parties at SXSW, but given that I’m not receiving any data at all, failing to read more messages seems like a poor idea.)

Yes, I realize that I’m a victim of contiuous partial attention, and that I should be able to enjoy my friends here and the speakers without checking email or reading news, but frankly, I wouldn’t be able to go to as many conferences as I attend if I couldn’t keep at least one eye on my life…

High hopes of getting a few posts up later today, possibly from the taco shop. (Nope. They’re coming up a day later, from the airport lounge.)