Beyond the #SXSWi 2010 hype: 4 observations from the event

LP&P's Linsey Krauss was all over SXSW Interactive this past weekend and looks beyond the hype of the event and offers up her own take on the big winners for the 2010 edition.

With the end of SXSWi just a day away, this year's event has flown by with more people, smarter technology and bigger announcements. As I mentioned, mobile and location-based services made a big splash this year and there are a number of smaller lesser known companies such as SitBy.Us; working to ride the coattails of Gowalla, Facebook and Foursquare. But the big winners this year go to --

Lines, lines everywhere – with 40% more attendees at the Interactive show this year, capacity is being reached more quickly and more people are left to stand in lines or wandering the streets creating their own “parties” at lesser known venues

AT&T finally gets it right – After learning their lesson last year, the network provider has done a great job managing the amount of users in a compact area especially given the increase in numbers (knock on wood!)

Chatroulette – launched in November 2009 by a student in Moscow, the website, which pairs random strangers for webcam-based conversations started gaining popularity last month and during SXSW it seems to be all everyone is talking about

Philosophy behind social networking – this year’s conference seems to have moved past just the technology to include more discussions around what people want in their social networks and how they are interacting with both friends and strangers.

Along with these big winners, networking parties continue to lead conversations making the interactive show often times more like a high school showdown. At the big Digg party on Saturday night, founders announced it will soon launch a significantly revamped version of its service that is faster and has instant Digging and instant submissions.

For those of you at the show, what do you think the big winners are for this year?