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Opera at SXSW 2008

Posts tagged with "opera"

STICKY POST

Opera at SXSW Interactive

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South by Southwest (SXSW) is one of the premier film, music, and media technology festivals in the US. The Interactive Festival runs from Friday, March 7th — Tuesday, March 11th. This will be Opera's second year at the event, and we've got big plans to show Austin what Opera is all about.

The purpose of this blog is to share our memories from the festival with you (:cheers:). Expect daily posts written by me (Lawmune) and a group of volunteers. We'll try to update (with photos) during the event itself so you know what's happening.

Take a look at the panel schedule, let us know what you want to hear about, and we'll see what we can do.

For now, we are busy setting things up, so coverage on Friday and Saturday will be limited, but we'll be in full swing starting on Sunday. We will definitely write about the following panels and events we're involved with:

  1. The Real Dragon: Understanding the Web and Digital Media in China
  2. Browser Wars: Deja Vu All Over Again?
  3. SXSW 2008 Geeks Love Bowling
  4. "Rock Bands Rock Opera"

Stay tuned!

(Disclaimer: The opinions expressed on this blog belong to their respective authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Opera Software or anyone else.)

(Special note: The artworks featured on this blog were created by My Opera members Oleg Melnychuk and Dustin Wilson)

Podcast: Browser Wars: Deja Vu All Over Again?

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The browser wars panel podcast from SXSW 2008 is finally available. You can find it here: http://2008.sxsw.com/blogs/podcasts.php/2008/06/24/browser_wars_deja_vu_all_over_again

The panelists were:

Arun Ranganathan, System Architect
Chris Wilson, Platform Architect, Microsoft
Brendan Eich, CTO, firefox
Charles McCathieNevile, Chief of Standards, Opera

Here's a written summary of the panel: http://www.appscout.com/2008/03/sxsw_browser_wars_become_brows.php

Podcast: The Real Dragon: Understanding the Web and Digital Media in China

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At SXSW 2008, one of the Opera-hosted panels was called "The Real Dragon: Understanding the Web and Digital Media in China". Last week, SXSW released the official recording of the talk on the following page: http://2008.sxsw.com/coverage/podcasts/

The panel featured:

Tatsuki Tomita Sr VP of Consumer Prod, Opera Software

Sage Brennan Dir of Research, Pacific Sun Investment Management

Michael Fisk VP of Worldwide Digital Mktg Strategy, Sony Pictures

Jason Yim Pres and Creative Dir, Trigger

My personal wrap up of SXSW

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My colleague Erin Robbins wrote her report, as did Charles McCathieNevile, our Chief Standards Officer who spoke on this year's Browser Wars panel (which he discusses in his post). Check out the following articles:

It's a Wrap!
by Erin

South by... by Charles



Here are a few thoughts of my own:

There were so many different events, panels, tradeshow booths, and parties going on, all at the same time, there was no way to see and attend everything. As such, everyone's SXSW experience is different, which I think comes through when you read our various reports.

Once again, I'd like to thank our volunteers who joined us in Austin. Doing Opera-related work every day I was at SXSW meant that I didn't have the opportunity to attend any of the other panels, so I'm glad Phred, Jim, and John were able to blog about them for us. I hope you, the readers, were able to get a sense of SXSW Interactive's general vibe (though the party atmosphere is something that has to be experienced firsthand, I think).

I could write a hugely long post about everything we did at SXSW, but that would be tedious, so here are my personal highlights:


  • Giving away free coffee to SXSW Interactive attendees
  • Having an amazing booth with our logo projected on a wall, really huge for everyone to see
  • Having great stuff to give away to people visiting our booth (beer koozies, pins, stickers, and three styles of Opera shirts!)
  • Talking with a ton of people, and seeing them amazed by Opera's innovative, powerful, and time-saving features
  • Installing Opera Mini on people's phones, giving them full access to the real Web on the go
  • Meeting die-hard Opera fans (both new users and old timers who've been using Opera for years)
  • Meeting well-known My Opera members for the first time in person
  • Watching Charles make the Opera-faithful proud (and winning new users) at the Browser Wars panel
  • Helping to host the Rock Opera party, which had great bands and a really cool DJ
  • Hanging out with Opera staff coming to Austin from Mountain View, Los Angeles, Florida, Oslo, and England

More pictures can be found on our SXSW photo album here: SXSW 2008

Also, we've updated http://www.opera.com/rock/ with a summary of the Rock Opera party and more photos for your enjoyment.

Other links of interest:

SXSW: Browser Wars Become Browser Peace? Not Quite Rough transcript of the Browser Wars panel on AppScout

SxSW '08 Redux via Epistolary Rumination The post-panel blog post by Arun Ranganathan, who moderated the Browser Wars discussion

SXSW Podcasts The Browser Wars panel recording will most likely appear on that page eventually. The 2007 panel recording can be found here: Browser Wars Retrospective: Past, Present and Future Battlefields

A Fistful of SXSW Reports

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Before I post my own report(s), here's a quick roundup of SXSW reports written by some of my colleagues:

SXSWi 2008 Saturday and Sunday: Of beer, education, bowling, and sleep deprivation by Chris Mills

The SXSWi 2008 finale - Monday to Wednesday by Chris Mills

Software All Saddled Up by Erin Robbins

Long days and nights in Austin

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It's been a crazy good show for us so far. Our booth has been a hit, people are loving our giveaway shirts and other goodies, and we successfully hosted our first panel (to be blogged about shortly), not including the two we did at BarCampAustin III.

It's well past midnight here, and I only just got back to my hotel room about an hour ago, after a full day of events starting at around 9 this morning. Tonight, Opera participated in the Geeks Love Bowling event where various companies at SXSW fielded teams in bowling tourney. We didn't win it all, unfortunately, but we had fun.

(Rod Hamlin, Opera's bowling ace, was one of the top bowlers at the event and won a prize for his individual performance; more photos to come)

Tomorrow (Monday) will be our most hectic day yet, with the all-important Browser Wars panel at 2PM, and our Rock Opera party at 5:30, plus non-stop browser demos and giveaways in the tradeshow from noon-6PM.

We're streaming concert video from the party live, courtesy of ustream.tv. Visit the following page to enjoy the party with us online! http://my.opera.com/community/blog/2008/03/09/rock-opera-live-broadcasting

Free coffee at SXSW

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This morning, Opera provided free coffee to SXSW attendees. We started at 9:30 and continued until we ran out (at around 10:30).

We'll continue to do this for the next three mornings, so if you're around, make sure you come by early!

We'll have 2 stations, one on level 4 right past Registration and one on level 3 near the escalators.

Opera's Chris Mills on his SXSW experience so far

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Chris Mills, the editor of dev.opera.com is in Austin with us, and he's been busy. Amongst other things, he'll be speaking at BarCampAustin later this afternoon. Read his first SXSW report here: http://my.opera.com/chrismills/blog/2008/03/08/sxswi-the-texas-rodeo

Chris writes great event reports. I'm sure there's more to come.

Opera swag featured on Wired.com

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It looks like our beer koozie is getting some positive attention :cool:

http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2008/03/sxsw-inside-the.html



I think this is the first time we've publicly released anything with that particular design.

Opera/SXSW Wallpapers

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In addition to telling SXSW attendees about Opera for Desktop, Opera Mini, Opera Mobile, and the like, we're also very proud to show off the My Opera Community.

My Opera is all about you, our community members, so I contacted two of the most prominent artists on My Opera, Oleg Melnychuk and Khadgar, and asked them if they would create some desktop wallpapers for the event. I only asked for two, but they sent me four! I hope you'll agree with me how awesome they are.

We'll be displaying these wallpapers on the computers at our booth, and we're also pleased to share them here for your enjoyment:

By Oleg:

1024x768 | 1152x864 | 1280x1024 | 1600x1200 | 1600x900


1024x768 | 1152x864 | 1280x1024 | 1600x1200 | 1600x900

By Khadgar:

1024x768 | 1152x864 | 1280x1024 | 1280x960 | 1600x1200 | 1920x1200 | 2560x1600


1024x768 | 1152x864 | 1280x1024 | 1280x960 | 1600x1200 | 1920x1200 | 2560x1600

Artist commentary

Oleg:

My aim for the first wallpaper was to link Texas, where SXSW will happen, and Opera Mini. Red rocks, reddish sand, lots of a free space and, of course, a mustang — I think that's a good association for Texas. With a mustang I've tried to present the power of Opera Mini. Since I have far from a powerful mobile phone and high taxes for mobile internet, every time I launch Opera Mini, I begin to feel that my phone isn't really as bad as I thought and that my taxes aren't so high, either! :smile: That's the power of Opera Mini, real horsepower for your phone :wink:

What about the second wallpaper? I had no idea what to paint. I just knew it should be something fresh, spring-like, colorful, juicy... Well, just yummy! Here, I should thank Øyvind Østlund (NoteMe) for his great advice about the Opera Dragonfly. It's really a magnificent creature, and I'm sure Opera is making something really magnificent too! It will definitely cover the planet so nicely, as seen in my illustration :wink: And what about the sunflower — it's a symbol of peace and harmony.

Khadgar:

The first wallpaper was just a chance to do something that's been in my head for quite some time. I decided to do it sort of like an album cover where the picture has nothing to do with what the music is or the title says. The picture is of a robot (probably piloted by Espen) that has speakers that can shoot lasers to blow up things. He has a crowd cheering him on as half of them are being blown to bits. I decided with the type to make it as simple as possible so it wouldn't take away from the imagery.

With the second I tried to do the complete opposite of the first one by focusing completely on using type, but that didn't mean I couldn't draw something using type. After seeing Oleg's first wallpaper where he advertised Opera Mini I thought I'd give a go at it as well but advertising the Rock Opera event at SXSW. I can see this in my head as a series of posters or ads where there's a phone, a wii, and a desktop computer all made out of type advertising the same thing... but it's just a desktop background and probably a good one for people who like things simple.