SXSW INTERACTIVE

Facts about SXSWi

Top 10 festgoers to follow on Twitter during SXSW

Robert Scoble (@scobleizer) — Love-him-or-hate-him tech blogger with huge following and voracious appetite for news (and Salt Lick barbecue).

Charlene Li (@charleneli) — Panelist and emerging trends expert; co-author of 'Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies.'

Loren Feldman (@1938media) — Always-controversial puppeteer and social media provocateur. Do NOT get on his bad side or he might make a puppet show out of you.

Tony Hsieh (@zappos) — Zappos.com CEO and opening remarks presenter who combined online shoe selling with social media.

SXSW's crew (@sxsw) — Official Twitter feed of the fest with updates, advice and links to good Interactive info.

Gary Vaynerchuk (@garyvee) — Charismatic wine blogger with a huge online following. Follow him to uncork the unofficial wine parties.

Guy Kawasaki (@guykawasaki) — Keynote speaker and former Apple Fellow, now a venture capitalist and online aggregator at alltop.com.

Cali Lewis (@cali

lewis) — Dallas-area host of video podcast 'GeekBriefTV' produced by husband Neal Campbell.

Jonathan Coulton (@jonathancoulton) — New York musician and geek hero who'll be a speaker and performer at the festival.

Felicia Day (@feliciaday) — Geek object of desire as star of Joss Whedon's 'Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog' and writer/actress on Web show 'The Guild.'

Interactive, but free

In this ever-tightening economy, not everyone could afford to attend this year's festival who wanted to, but there are still ways to experience parts of Interactive on the cheap.

• Screenburn Arcade, the three-day video-game fest, is free and open to the public. It runs 2-6 p.m. Friday and noon to 6 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. It features a game-design competition and lots of virtual guitars. More info at screenburnfest.com.

• The George Washington Carver Museum & Cultural Center will host several SXSW events, including a Blacks in Technology Meetup at 6 p.m. Friday and a Youth Filmmaking Workshop on Stop Motion Animation with the Austin School of Film all day Saturday. More information at sxsw.com/carver.

• Check austin360.com/sxsw, sched.org and Rochelle Hamby's Diva Girls Deals blog (http://budurl.com/divagirl) for unofficial parties that don't require a badge, like Sunday night's 'Austin Tweetup' at Aces Lounge or 'The Heather Gold Show' 7:30 p.m. Monday at Palmer Events Center.

What's new this year

• The opening-night party that launched last year's Interactive fest at crowded Six Lounge has been spread into several opening-night parties and a screening of the film 'The Two Bobs' at the Convention Center theater.

• Less formal happy hour-style 'Salons' will take place at 6:30 p.m. each evening at the Downtown Austin Hilton. Sample topic: 'Digital Dating: Are the Internets Killing Your Game?' (Monday, Hilton Room E)

• On Monday, the first 'Microsoft BizSpark Accelerator' will take place at the Hilton. It'll be a kind of 'American Idol' for start-up businesses. Tech venture capitalist Guy Kawasaki and journalist Brad King will emcee.

• my.sxsw.com, a new site launched for the fest, allows attendees to post Twitter-style messages to each other and build their own fest schedule.

Top 10 Austin techie hot spots

1. Building 45 — Located on IBM's North Austin campus, the 'Rust Bucket' dates back to the '60s and is the birthplace of some of the company's Power processors and Unix servers. 11301 Burnet Road.

2. Texas Advanced Computing Center, J.J. Pickle Research Campus — World-renowned supercomputing center. 10100 N. Burnet Road.

3. Austin Studios — East Austin film production facility where parts of 'Sin City' and the 'Friday the 13th' remake were shot. 1901 E. 51st St.

4. Dobie Center near UT — Once upon a time, Michael Dell opened PC's Ltd. there before dropping out of school. Now he's got fancier digs at the Dell Inc. headquarters in Round Rock. 2021 Guadalupe St.

5. The Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum IMAX Theatre — We've got giant 3-D movies. 1800 N. Congress Ave.

6. Sullivan's — Downtown steakhouse that was the go-to place to schmooze (and eventually lose) during the dot-com boom. 300 Colorado St.

7. Conjunctured — Austin's first co-working space. 1309 E. Seventh St.

8 and 9. 'Office Space' filming locations — The Alligator Grill (8 — 3003 S. Lamar Blvd.) is the real 'Chotchkie's'and 4120 Freidrich Lane (9) is home to the office building we all know as Initech.

10. Building 3 — Location at AMD Inc.'s old campus where many of the company's chips (Athlon, Shanghai) were designed. 5900 E. Ben White Blvd.

Bonus (not mapped): The Garriott Estate — Game developer Richard Garriott's West Austin home, featuring a replica of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre.

6 good places to get free Wi-Fi

1. Whole Foods Market, 525 N. Lamar Blvd.

2. Austin Public Library, 1161 Angelina St.

3. Jo's Hot Coffee, 242 W. Second St.

4. Austin Convention Center, 500 E. Cesar Chavez St.

5. Freebirds, 515 S. Congress Ave.

6. Jo's Hot Coffee, 1300 S. Congress Ave.

10 good Web sites for SXSWi (and the rest of the fest)

austin360.com/sxsw

sxsw.com/interactive

twitter.com/sxsw

sxswbaby.com

sxsw2009.do512.com

sxsw2009.sched.org

austinist.com/sxswist

sxsw.ning.com/

upcoming.yahoo.com/tag/sxswi/

flickr.com/photos/tags/sxswi/

The 2009 SXSW Interactive Festival runs Friday through Tuesday, featuring five days of panels, parties, book signings, a public video-game expo and trade show. Walk-up registration costs $495. Gold and platinum badge holders can attend Interactive events. To register, visit sxsw.com/attend.