The SXSW trade show opened at noon today. The session I had prior to it opening wasn’t that great, so I was in line when the doors opened. There was a nice collection of vendors, and an even nicer collection of swag to be had.
There were actually quite a few large city film associations (the interactive and film conferences share the same trade show). There were also a decent number of DVD/CD pressing companies as well. None of those really interested me.
Google had a nice booth there. I thought it would be funny to go up to them and pretend that I didn’t know who they were. “So, what exactly do you do at G-g-google? Am I pronouncing that right?” I had a hard time keeping a straight face and blew the whole thing. They at least pretended to think I was funny and gave me a mouse pad. 
Another great booth was Mozilla Firefox. They were giving out free t-shirts to anyone who would be a temporary Firefox tattoo on their neck or face. They were also selling shirts so I just bought one. The girl who sold it to me seemed a little disappointed that she didn’t get to put a tattoo on my face. I figure Firefox is a good cause and I’m happy to give money to them. I’ve looked at getting a Firefox shirt several times in the past, but just don’t really like the navy blue one they sell online (the one I bought was a brown ringer tee). The Creative Commons had a booth where I also purchased a shirt (again, another organization that I’m happy to give money to). Another interesting booth was a company I’d never heard of before today called LuckyOliver. They’re a stock photo shop similar to istockphoto, which I’ve used before. They use a token system (I got 4 free!) to purchase photos. They also accept photo submissions and will sell your photos for you. The site looks (good collection of images) works very similar to other stock photo sites, so at the very least, it’s another alternative when i can’t find that perfect image. The last booth that stood out for me was the Make Magazine booth. They’ve just launched a new magazine called Craft which is more on the crafty side of things where Make is more of the hacking and building super-cool ray-guns side.
It was a good trade show, and there were plenty of booths giving out candy so I’m sure I’ll stop by from time to time throughout the week to have a little snack.