Everyone heard that AT&T was slow during SXSW, but what was working with mobile? Well there is no consensus, but I can tell you what I used. Sched.org's mobile website for calendar, shortn.me for sharing news, and Foursquare for managing the parties. Using Sched

Sched.org's site redirects to an optimized iPhone experience which leverages Javascript popups of event descriptions and lets you save events to you calendar. With three types of panels at SXSW, no time staggering (most panels were at 10, 11:30, 3:30 or 5pm), screenings all over Austin, and 1600 bands--Sched.org's interface is a calendar lover's miracle. You can share your calendar with friends with a static URL based on your username and you can use advanced settings to search and browse by popularity. The fight against paper schedules continues, of course with battery troubles (I'm now keenly aware of each outlet available in Austin, and even found the secret outlet near the stage at Stubbs!) When you start offering sorting features and bookmarking, sched.org starts to beat the pocket guides. It's much more fun to share your shedule with @philton, whose favorite band name is 'Natalie Portman's Shaved Head,' and show him that you're going to their show instead of his party. To indulge, my favorite SXSW artist names were McFrontalot, Beans on Toast, Biscuit Brothers, Doctor Krapula, Flosstradamus, Japanther, Abe Vigoda, Scissors for Lefty, Dear and the Headlights, Venice is Sinking, We Were Promised Jetpacks, Whole Wheat Bread, and of course, Yak Ballz. Foursquare

There's no paper offering that can prepare you for the official and unofficial parties each night at SXSW. So, if for some reason you forget what your plans are while you're listening to the 5pm Suxorz panel that chronicled the worst social media ads that featured Sara Smith from Wonkette talking about Truck Nutz, you were not alone. It used to be that Twitter was the crib sheet for where to go at events, but this year there's a new interactive mayor in town and SXSW saw the introduction of Foursquare. If Twitter tells you what people are doing, Foursquare tells you where people are partying. Just like its SMS predecessor Dodgeball, the Foursquare's iPhone app tells you where everyone is. Let me clarify...not where they think they might like to go, but where they are at a point in time. Foursquare adds a new dimension to Dodgeball by awarding badges for behavior related to your own personal navigation of the city.  As Dennis Crowley put it at the New York Tech Meetup--going out using Foursquare is like playing The Legend of Zelda in that you get points and unlock secrets based on your check-ins. This is simple design for irrational behavior in NYC, but of course, using it in Austin added a dimension of weirdness - have a look at the Smule Fool at the Belmont during SXSWi playing his Ocarina:

There were more panels dedicated to talking mobile at SXSW than ever before and even this year's t-shirt symbol was a hand holding a mobile phone, but there was too much to cover in these panels and I think people went home more confused than when they left. Marc Curtis of Flirtomatic found it necessary to make a distinction that not everything in mobile is a downloadable application.  There are channels for mobile data such as mobile sites, widgets and apps; and that mobile sites like BBC have scale at 100MM page views per month.  Marc also made a poignant comparison between the EU and US in terms of interactive behavior. Austin was different from Barcelona in that in Barcelona attendees had ditched their laptops for mobile browsing, but at SXSW we were all tied to our laptops. I had my own laptop failure, which made me use my iPhone a lot more than I would have, I got so attached I started to make my own games. And I have to note that laptops are not the only devices that need to be charged. Why Mophie didn't have a 'mobile' salesman or even a mobile RV like those that sell pizza, kebabs, tacos and BBQ is the biggest mystery of all this SXSW. The mobile service that I'd like to see next after SXSW? GPS enabled electrical outlet locator for the city of Austin and suggested tip amount!