Intellectually, that is, as opposed to financially. Most people attending South By Southwest Interactive admit that they're there for the chance to hang out in Austin with the same Internet buddies they hang out with in San Francisco and Brooklyn. Without the parties, what's the point? That's always been the case with South By Southwest. It's just that with the economy prostrate and the social-networking bubble thoroughly popped, there's not even money to skim from the froth.

There's still enough money to pay for tickets to Austin, of course. But in good times and bad, SXSW has always suffered from a lack of purpose. The music and film festival which gave birth to it has real songs and real movies to talk about. The attendees of SXSW Interactive have nothing to look at but each other, and nothing to listen to but their own kind. Surely that explains why it ends up being a group grope of self-congratulation over little at all.

Ah yes, the bubbly parties. Facebook threw a party celebrating the launch of a tool for linking Facebook friends to iPhone apps, completing the circle of two recent technological fads. And Dennis Crowley's Foursquare — which may be based on code he sold to Google, his former employer — facilitated so-called "flash parties" at bars for those who couldn't get on the official party invite lists, or didn't care to wait in line. Kevin Rose, the founder of Digg, launched Wefollow.com, a directory of users for Twitter, to help navigate the mess of messages broadcast on the service.

In other words, the best and brightest of Silicon Valley and Silicon Alley are working on iterations of existing software for the most frivolous of purposes. There's not even a fundamental innovation in this round of tweaks meant to help you waste time more efficiently. (Gawker Media, the publisher of Gawker and Valleywag, threw a party of its own — but at least my colleagues were open about their intentions, which seemed to involve getting a bunch of geeks liquored up.)

It all reminds me of Camp Cyprus — the group of 20 Web cognoscenti, a gaggle of Facebookers and startuppers and wantrepreneurs who flew to a rich kid's dad's vacation home on the Mediterranean last fall and created a video of them cavorting in swimsuits to celebrate their own brilliance to the tune of Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'." It was an incredibly tone-deaf gesture at a time when Wall Street was imploding and people were losing their jobs.

Except the economy hasn't gotten any better. And South By Southwest Interactive has more than 10,000 attendees. So doesn't that make its excesses 500 times worse?

A few people had the sense to avoid this particular trainwreck. Ev Williams, the CEO of Twitter, gave it a pass — even though the tech crowd at SXSW did so much to popularize his status-updating service. That the likes of Rose and Crowley are the stars of this year's South By speaks to how far it has fallen.

I first attended South By Southwest a decade ago, when the dotcom boom had 12 months left to run. Mark Cuban, then the head of Broadcast.com, gave a keynote speech about Internet video; he sold his Web-video startup, Broadcast.com, to Yahoo a month later for $5.7 billion. Under Yahoo's ownership, Broadcast.com went on to not be YouTube.

The difference between then and now: Thanks to the delusions of public-market investors, there was actually money to be made from what Internet insiders admitted were inanities. Now there's no money and no hope of making it. There's just the frivolity left.

Videographer Richard Blakeley quizzed bloggers on the highlights and lowlights of this year's South By Southwest.

Scenes from South By Southwest: (photos by Scott Kidder and James Del)

Tumblr founder David Karp has a new Tumblrette, Stephanie Wei! Update: Okay, we've gotten this whole who's-David-Karp-dating thing straight. Stephanie Wei was recently spotted with Karp at a birthday party for Briana Swanson. A tipster explains:

Karp is most definitely dating Stephanie Wei though, to the annoyance of many. Her friends were calling and emailing me asking if he was gay or not a couple of weeks ago, and now they complain that she's always with him.

Karp's sex life sure is confusing!
Pop17's Sarah Austin shows off her intellectual property.

Former Valleywag editor Nick Douglas puckers up to Laughing Squid's Scott Beale.

Lifehacker editor Adam Pash demonstrates how to open a beer bottle with a piece of paper.

Wine Library TV's Gary Vaynerchuk and "friend," which is caption-writer code for "we don't know who this is" very important person Becca Camp.

Facebook employees pop champagne with sparklers, just in case you missed the point that they were drinking champagne.

CollegeHumor's Ricky Van Veen and Tumblr's David Karp attempt to locate South By Southwest's point.

It's not that amazing. As CenterNetwork's Allen Stern first pointed out, each time a new user signs up for FriendFeed, the site suggests the new user becomes friends with "Popular FriendFeeders." On the list: Bret Taylor, Fred Wilson, Scott Beale, Michael Arrington, Loic Le Meur, Jason Calacanis, Dave Winer and Leo Laporte — despite, as Stern notes, the fact that many of these "popular" users don't actually use FriendFeed very often. Why? We haven't asked anybody at FriendFeed because the answer is obvious: So that the whole bunch of easily ego-fluffed blog blowhards will blog about how amazing FriendFeed is, without bothering to figure out why, exactly, it seems to be growing so much faster for them than everybody else.

Were you there, too? Or just want to add a caption? Leave a comment here or on the photo page.

(Photo of McCarthy and Thomas by Scott Beale/Laughing Squid; Loren Feldman and Owen Thomas by Brian Solis; gallery by Noah Robischon)

• Andy Baio, creator of Yahoo-owned social planning network Upcoming, is hosting a goodbye party for himself for his last day on the job. At the Latin American Club on 22nd St. [Upcoming]
• Laughing Squid holds a last-minute 12th anniversary party at Varnish in SoMa tonight at 7. [Laughing Squid]
• Sunday night, show up at the Dark Room theater on Mission Street for one of their Bad Movie Nights. The flick this week is the hacker classic War Games. Would you like to play thermonuclear war? [Upcoming]

(Photo by Scott Beale/Laughing Squid)

Like 365 Main, Rackspace was hit by a utility power outage on Sunday. Unlike 365 Main, Rackspace saw its generators kick in, and all was well. This evening, however, a truck drove into a power transformer, causing it to explode. Rackspace techs described this in an email to customers, with admirable sangfroid, as leading to "additional power issues." Further word from Rackspace is that the chillers that keep the servers cool lost power when the transformer blew. An unknown number of servers were taken offline to prevent damage from excessive heat. Currently, the chillers are back online and Rackspace techs are in the process of bringing all the affected customers back online.

Interestingly, as Scott Beale of Laughing Squid points out, "Rackspace does not have a status page or blog." Beale, who's using a status blog to keep his customers informed, later noted that Rackspace does have a "customer portal" — I guess that counts as a blog — which they eventually updated late tonight.

Update 7:54pm: Laughing Squid is back online once again. So is 37signals.

Followup:

• Rackspace was "most reliable" webhost in September 2007
  
• Rackspace outage affects Texas ISP
  
• Rackspace outage was third in two days
  
• Rackspace customers apologize for the downtime
  
• Rackspace's latest datacenter update
  
• CEO of Rackspace apologizes to customers
  
• EXCLUSIVE: Low blood sugar brought down Rackspace websites

First up, Stirr, the monthly show-and-tell for startups (photos by Hot From Silicon Valley):

"Hey, you know the organizer Sean Ness? I hear he isn't wearing any panties."

"Guys, I know the party around us is loud, but if we keep our heads down, we can still finish this business proposal tonight."

Caught in the holy light, this man converted to the Holy Church of Web 2.0. He was later seen handing out poppies at the Oakland Airport.

"Please God, just one more button."

"Hmm, who on the balcony looks pitchable?"

"Look at me, I'm a woman at Stirr! How did I even get in here?"

Meanwhile, at San Francisco's Mighty club, blogger Om Malik held the second re-launch party for his blog GigaOM, sponsored by Sharpcast. Four people asked me that night, "What does Sharpcast do?" Who knows, and who cares? They bought the drinks, and they were hiring. They supplied the band too, for which we hate them. Zooomr evangelist Thomas Hawk snapped shots:

In the center, Thor Muller of Rubyred Labs and Valleyschwag, the man who will one day make millions selling elixir from a brightly painted wagon.

GigaOM blogger Jackson West eschewed collar and sleeves, instantly becoming the best-dressed gent at the party.

Note the white rabbit, a nod to the party's Alice in Wonderland theme. The heavy references to a magical world where things grow big when they shouldn't, words mean whatever one wants them to mean, and impossible creatures give drug-induced speeches while celebrating nonexistent holidays, made a better point about the tech boom than I ever could.

The man of the hour, getting some affection from Citizen Agency consultant Tara Hunt. Further photo series analysis reveals: Om only posed with women (who were, as all women, gorgeous).

Technorati engineer Kevin Marks makes a "help me" face.

Little known fact: Laughing Squid founder Scott Beale is rarely seen in photos not because he is usually behind the camera, but because he stands at a 60-degree angle.

STIRR Mixer 5 [Hot From Silicon Valley on Flickr]
Go GigaOm Go [Thomas Hawk]

Independence Day weekend and the no-free-pass policy may have kept you from the Seattle Gnomedex conference, but the magic of the Internets again lets you pretend you were there to hear presidential hopeful John Edwards speak and to snark the usual gang of crazy uncles in the backchannel chat room. Photos posted by Scott "no I won't shoot your wedding" Beale at Laughing Squid.

Senator Edwards sees Dick Cheney in the crowd. "Wanna mess, old man? I got two hands here and they're itching to break some neck."

Gnomedex organizer Chris Pirillo and partner-in-crime Ponzarelli try out for a ska band.

Laugh at them now, but in five years these dudes will shave and reveal that they're 16.

Wordpress founder Matt Mullenweg and Microsoft manager Niall Kennedy are blown back by an off-screen explosion, caused when Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer and blog pundit Dave Winer accidentally bumped each other.

Submissive startupper Kris Krug points to his dominatrix, Megan Cole.

This fish wouldn't stop asking for an "angler investment," and when its pun didn't go over well, the damn thing would bite.

The performance by Dave Dederer (of the Presidents of the United States of America) lost the talent competition to an interpretive dance about dynamic web menus.

When techies Chris Heuer and Will Pate decide they've had enough of the tech bubble, they will unleash Cthulhu upon the world and all hope will be lost.

ZDNet columnist Steve Gillmor talked for half an hour before anyone realized he was reciting the Bhagavad Gita in the original Sanskrit.

Philip Kaplan performs the interpretive dance that beat Dederer.

Gnomedex 6.0 Photos [Laughing Squid]

Digg partner Stamen Design won Best Costume by dressing as a team of dapper carpet salesmen.

Upcoming.org founder Andy Baio just licks the salt off these things and puts them back on the bar.

Diggers Daniel Burka and David Prager celebrated the launch with a day lying sideways on the beach. They do not regret getting these bizarre sunburns.

After the jump: "They call me....Mister Digg!"

One Tic Tac watch, Tic Tac iPod case, and Tic Tac flashlight later, gadget geek Philip Torrone's mouth smells like a mint factory.

Digg founder Kevin Rose can't run a site and shave at the same time.

Fucked Company founder Philip "Pud" Kaplan shows his no-nonsense version of "the shocker."

Diggnation podcaster Alex Albrecht: "We're hoping to get Mark Wahlberg to play me in the film, but I'm willing to do his stunts."

And that's how star power gets you written onto a guest list.

Digg co-founder Jay Adelson just thought of the perfect joke about midget sex, but he struggles against the inappropriate urge to blurt it out on stage.

OMG screenshot!

SF Chronicle writer Dan Fost to Microsoft manager Niall Kennedy: "Look, I'd like to make you the next Robert Scoble, but I don't have that kind of power."

Tier 1 founder Andy Shroepfer about gigablogger Om Malik: "Om said I could make fun of his John Travolta hair if I funded his next blog."

Digg v3 party photos [Laughing Squid]

Everyone's famous on the Internet! And the webstars really shine in Scott Beale's Wednesday photos from O'Reilly ETech 2006. In this edition, Ted Rheingold of Dogster, 3/4 of the Boing Boing crew, and an episode of escalating violence.

Ed Batista, attention pimp.

Dogster's Ted Rheingold and ex-Technoratian Niall Kennedy give the white man's gang sign.

Simply Hired's Dave McClure, moments before shrieking "Your sun! It burns me!" and running back to his Gevil lair.

After the jump, it's all fun and games until someone loses an eye.

"Dear team: kicking into high-gear networking mode. Send more striped shirts."

Mark, Xeni, and Cory of Boing Boing rest between glamorous international spy missions.

Geek-hobo proliferation reminds O'Reilly what they left out: "Oh damn! We always forget the CHAIRS!"

"Hmmm, I just might have a 'project' I could fit this pipe into, IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN."

Ted didn't actually use his laptop — just sat there all day posing. It's tough being pretty.

"Sure, you could use these gadgets for their intended purposes, but where's the fun in that?"

Tech writer Annalee Newitz blasts away at MAKE Magazine's marshmallow shooter.

And she stood there for an hour, waiting for something to happen.

This would've been the perfect moment for Ted's "I play trumpet in a ska band" hat.

The marshmallow projectile beaned a bellhop and neatly severed the Internet connection. Only the latter got noticed.

MAKE Magazine pits Roombas in an armed fight to the death.

"House meeting, everyone. Okay, have we learned our lesson about shooting and fighting today? Now I want you all to make Annalee a nice 'Get Well' card."

ETech 2006 Photos [Laughing Squid]
Earlier: Geeking out: ETech 2006, Tuesday [Valleywag]
And: Geeking out: ETech 2006 [Valleywag]

ETech 2006 rolls on, and Scott Beale keeps photographing the folks who make the Internet. Tuesday's highlights include Tim Bray's Indy outfit, Esther Dyson's spelling, and Jen King's primal scream.

Wired futurist Bruce Sterling Sun Microsystems demigod Tim Bray pops in from his Indiana Jones 4 audition.

Tribe.net's Chris Law isn't a friend of Kevin Burton. He just plays one on the Internet.

After the jump, Gob Bluth visits ETech. (Not really.)

ETech 2006 Photos [Laughing Squid, used with permission]
Earlier: Geeking out: ETech 2006 [Valleywag]

"And my Starbucks? Can you merge a tag folksonomy into my Starbucks?"

Simply Hired's Dave McClure: "Does your Google interview story involve a Rubik's cube and an attack dog? Yeah, everyone has that story."

Flickr'ing futurist "Esthr" Dyson: "A pleasre to meet you, I'm chrmed."

Designer Derek Powazek looks like a younger, taller Paul Giamatti. Just sayin'.

Technorati engineer Kevin Marks: "Well, if you don't like the new bubbly look, we'll just change the — no — no, shut up, I'm doing it now — we'll just change the site right back."

Weblogs Inc's Jason Calacanis is not just making a sign; he's worried and would like some peace, please.

Metafilter founder Matt Haughey: "If you bought the Segway to get laid, um, why'd you bring it to a tech conference?"

At the Yahoo party: "Heehee...hi, Mr. Semel? Mr. Terry Semel? Do you have Prince Albert in a can? WELL YOU'D BETTER GO OUT AND CATCH IT. Wait, wait, I messed up. Can we start over?"

Scott says, "[Berkeley student] Jen King's reaction to hearing web 2.0 for the 1000x time."

"Going Overboard Hair Club for Men.com. Works wonders, and it uses Ajax."

Tired of camps about actual from-scratch products, Valley developers, pundits, and businessfolk mixed it up at Mashup Camp, the two-day "unconference" about remixed tech. Laughing Squid tentaclemaster Scott Beale kindly let me abuse his pics from Monday.

Blogger Doc Searls rocks out the Microsoft-lanyard-Firefox-shirt mashup: business in front, party in the back.

"You'd think I'd shave it off, but when I'm in my bowler and three-piece it looks divine."

White-hat lawyers, Mucho Camp invasion, and the hippest user-experience expert in the Valley — all after the jump.

Technorati's Niall Kennedy: "Seriously, you say it through that thing and I'll pay you ten bucks." David Berlind: "For ten bucks? You're on."

"Larry Lessig totally hearts the RIAA!"

He didn't even see the hand until his face was firm in its grip.

The goatse-ing of an entire audience proves disappointing.

Scott visits the nearby Meebo headquarters. "I don't know how he got in here, but I need him evacuated before he takes a photo of the blank whiteboard."

Preserved for posterity, a dot-com geek.

Lawyer Larry Lessig cannot believe you asked about the Eldred case.

Members of the nearby Mucho Camp join the Mashup crowd. But they are still indie, so they will code standing up.

When it's time to blog the camp, everyone cheats off ZDNet's Dan Farber.

Doc Searls: "Hey, my award, don't touch!"

"Psst. You. Wanna buy a mashup of Marilyn Manson and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir?"

That's not even special ice. That is the bioluminescence of Jonathan Grubb's face.

Mashup Camp photos [Laughing Squid]
Mashup Camp [MashupCamp.com]