Three Minds On Digital Marketing @ Organic

PepsiCo wants you to be able to see what's happening at one of the biggest idea forums this year. They're not only a huge sponsor of this year's SXSW in Austin, they're running a Twitter-based "visualizer" of happenings and ephemera at the event.

Immersing themselves in emerging trends -- namely social media -- is what PepsiCo deems necessary to stay "sharp and innovative" according to Josh Karp, the company's Manager of Digital and Social Media. Their three big brands are individually sponsoring the different festivals and conferences: Pepsi is aligned with Music, Sierra Mist with Film and Mountain Dew with the Interactive Festival.

Hence, PepsiCo built their latest site, titled "SXSW 2009 Twitter Visualizer", specifically for the conference. (Thanks to Chad Stoller for sharing via twitter.) The first page features a constant stream of tweets similar to www.twitterfall.com. The eye-catching data is displayed in a bold, typographic manner. While it looks pretty cool, there's just too much going on to read too many of the actual tweets.

The front page isn't the best part though. Check out the "Swarm" page, which shows tweets as they're posted at specific event locations. All are nicely overlaid atop an animated map of Austin. So you get an idea of how the event is laid out even if you're not there. "Popular" tracks keywords while "Overheard" clues you in on who has sonic ears.

The most interesting part is that it looks to have been designed and built by a two-person team. Though they give props to others on their website.

Are you headed to Austin for the events? Will you be tweeting while there? Or are you following anyone who is tweeting in the midst of the experience?

Sarah Jo Sautter