• by John Hooper , March 17, 2008

AUSTIN, Texas -- MySpace.com, imeem.com and National Public Radio capitalized on the indie cred of South by Southwest Music and Media Conference and Festival to drive traffic.

They used offline SXSW events -- artist concerts and interviews, private parties and consumer events -- to drive their online businesses to festival attendees and non-attendees. They brought SXSW to hundreds of thousands of music fans unable to attend the events, held in Austin Texas, March 12-16.

In collaboration with SPINmagazine, the video gameGuitar Hero III, Slacker Online Radio and Ben Sherman clothing designs, MySpace Music threw a party at the legendary outdoor music venue, Stubb's on March 14, 2008 featuring X, Vampire Weekend, The Ravonettes, The Whigs, Ben Jelen & Switches.

MySpace and SPIN also hosted the San Jacinto Saloon, an artist tent with special gift bag and sampling areas. Hundreds of bands including Moby, The Wombats and Von Bondies dropped by to give exclusive on-site interviews and acoustic performances for broadcast on SPIN's MySpace page.

MySpace, SPIN and Slacker also have partnered to create a SXSW channel that will appear on slacker.com. Slacker gave away hats and t-shirts to attendees at the SPIN Stubb's party in exchange for attendees giving their e-mail addresses and listing their favorite band. Slacker Director or Marketing Communications Zach Hill said Slacker will be compiling lists of festival attendees' favorite bands to create a SXSW station on slacker.com.

Imeem featured the imeem Ultimate Guide to SXSW on their home page. The guide touted "Discover your new favorite bands without traveling to Austin. Music, video and photo playlists from festival showcases and much more." Imeem partnered with SANSA, 'SUP magazine and a number of record labels to stream video live from SXSW showcases and non-festival showcases.

NPR streamed live video of SXSW concerts from REM, My Morning Jacket, The Whigs and others. REM's broadcast from Stubbs was the first broadcast and webcast of songs from the band's forthcoming release, "Accelerate."

Additionally, NPR and five NPR Member stations - KUT Austin, WFUV New York, WXPN Philadelphia, KEXP Seattle and The Current from Minnesota Public Radio gave extensive online coverage of SXSW.