I saw a funny billboard on the way to SXSW Saturday morning. It asks "What if your electronic wallet freezes?" As I drove by I read the words "Isis," the Isis Mobile Wallet, which lets consumer carry loyalty cards and offers on your phone. When I arrived at the Austin convention center LevelUp was offering $5 in credit for anyone willing to give it a try. I thought it was ironic. Guess you had to be there.

We're finally seeing what real-time marketing means. Google last week provided insight through a new project, but during a session at SXSW, Jenn Deering Davis, co-founder of Union Metrics, pointed to Oreo's Twitter tweet during the Super Bowl as an example. New content works well in the moment, but what about the old? Brands can re-purpose content, making it relevant again. The trick is to tie it into a current event. Make sure to explain "here's the thing that made us think of it," she said.

You know you're in Texas when you look out your hotel window and see a guy with a cowboy hat holding a beer with his foot on the bumper of his truck. Just like you know you're at SXSW when the conference bag has a radio frequency identification (RFID) or near field communications (NFC) chip, along with a QR code to make it interactive. And say hello to the press greeter. He's a funny guy.

South Africa shows many of the trends happening in the U.S. Some 56% go online several times daily, 46% research product online and then make the purchase, and 26% go into a store to research a product (showrooming) and then change their mind and buy something else. About 80% of consumers in Africa do not have a bank account, but they do have a SIM card to make electronics transactions, according to Toby Shaphak speaking at SXSW.

The lines were maddeningly long and interminable Friday during the opening of SXSW Interactive in Austin, but this morning they look like Times Square on New Year's morning (see photo of registration area taken this morning). The only logical explanation was that Day One of the festival included not one, but two OMMA shows -- OMMA Mobile and OMMA Social -- and if we come back next year the SXSW organizers should account for the impact of OMMA. Seriously, it was an amazing turnout for the OMMA events -- packed to rafters. And unlike our going-in expectations that it would …

Nations like Africa that are building a new communications infrastructure have begun to leapfrog the infrastructure built in the U.S. The speakers from Johannesburg said more people in Africa have mobile phones than access to electricity. The kinds of innovations coming out of Africa point to electronic commerce. At SXSW on Saturday, Toby Shaphak said 40% of the world's transactions go through Kenya mobile.phones, and 80% of the transaction are in east Africa during the $100 Billion Mobile Bullet Train Called Africa.

Warner Bros. offers up an interactive experience -- spun off its one's "Television" experience, called Tell-A-Vision -- during SXSW. Promoting all thing Chuck Lorre, the man behind "Big Bang Theory" and "Two and a Half Men", you can find the TV scribe/producer's art gallery renderings, as well as his famed "vanity cards" -- those the blurbs he writes at the end of each show, which has included musings about Charlie Sheen (remember him!). Lorre, there also to promote his book "What Doesn’t Kill Us Makes Us Bitter." Other Warner Bros. shows are also touted include a working six-wheeled sculpture to …

Mobile and social were big topics during the OMMA part of SXSW Interactive in Austin today. Leading retailers highlighted some of the things working for them and some of the successes they have seen.

Havas CEO David Jones is presenting at the SXSW conference Friday afternoon. His topic: why corporations need to do good to do well. It's a subject he's pretty familiar with, having written a book about it a year or so ago called "Who Cares Wins: Why Good Business Is Better Business." The tie to SXSW? Social Media. Jones argues that social responsibility and social media are intrinsically interlinked. Social media, he argues has created a world of radical transparency forcing businesses, politicians and leaders to be more socially responsible, rewarding those who are and removing those who aren't.

Keep America Beautiful will kick off the Great American Cleanup with its social mission goals and social volunteer hub at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas, this weekend.