Group messaging and picture apps were the obvious contenders to break through at this year’s South by Southwest, and based on the hundreds of thousands of GroupMe threads muted and Instagram filters applied, it seems that both varieties of apps are well poised for the mainstream. For countless other companies, however, making SXSW more than a four-day bender of a work write-off can be a challenge. Free beer and vaguely familiar musical acts work when you have marketing budgets the size of StumbleUpon‘s or Foursquare‘s, but it’s hard to recite your elevator pitch when the crowd is moshing. We found several apps, sites and giant media conglomerates whose untraditional approaches to engage the tech set at SXSW involved more than “open the bar and they will come.”

Richard Garriott, otherwise known as the famous Lord British, creator of the historical Ultima, announced at South by Southwest that he is working on a new online game set in the world of Britannia, under the guise of Lord British. Why didn’t he just say he’s working on a new Ultima? He doesn’t own the license, as Electronic Arts still has that under their thumb, which has technically prevented Garriott from pursuing an Ultima revival, until now. Garriott has retained the rights to Lord British, his Ultima persona, and is planning on using that as a cornerstone for a new online game, with the tagline “Lord British’s new Britannia awaits…;” Britannia being the fictional main land in which Ultima is set.

So, Lord British and Britannia? It seems like we’re going to be revisiting gaming history. The one thing a little scary about his new game, which is currently very light on details, is that it’s poised to be a social network game, though Garriott at least seems to understand the stigma associated with those three words, saying “The virtual world game is not just an ultra-light MMO shopped on social media. I think that would be a failure.” Garriott is currently looking for investors, which shouldn’t be too difficult, based on who he is and the potential of what he’s shopping.

Why is this important, one may ask? Garriott is old school, and basically created the first successful ancestor of the modern MMO, but if that weren’t convincing enough, Garriott returning to Britannia as Lord British is like saying Shigeru Miyamoto will be returning to the land of Hyrule as a character named Link, or the Mushroom Kingdom as an Italian plumber after years of absence. Garriott returning to Britannia as Lord British is like when a monumental band reunites and starts working on a new album–it has fantastic potential, but there’s still some cautious optimism floating about, because who knows if the band still has the magic. At least Lord British will still have the British.

(via Rock, Paper, Shotgun)

At South by Southwest, Peter Vesterbacka, CEO of Angry Birds developer Rovio, informed a panel about his interesting view regarding the console gaming industry: He claims it’s dying. You know, only a few days after the recently released Call of Duty: Black Ops was named the best-selling console game of all time. He claims one reason behind the (not actually) dying console industry is because mobile developers are more nimble and able to provide updates for their games more quickly than the console industry, and people paying $40 or $50 for a game that is difficult to provide updates for is turning gamers off.

Yeah, I don’t know what he’s thinking either. Updates are nice, but we gamers don’t buy games solely based on the quantity of updates a game may receive down the line. Another point he didn’t seem to mention was that Angry Birds, which recently reached the 100 million downloads mark, is indeed wildly popular, but is also available in free and $0.99 versions, and has an installed platform base of basically anyone who has a phone, an object that wasn’t bought with the specific intent of playing games.

Vesterbacka also said he’s tired of the phrase “casual games,” and no one refers to particular movies as “casual movies,” which is true, but not exactly the best comparison to make regarding “casual” and “hardcore” gaming: No one stands in line and plays three-and-a-half minutes of a movie while waiting for their burger, and “hardcore” gamers don’t spend the money their much more in-depth games cost to play them for three-and-a-half minutes at a time.

There’s a place in the industry for both casual and hardcore games, but Vesterbacka doesn’t seem to understand much about that.

(VentureBeat via Eurogamer)

The IE9 beta has been kicking around since last September (and has managed to garner 36 million downloads in the interim), but as of next Monday, March 14th, beginning at 9pm Pacific time, you’ll be able to download the final version. The launch coincides with South by Southwest, where the IE9 team says it looks forward to chilling with the likes of Internet favorite Ze Frank and musical artists Yeasayer, the Head and the Heart, and Fences.

Considering that the beta has already gotten as many downloads as it has, the final product release will be a big event, likely garnering many more downloads than the more buzzed-about web products showcased at SXSW, even if it’s probably not the browser favored by SXSW attendees themselves. Microsoft itself is encouraging the switch with its death clock for IE6, the 10-year-old scourge of web designers everywhere that still manages to hold onto a 12% market share thanks to late adopters and lead-footed businesses.

(The Windows Blog)

Just days before South by Southwest, the foursquare team have rolled out a sweeping upgrade to the service which will have impact beyond the hallowed grounds of Austin — and which may help it scoop up new users from far and wide. Last night, foursquare 3.0 went live for iPhone and Android users, bringing with it an overhauled leaderboard, a suite of new rewards merchants can give their foursquare loyal, and, most significantly, a brand-new recommendation engine which will allow users to find cool restaurants, clubs, etc. nearby that are deemed relevant to their interests, based on their foursquare history and the history of their friends as processed by a proprietary algorithm.

Scott Dadich, Design Director for Wired and Jeremy Clark, Experience Designer for Adobe, previewed a demo of Wired‘s future plans for an iPad version of the Conde Nast title. Judging by the response on Twitter, the demo created bit of a stir, primarily it seems for showing what the future of magazines could look like. Video of the demonstration after the jump:

This past Saturday, The People vs. George Lucas debuted at South by Southwest Film, ladling out a healthy dose of righteous Star Wars nerdrage upon one of the farthest-fallen figures in the geek pantheon.

The documentary, directed by Alexandre O. Philippe, has as its focal point the franchise-slaughter Lucas committed when he rolled out The Phantom Menace in 1999, smothering the franchise goodwill of thousands of fans with visions of Jar-Jar Binks.

We haven’t seen the whole thing, but based on the trailer, The People vs. George Lucas looks like a pretty strange affair: cartoons, people in costumes, and serious-talk thrown in a blender. In their review of the movie, Heat Vision criticizes the film as “messy:” “There’s no clear hook for the film, merely an idea that’s instantly grokked by geeks and usually ignored by others.” They also recommend the excellent, jaw-dropping 70-minute YouTube takedown of Phantom Menace.

Judge for yourself with the HD trailers after the jump:

4chan admin, evil genius and TEDTalk deliverer moot shakes hands with FourSquare co-founder Naveen Selvadurai. Both are festooned with the coveted Gold Badges.

(via Geekosystem roving correspondent and SXSW Interactive presenter Rachel Sklar.)