SXSW Pulse Case Study
How’d they do it?
Microsoft Silverlight™
Silverlight delivers rich, cross-platform, interactive experiences, including animation, graphics, audio and video.
Adobe® Photoshop®
Learn more
frog design takes South by Southwest to the net.
"The difference between our previous experience with Silverlight and our experience with the Pulse app we created for South by Southwest Interactive is that this time it's live." -Scott Stater, Program Manager, frog design
The Situation
SXSW Interactive goes global.
The creative team at frog design in Austin, TX was tasked to create a dynamic Silverlight experience that showcased the hyper-popular South by Southwest (SXSW) festival to both the conference attendees and the wider world. Focused on the interactive portion of the conference, with an eye toward expanding into both film and music, the designer/developer team was stoked to get to design something for which they themselves were the target audience.
The Challenge
Exactly how fast is "almost" live?
Given SXSW's global interest, frog's Silverlight solution had to appeal to both conference attendees and those who couldn't make it in person. What's more, with so many panels going on at once, the challenge was to make all that content accessible—quickly. Program Manager Scott Stater says, "The live element brings a lot of pressure. Lots of thought leaders in the interactive space are here and they immediately look at stuff online, then they go back to the hotels and they blog about it. They either love it or they hate it and they're going to let you know either way."
The Solution
A Silverlight app with its finger on the Pulse.
frog took advantage of Silverlight's power as a video streaming tool to allow SXSW to record all the panels and upload them, so attendees could watch them back at the hotel or back at home, after the conference was over. This “Pulse” app took the discussions and discoveries that were shared live in Austin and allowed anyone anywhere in the world to tap into them right then. It also archived the video for viewing at a later date.
The Upshot
Down to the wire, Silverlight came through.
Halfway through the project, when the frog team was streamlined to just three people, they heavily relied on Silverlight's unique ability to allow designers and developers to work in tandem. Says Stater, "There was a mad dash at the end to make sure that the Pulse app was optimized for the newly-released Silverlight 2, knowing that it would be on plasmas all around the conference, with lots of eyes on it. So the three of us locked ourselves in a room and got it optimized quickly. Without the ability to work in tandem, that process would have been a lot more challenging."
About frog design
frog design, inc. is one of the world's leading strategic-creative consulting firms. By identifying emerging market opportunities and transforming ideas into compelling product and service experiences, frog helps Fortune 500 clients to evolve, expand, and envision their businesses. Founded in Germany in 1969, the company is headquartered in San Francisco, California, with studios in Austin, TX; New York, NY; San Jose, CA; Seattle, WA; Milan, Italy; Shanghai, China; and Stuttgart, Germany. With a cross-disciplinary team of more than 400 employees, frog offers a broad range of industry expertise, in fields such as consumer electronics, software, entertainment, finance, medical, retail, and fashion. Clients include Alltel, Disney, GE, HP, Logitech, Microsoft, MTV, Seagate, Yahoo! and others
