The annual SXSW conference kicked off in grand style, as usual. Porter Novelli and the City of Austin teamed up to throw an event highlighting some of Austin’s top emerging technology companies, including BuzzStream, OtherInBox, Socialware, Bazaarvoice, OneSpot, and many more. Some lucky people were able to catch Mr. Spam, who is helping to protect your inbox from nasty unwanted messages.

Based upon conversations that were overheard at this event, we should have some great news to report in the coming days and weeks.

Later in the evening the Microsoft LiveSearch folks and Brian Solis’ TechSet had a very popular bash over at The Belmont. It seems that people are just as excited about the parties as they are the sessions. The most frequent comment that I heard during the day was that everyone was excited to meet people in person that they had previously met only through the interwebs.

The rest of the conference should prove to be very interesting. Robert Scoble will be on tomorrow’s panel “Ditch the valley, head for the hills” and perhaps he will be talking about what he will be doing next.