Basically the most well-visited SXSW panels are the ones that take a topic the masses (not the professionals) have read or heard a little about — Ajax, accessibility, Web 2.0, small businesses making money on the web — but instead of diving in head first they take a very superficial look and go through case studies and examples rather than getting into the nitty gritty, geeky, interesting parts. Unfortunately for the hardcore web people in the audience, this is far from sufficient, so we come away wanting more. Unfortunately again is that the hardcore web people in the audience make up a small minority, so the non-hardcore web people at the panel come away thinking it was brilliant and “OMFG did you see Zeldman and Eric Meyer up there, WOW!!!” and rate the panels extraordinarily high.

SXSW is not the conference to go to if you’re a hardcore web person looking to get even more hardcore, this is what it absolutely is not good at. If you’re a hardcore web person looking to hang out with fellow disgruntled hardcore web people in the hallways, bars, hotels, and clubs, then it’s great for that. Every year I want to skip out on buying a pass but every year I succumb and get one. Maybe this is the year I finally bite the bullet and skip out on the conference pass but simply go to Austin to hang out with my once-yearly friends in the industry.

I’d totally want to check out a panel done by John Resig. jQuery is the cat’s pajamas of javascript and he’s literally writing the future of javascript in the Fuel library for Firefox3. There’s a pretty good google tech talk with Resig where he talks about designing javascript libraries.

I didn’t say they were poor quality. I don’t really beleive they are poor quality, in general (obviously, it’s hiss or miss, but overall, I think thequality is good). What I did say is that someone on your level probably won’t learn alot. When you’re to the level that you could easily be speaking at the event, and the events are so one-track-minded (that is to say, there’s very little outside the realm of web standards and the blogosphere), chances are good that you’ll already know most everthing you’ll hear said.

That doesn’t mean the quality is poor — it just means you already knew it. Others might not, though.

Also, on a note regarding the “non-professional-ness” of the panels, does that mean we should completely give up any hope of any quality in them at all? To me that seems a little ludicrous. It’s like if it’s not 100% professional, we can sit and talk about 5 year old topics without worry.

For web professionals at your level, SXSWi is a great place to meet peple, network, build BizDev relationships, and have a lot of fun. For web professionals (or enthusiasts) at a lower level, they may well learn quite a bit along the way.

All that having been said, I do generally agree with you about the focus of the panels. I’d love to see more presentations on new tecnology (AIR, Flex, etc.) and on design (rather than HTML, CSS, and the like).

But, I’m telling you now: if your expectations are at that level, you will be sorely dissapointed when you go to SXSW. If you really, really want to learn about AIR and Flex, go to one of the many great Flash-orientied conferences instead of SXSW. If you are already committed to SXSW, relax a bit, lower your expectations, open yourself up socially, and go have a ton of fun in Austin. I assure you: SXSWi will live up to expectations on that front.

Here, I’m talking about incredibly specialized areas like IA Summit (http://www.iasummit.org/) or the International Unicode conference (http://www.unicode.org/).

When it gets to such generalized conferences, the bar is generally lowered a bit. So, whatever your particular specialty, perhaps there’s a more professional conference out there to suit it.

Ryan: See, I guess that’s the thing. Even those more “professional” conferences have the same sort of topics. I’ve been finding myself following different crowds lately, and watching the quality of the panels at places like 360Flex is absolutely astonishing. It makes us “HTML Jockeys” seem just like that when you look at our lineup of conferences.

There’s just so much awesome stuff going on in the web right now, and I hate to see us still stuck reading DWWS (1.0) and preaching how Web 2.0 doesn’t exist. Enthusiasts or professionals, we shouldn’t be stuck so far behind.

There are many more conferences out there for web professionals. Sure, they cost more to attend, but I’d bet that the quality of the sessions is also much higher.