F1 at SXSW 2012

The first day of SXSW Interactive Festival included a presentation by Geoff Moore, Chief Sales and Marketing Officer of Circuit of The Americas. You may remember our chat with him at Innotech technology conference last year (if not, here's the video). Geoff was back to talk about the science behind F1 racing.

If NASCAR is about speed and power and drivers, then F1 is about precision, engineering and difficulty.

He went past the COTA venue presentation to get into some neat technical details of the sport. The Austin Chronicle was in attendance and posted a great recap of his preso, so check it out if you missed the live event. Geoff also shared some great photos from a recent visit to the McLaren Technology Centre in Surrey, England, and you could tell he really enjoyed the behind-the-scenes visit.

It was an honor to host the first official F1 Meet Up at SXSW this year. SXSW chooses current issues and topics that are relevant to conference goers and offers a casual networking meet up to foster the conversations. This is another example of how Austin embraces innovation & pop culture on a global scale, particularly during this time in March. The Hilton Hotel & Conference center was the venue, and kudos to them for providing a class act conference setting for not only our F1 Meet Up, but hundreds of official panels, keynotes, presentations and more. It was exciting to meet F1 fans & newbies from Turkey, Spain, the UK, Australia, San Francisco and more. Excitement filled the room as ideas & business cards were exchanged! Thank you to everyone for coming out.

It was also a pleasure to join Social Media Club again this year at SXSW. We spoke with Caitlin Muir, who knows a thing or two about Formula 1 (BTW, 3 cheers for female F1 fans!). Enjoy this video:

Already looking forward to doing it all again in 2013!

SXSW 2012 Recap

//Interactive

This was my first year to truly embrace the Interactive portion of Austin's annual South By Southwest Film, Music and Interactive Festival. It was quite a change for me as the past 7 years I've attended the music portion only, while venturing into a couple Interactive panels last year and participating in the Film portion for our work with SENNA Movie's two screenings in 2011.

For some reason I thought Interactive would be, well, easier - afterall, how much energy would it require to sit in conference rooms all day listening to the game changers of technology and innovation? WRONG! Four straight days of 9AM - 6PM conferences is appealing at first glance, but the work that goes alongside it is what got me: perusing the 112-page "Pocket" Guide to plan (and revise; and revise again) my schedule, coordinating with prospective contacts, Tweeting, fielding emails, scheduling outside meetings, networking, status updating, re-charging (mind, body and devices), and most importantly, transporting, with only 15 minutes between sessions (if you want to insure you have a seat in that session) took it's toll on me. Throw in three straight days of rain and voila - you have SXSW 2012. It was all worth it for the content and connections.

//Transformation

Nokia Lab at SXSW 2012What I really enjoy the most about SXSW is how our city transforms to welcome the world. I extended my evening runs down Congress Avenue and into the heart of the Warehouse and Convention Center districts to see the transformations taking place. On Tuesday night, Nokia was transforming a vacant parking lot across from The Cedar Door into a 3 part inflatable igloo - aka "Nokia Lab." The winter wonderland housed a mix of gadgets, games, good music and fun in the middle of a 70' "Austin winter" day (the rain helped).

Last year, GE built a solar-powered carousel, aka "Carousolar," in the vacant lot across from SIX Lounge. This year, Nike took over the space and hosted a "hackathon" tied into their newest product, the Nike Fuel Band, by changing our iconic Frost Bank Tower into a larger-than-life Nike Fuel Band display, changing it from it's normal blue and white tones into hyperactive red, orange and green tones.

Niek Fuel at SXSW 2012While we realize it may take a few years for our Formula 1 race to transform the downtown Austin area on this scale, these are perfect examples of how Austin embraces social and technological change and showcases it so well in our city.

//Festival Fever

"Festival Fever" Presented by Leadership Austin, KXAN News and 44 Doors

Back in February, Leadership Austin put on a panel entitled "Festival Fever," featuring Geoff Moore of COTA, Hugh Forrest of SXSW Interactive, Jon Roberts of TIP STrategies and Lisa Hickey of C3 Presents. It was neat to hear different perspectives from these community business leaders and their thoughts on how large-scale events impact Austin. More importantly, their comments on planning for future expansion did not fall on a deaf ear. You can read more about the event recap here.

SXSW 2012 Interactive Campus Shuttle Map

One final note on the success of SXSW: the transportaion logistics utilized during the Interactive portion made it possible to navigate between 14 different campuses in a grid-locked downtown Austin. The shuttle was provided free of charge to Interactive registrants and ran every 5-10 minutes at each stop on the route. There were four different routes and the shuttle drivers were friendly, courteous, and provided clean and classy shuttle service. Hats off to SXSW on pulling this off. Another logistic they have completely nailed down and we hope, for your sake, will be emulated during F1 week in November.

Online Delivery of Formula 1

// Story

Formula 1 is upgrading their technology position in order to support the growing global demand for online access to the sport. Announced this past Thursday, the partnership between F1 and TATA Communications begins with hosting the Formula 1 website on their network. Receiving between four and seven million unique visitors a race weekend, the site's increasing media-centric content is causing demand for improved online speed from all corners of the globe.

Vinod Kumar, MD & CEO, Tata Communications and Bernie Ecclestone, CEO, Formula One groupWith a blisteringly fast 1-Terabit per second network, the TATA communications infrastructure will fuel the future of media delivery for the sport while simultaneously saving money. Joe Saward brings up an excellent point in his commentary on this news, that this partnership may be motivated by lowering the costs of the broadcasting expense of the sport, while simultaneously extending the reach of the F1 and its advertising exposure. Currently, Formula 1 sends it's own broadcasting team to the races to cover the sport, including cameras and editing team. This complex, known as "Bakersville," was started by Bernie Ecclestone in the late '90s as a way to deliver the highest quality digital content directly from the track to broadcasting partners around the world. (Here's a great page from the history books, from inside Bakersville in 1999, also by Saward).

// Future

I am, as both a technophile and F1 fan, thrilled by the potential of this new partnership. Tremendous opportunity exists for F1 to delivery higher quality content and rival the best of American sports coverage. It was only this past year that F1 finally embraced high-definition content delivery to it's broadcasters, six years after NASCAR started HD broadcasting. Though the American F1 community mocks NASCAR for several reasons, NASCAR has F1 beat when it comes to American coverage and interaction.

Watching the (lack of) Daytona 500 yesterday, anyone who showed up on screen, driver or announcer, had their Twitter handle listed just below, along with a new hash tag created just to round up the discussion about the rain delay. This effort by NASCAR and FOX is a major step in the right direction for social media integration, and should be watched closely by Formula 1.

In terms of on the television, if you've watched a race on DIRECTV satellite service, the NASCAR HotPass is a great example of the diversity of programming that we really need. Viewers can choose in-car cameras from the top four drivers, watch the map of the track with car positions, and you can choose from team radio feeds to listen to as well. This might be a tough sell to much of the secretive aspects of the Formula 1 teams, but needless to say, NASCAR has got it right when it comes to fan-immersion.

Can internet TV bring that kind of experience to F1? It's not only possible, it's inevitable.  Like the music industry struggled to grasp the power of internet distribution, Formula 1 has resisted the trend and is now finally embracing the potential with this new deal with TATA.  Though spending a night on the sofa watching YouTube on your TV doesn't exactly sound like a great future for entertainment, the new ways to experience interactive and in-depth content is on it's way. Last night's Oscars brought exclusive camera views of the red carpet and backstage areas via online streaming on their site, and the Superbowl this year was broadcast online as well (albeit a frustrating first try on their part).

Having Twitter and live timing running on the laptop while watching SPEED's coverage of F1 is the norm for the hard core fans these days, but the one-way interaction with the sport is leaving lots to be desired.  Where could this new partnership with TATA take Formula 1? 

He's a list of what I'd like to see come of the new Formula 1 website:

1. Choose a number of cameras, up to 8 for example, and pick their location and size myself
2. Listen to pit wall radio feed for any team
3. Listen to Race control (FIA) radio feed
4. Watch driver's briefing before race
5. Live timing built into the interface
6. Twitter/Facebook chat with others (group chat with friends preferred)
7. Full driver interviews afterwards
8. All content stored for viewing later
9. All 1080p HD, high bitrate codec preferred

It may be a lot to ask for the first try from Formula 1, but if all they provided was a copy of the feed from the track for a monthly fee, I'd be a happy camper for now.  There's tremendous room to grow and a promising opportunity for the sport to engage media and the more connected fan base in the US.  We are accustomed to a more connected lifestyle overall, so we expect a bit more than a singular show with limited interactivity.

If you want a taste of what's to come to your TV, I'd recommend you take a look at what Google is trying to do with GoogleTV.  Built into your TV set or a stand-alone box, GoogleTV brings interactive environments to your living room with a developer platform that affords opportunity to engage rapid growth and entrepreneurial investment.  MSNBC's app for GoogleTV is a great example of the kind of seamless interface and slick package that could be adopted with a dedicated Formula 1 application.  Let's hope Bernie's got some tricks up his sleeve and we'll see something that fans across the world can access, in high quality, without costing an arm and a leg.

Barcelona Testing: Day 4

 

//The following is a featured article from guest contributor Jamey Price, Jamey Price Photography, an American sports photojournalist on his first Formula 1 project.  You can read more about Jamey and his passion for his work in our feature: Intro to an American F1 Photojournalist - Jamey Price.

February 24, 2012

Formula one is a secretive world. It is the biggest, loudest and most expensive circus in the world and they do a great job promoting the sport. But a lot of money is spent developing these cars and the teams come up with interesting ways to keep their technology secret.

In testing especially, teams are developing new parts for the cars and the goal would be to develop something no one else has or has seen. Mostly the teams wage a war against the photographers. Each time a car comes and parks in the pitlane, the team quickly run and cover the rear of the car to keep people with cameras from taking photos of it. McLaren even went as far as to not paint the back of their rear wing so that it becomes close to impossible to take a photo of it as the contrast is too high for the camera. It actually makes it challenging to shoot the McLaren from behind because the camera pretends it doesn't exist and won't focus on it. Like I said, it’s a secretive sport. The funny thing is that as soon as the car is on track it's fair game for me to take a photo of. Many of the cars would stop at the end of the pitlane and do practice starts which has them standing still with the tail facing me, and I can take photos of it whether they like it or not. So much ado about nothing?

I have so many people to thank for making this week a special one, so I won't even try and name them all but again, thanks to everyone for the support and I can't wait to be back in the F1 paddock soon.

Cheers!

Barcelona Testing: Day 3

//The following is a featured article from guest contributor Jamey Price, Jamey Price Photography, an American sports photojournalist on his first Formula 1 project.  You can read more about Jamey and his passion for his work in our feature: Intro to an American F1 Photojournalist - Jamey Price.

February 23, 2012

Another day of testing gone and we've learned a lot about the cars. The Red Bull, as expected is strong. But I'm not telling you that looking at timing sheets. In fact, out on track, all I have is my eyes. I have no connection to the outside world whatsoever. Not that I could hear anything even if I did.

I'm telling you the Red Bull is fast and that Adrian Newey has designed another stunning machine by watching it. I've walked this track 10 times over and I've seen it go through all of the corners and in every single one, it is planted. Rock solid. Steady. Fast. It just looks fast.

Ferrari on the other hand are not. And again, not looking at timing sheets or listening to what Alonso and Massa are saying in interviews. I know it's going to be a long first few races for the Scuderia because the car is unruly. It is out of balance and looks more interested in trying to kill the driver than win him races.

But as everyone at tests say, who really knows? I certainly don't. But thats the beauty of winter testing. You can play your mega hand close to your chest and tell no one how strong you are if you really wanted to.

It's been a fascinating experience being in the pit lane and on track and I look forward to sharing the final days images with you tomorrow.

Barcelona Testing: Day 2

//The following is a featured article from guest contributor Jamey Price, Jamey Price Photography, an American sports photojournalist on his first Formula 1 project.  You can read more about Jamey and his passion for his work in our feature: Intro to an American F1 Photojournalist - Jamey Price.

Feb 22, 2012

There's nothing like the sound and smell of formula one engines in the morning. It's such a distinct smell and absolutely a distinct smell. Hear it once and you'll never forget.

After getting my kit set up in the press room, I headed to the roof of the media centre, which runs the entire length of the pits and over looks the front stretch. With a few minutes left on the clock before the first of two sessions started, I took some time to look around and survey the countryside from the roof top vantage. Rolling Spanish hills surround the circuit. It is a gorgeous place to spend a day, much less four. I'm incredibly lucky to be where I am.

For the first sessions, I chased the light around the track looking for the best spots to shoot from. Eventually walking most of the corners on the outside access road. It's a haul and a grueling few hours on your feet carrying that much gear. Some of my morning was spent shooting turns 1, 2 and 3. Though not knowing most of the lap times, it is evident by the way the car looks sounds and feels to the naked eye who is fast and who is not. Red Bull is blindingly quick. As is McLaren. Ferrari looks to have a strong car, but a difficult one to handle. Alonso was struggling with it through most of the first sector.

My day wrapped up covering the last sector. The light is gorgeous at that time of day and I had to take advantage of it with most of the drivers being replaced by their teammates tomorrow.

I'm still in heaven being here and covering this test. I've worked for so hard and for so long that it's been a dream come true in so many ways....and I have two more days to cover!"