Growth slowed down in February for most Middle Eastern countries, especially the smaller and more affluent nations that have the most monthly active users on Facebook. We’re taking a look this month at the Arabian Peninsula, plus Egypt.

Three countries in the Peninsula stand out for a high market penetration of over 30 percent: Israel, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. As you can see below, both Israel and the UAE are continuing to pick up significant numbers of users. We don’t expect that trend to continue for too many months more, as most countries have so far topped out at roughly 40 percent penetration.

On the other hand, growth is also slowing a bit for some much larger countries that have low penetration — both Egypt and Saudi Arabia are well under 10 percent. The dip may only be temporary, especially with Facebook putting more resources into the Middle East.

However, there are clearly also some demographic trends at work. Most of the region is sharply defined by income disparities; the citizens of the UAE, for example, are fairly rich on average, while even a wealthy country like Saudi Arabia has only a small upper class. As in other parts of the world, it’s likely that broad swaths of the population in some of these countries are too poor to be online yet.

Note that Facebook counts all the countries from Morocco to Pakistan in its measurement of the Middle East. We’ll be covering the African countries next week, while Pakistan and its neighbors go along with our coverage of Asia. There’s also the matter of Turkey, which we’ve included in Europe. Although quite large, Turkey also has over a quarter of its population on Facebook, making it a force in the region.

Breaking out the Peninsula on its own, there are only about 9 million Facebook users in the region, but about 15 percent market penetration overall. As Facebook expands its advertising efforts in the region, many will be watching growth data to see if Middle East growth is slowing for the long-term, or if this is just a temporary fluctuation. More data  and specific country breakdowns can be found in the full Facebook Global Monitor report.

href="http://api.tweetmeme.com/share?url=http://mashable.com/2010/03/11/facebook-ipad-fans-profiled/&service=bit.ly">width="51" height="61" src="http://api.tweetmeme.com/imagebutton.gif?url=http://mashable.com/2010/03/11/facebook-ipad-fans-profiled/" align="right"/> class='feedflare' href="http://www.google.com/reader/link?url=http://mashable.com/2010/03/11/facebook-ipad-fans-profiled/&title=What Type of People Want iPads? [STATS]&srcTitle=Mashable&srcUrl=http://mashable.com">src="http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-digg-this/i/gbuzz-feed.png" align="right" />

src="http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/ipad2.jpg" alt="" title="ipad facebook fan page profile" width="260" height="190" class="alignright size-full wp-image-225543" />If you’re a Facebooker who’s lusting after the href="http://mashable.com/tag/ipad/">Apple iPad (so much so that you’ve joined a Fan Page), then chances are you’re aged between 18 and 25 and have an interest in popular culture — or so says href="http://blog.rapleaf.com/facebook-fan-page-analysis-the-ipad-x3/" TARGET="_blank">RapLeaf, a company that analyzes social media stats to draw meaningful conclusions from the likes of Facebook Fan Pages.

RapLeaf looked at the top three Facebook Fan Pages (all of which are imaginatively named “The iPad”) to see if iPad fans could be easily grouped into a particular demographic.

The numbers are certainly there for such a study — the three pages together boast almost 98,000 members. While gender pretty much averaged out across all the pages, the age range came in at under Facebook’s average with 85% of overall fans 35 or under, and nearly 50% 25 and under.

iPad-owner-wannabes are also fairly social, with a third boasting more than 300 friends. Other Fan Pages they have joined include, in many cases (and perhaps unsurprisingly), iTunes, as well as other Pages related to caffeine, sleep, pop culture and humor.

What will be truly interesting to see as we edge closer to the href="http://mashable.com/2010/03/05/ipad-coming-april-3/">April 3 iPad launch is how many of those 98,000 put their money where their href="http://mashable.com/social-media/facebook">Facebook fandom is and go out and buy the device.

Tags: href="http://mashable.com/tag/apple/">apple, href="http://mashable.com/tag/facebook/">facebook, href="http://mashable.com/tag/ipad/">ipad, href="http://mashable.com/tag/statistics/">statistics

April 20 | San Francisco

Inside Social Apps 2010, our first conference on the future of monetization on social platforms, is now only a few weeks away. On April 20th in San Francisco, one day before Facebook’s official “f8″ event, many of the leading developers from around the world will be gathering to discuss the future of monetization inside social apps and games on Facebook and beyond.

Today, we’re excited to announce that Inside Social Apps 2010 will be held at the Mission Bay Conference Center at UCSF, located at 1675 Owens St in San Francisco (map).

In addition, today we’re excited to announce 7 new speakers for the event: Rick Thompson, co-founder of Playdom and active social gaming investor; Jens Begemann, CEO of Wooga; Alex Rampell, CEO of Trialpay; Steven Goh, CEO of mig33; Jim Bobowski, Director of Online Partner Marketing at Netflix (who manages Netflix’s social network offers); Eric Goldberg, Managing Director of Crossover Technologies; and Benjamin Joffe, Founder of +8*.

They will be joining our full list of 34 speakers listed below.

• Atul Bagga, VP Equity Research, Games, ThinkEquity


• Jens Begemann, CEO, Wooga


• Jim Bobowski, Director Online Partner Marketing, Netflix
  
  


• Adam Caplan, VP Virtual Currency, Super Rewards / Adknowledge
  
  


• Renata Dionello, Chief of Staff to the CEO, eBay, and former Director of Consumer Business Development, PayPal


• Eric Eldon, Editor, Inside Facebook & Inside Social Games


• Dave Etling, VP Product Development, InComm
  
  


• George Garrick, CEO, Offerpal Media


• Steven Goh, CEO, mig33


• Eric Goldberg, Managing Director, Crossover Technologies
  
  


• Vikas Gupta, CEO, Jambool


• Sebastien de Halleux, Founder and COO, Playfish, and VP Business Development & Strategic Partnerships, EA Interactive


• Ron Hirson, Co-founder and SVP Product, Boku


• Benjamin Joffe, Founder, +8*
  
  


• Nick Lawler, Managing Director, Maverick Capital


• Keith Lee, Co-founder and CEO, Booyah


• Jeremy Liew, Managing Director, Lightspeed Venture Partners
  
  


• Vish Makhijani, COO, Zynga


• David Marcus, CEO, Zong


• Lisa Marino, CRO, RockYou
  
  


• Dave McClure, Investor, Founders Fund Angel and fbFund Incubator


• Rex Ng, Co-founder and CEO, 6waves


• Jason Oberfest, VP Social Applications, ngmoco


• Mark Pincus, Founder and CEO, Zynga


• Shervin Pishevar, Founder and Executive Chairman, SGN


• John Pleasants, CEO, Playdom


• Keith Rabois, VP Strategy and Business Development, Slide


• Alex Rampell, CEO, TrialPay
  
  


• Peter Relan, Executive Chairman, CrowdStar


• Justin Smith, Founder, Inside Network


• Kavin Stewart, CEO, Lolapps


• Rick Thompson, Co-founder, Playdom, and Investor
  
  


• Jay Weintraub, Founder, LeadsCon


• Season Xu, Co-founder and COO, Five Minutes
  
  

Finally, a limited set of “early general admission� tickets is now available through Friday at a special price of $329. This price will change after Friday, and space will be limited, so we encourage you to register now.

Inside Social Apps 2010 – April 20th in San Francisco

Three years after the Facebook Platform launched in 2007, what started out as sheep throwing and vampire biting has quickly become a profitable billion-dollar industry. Today, social games monetizing through virtual goods have quickly become one of the hottest sectors of technology and entertainment, both in the US and around the world. Where are social apps going, and who is leading the way?

Inside Network is proud to announce our first conference on the future of monetization on social platforms: Inside Social Apps 2010, happening April 20th in San Francisco, is bringing together the world’s leading entrepreneurs all in one place to discuss the future of social applications and games monetizing through virtual goods.

This will be an in-depth one day event geared toward developers on Facebook, MySpace, and the iPhone, senior executives, and investors. At Inside Social Apps 2010, founders and CEOs of the top social gaming, mobile social gaming, payments, and virtual goods infrastructure companies will be tackling the key issues facing the industry. We’re hosting it one day before Facebook’s “f8″ event in San Francisco, so this will be an excellent opportunity to learn about the key issues facing the future of the Facebook Platform and beyond before Facebook’s official event.

Register Now

A limited set of “early general admission� tickets is available through Friday at a special price of $329. This price will change after Friday, and space will be very limited, so we encourage you to register early.

From all of us at Inside Network, we hope to see you on April 20th in San Francisco!

In the frozen void of space, a now derelict mining vessel has had a communications failure. Unfortunately, for engineer Isaac Clarke, the USG Ishimura isn’t quite so derelict after all, as its inhabitants are now the skittering, the lumbering, and the grotesque horrors that hail from the deepest corners of the galaxy.

This, of course, is the basic premise behind the sci-fi, survival horror game, Dead Space from Electronic Arts’ studio, Visceral Games. As a popular, title among the horror genre, the folks over at Visceral are looking to make the next one even better, as they work to spark up some buzz for their next deep space adventure. To do this, the company has worked with Wildfire Interactive Promotions to make, well, and interactive promotion for the upcoming game, Dead Space 2, on Facebook.

The idea is two-fold. The app page, entitled “Get Dismembered in Dead Space 2,� is a contest that is not only intended to get more people talking about the game, but also give players the opportunity to design their very own melee combat kill move for the title. Essentially, in Dead Space, every little critter wants to eat you and when the player character gets locked into a grapple, they have to use some form of melee move to save themselves and hopefully kill the baddy before it gets back up.

To this end, Visceral Games is looking for player input as to what would be the coolest attack poor Isaac could use. Fans will be able to submit descriptions, photos or drawings, and even video (3D animation or live action) to show what they have thought up. These can all be done through the Facebook app itself after a short registration, and the top 10 will be chosen. From here, the fan-base will vote on which one gets put into the final game.

Traditionally speaking, contests have always been a strong marketing way to get people involved in something. However, with it now on Facebook, players that discover the app will be able to invite their friends to check it out as well. Obviously, this use of the social graph will increase the spreading of this promotion significantly, and hopefully the upcoming game’s buzz as well. Of course, even if you friends don’t want to participate, they can always view everyone else’s submissions. Maybe they’ll even find that video of you making a fool of yourself grappling that invisible lurker!

D.C.-based LivingSocial has raided $25 million in a series B round, with an emphasis on their LivingSocial Deals product as a continued source of revenue growth. The round was led by U.S. Venture Partners, with Grotech Ventures and Steve Case’s Revolution, LLC participating as well. The company is also announcing the expansion of LivingSocial Deals into four more cities: Chicago, Denver, Raleigh Durham, and San Diego.

Read the rest of this entry on Social Times »

While Facebook already provides a page insights tool for Page administrators to track traffic to their page, there is still a lot of information which is unknown. So how can administrators determine how well their landing tab is performing? There are a number of techniques to monitor your Facebook Page traffic, four of which are described in this article.

Webtrends Tool

Last week, Webtrends announced the release of an analytics packages that helps users track activity on their Facebook Page. The tool, found here, enables developers to track interactions on their custom tabs. Unfortunately, Facebook does not enabled third-party services to track any interactions on the main Facebook Page. Today, Webtrends also announced the expansion of their Facebook product in order to monitor Flash applications within Pages or as stand alone applications.

Facebook Insights

As I previously stated, Facebook limits what information third-party developers can monitor. That’s why the company’s Insights product continues to serve as an important tool for all Page administrators. We previously wrote about the most important things to monitor within your Facebook page insights. Ultimately, you can track demographic data, interactions by media type, and more, all of which are only accessible through the Facebook Insights product.

Core Metrics

Core Metrics, one of the larger enterprise analytics services, recently announced the launch of new services integrated into many of their existing products that enable marketers to measure their ROI from Facebook. The aim of the Facebook integration is to determine “the role Facebook plays in influencing subsequent website visits, behaviors, and conversions.”

Essentially, Facebook clicks are tracked and then can be connected to actual on-site business objectives, such as new subscriptions and sales conversions. This appears to be a more robust solution than many of the other products, but it may be data overload for the average Facebook Page administrator.

Core Metrics -

Google Analytics

While Google analytics is targeted at website owners, the analytics service can be used by Facebook Page administrators as well. Unfortunately Facebook has not enabled their FBML tag within Facebook Pages, so a London-based web development company decided to create their own solution. By using images, there is a workaround which enables Page administrators to track everything within the custom tabs.

href="http://api.tweetmeme.com/share?url=http://mashable.com/2010/03/11/facebook-might-sue-daily-mail/&service=bit.ly">width="51" height="61" src="http://api.tweetmeme.com/imagebutton.gif?url=http://mashable.com/2010/03/11/facebook-might-sue-daily-mail/" align="right"/> class='feedflare' href="http://www.google.com/reader/link?url=http://mashable.com/2010/03/11/facebook-might-sue-daily-mail/&title=Facebook Threatens to Sue Daily Mail Over Sex Predator Claims&srcTitle=Mashable&srcUrl=http://mashable.com">src="http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-digg-this/i/gbuzz-feed.png" align="right" />

src="http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/facebook.jpg" align="right" style="margin:10px;">According to the href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/mar/11/facebook-daily-mail" target="_blank">Guardian and href="http://www.globaldashboard.org/2010/03/10/daily-mail-facebook/" target="_blank">Global Dashboard, Facebook has threatened to sue Daily Mail over an article which wrongfully claimed Facebook makes it easy for older sex predators to approach and seduce minors.

Daily Mail’s article, which can (in edited form) href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1256793/I-posed-girl-14-online-What-followed-sicken-you.html" target="_blank">be found here, was written by a former police detective Mark Williams-Thomas, and had originally been titled “I posed as a girl of 14 on Facebook. What followed will sicken you.” It contained the account of the author posing as a minor on Facebook, which, according to him, attracted sexual predators right away.

The problem? He wasn’t really using Facebook to conduct the experiment, he used a “different social networking site”, as explained in today’s update to the article, added at the bottom by Daily Mail staff. The full text of the update is as follows:

“In an earlier version of this article, we wrongly stated that the criminologist had conducted an experiment into social networking sites by posing as a 14-year-old girl on Facebook with the result that he quickly attracted sexually motivated messages. In fact he had used a different social networking site for this exercise. We are happy to set the record straight.”

Needless to say, this caused a strong response from Facebook, which is still referenced throughout the article. According to the Guardian, a UK spokeswoman for Facebook said that the company was considering legal action due to the “brand damage that has been done”. “If you were a Middle England reader and your child was on Facebook, this sort of thing would have a very serious effect on what you thought of us,” she said.

Facebook has a point here; besides the obvious erroneous reporting, the article details how someone posing as a 14 year old girl would get messages from older men (more accurately, users whose Facebook profile indicates they’re over 18 years old), which cannot be done on Facebook. Therefore, Facebook can argue it has measures in place to prevent exactly the kind of behaviour the article describes, unlike the unnamed social network the experiment was conducted on.

We’ve contacted Facebook’s UK PR representative on this matter but have yet to hear back.

href="http://api.tweetmeme.com/share?url=http://mashable.com/2010/03/10/tech-billionaires-2010/&service=bit.ly">width="51" height="61" src="http://api.tweetmeme.com/imagebutton.gif?url=http://mashable.com/2010/03/10/tech-billionaires-2010/" align="right"/> class='feedflare' href="http://www.google.com/reader/link?url=http://mashable.com/2010/03/10/tech-billionaires-2010/&title=15 Famous Tech Titans Hit Forbes’ Billionaire List&srcTitle=Mashable&srcUrl=http://mashable.com">src="http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-digg-this/i/gbuzz-feed.png" align="right" />

alt="" src="http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/money.png" class="alignright" width="226" height="160" />Forbes has released its annual list of the href="http://www.forbes.com/lists/2010/10/billionaires-2010_The-Worlds-Billionaires_Rank.html" target="_blank">world’s billionaires and when it comes to technology, the list includes many of the same faces we see href="http://mashable.com/2007/07/04/10-richest-people-in-tech/">year after year.

After regaining the throne last year, Bill Gates has once again been displaced as the world’s richest man — this time by Carlos Slim (who held that post back in 2007), but he remains the richest man in tech by a wide margin with an estimated net worth of $53 billion./> id="more-225123">/> Facebook founder href="http://mashable.com/tag/mark-zuckerberg">Mark Zuckerberg, who fell off the list last year, has rejoined, tied with 20 others at #212 with an estimated net worth of href="http://blogs.forbes.com/velocity/2010/03/10/mark-zuckerberg-richer-than-ever-with-an-estimated-4-billion/?boxes=techchanneltopstories" target="_blank">$4 billion.

Check out how some other tech heavyweights weighed in:

Larry Ellison: $28 Billion

The Oracle founder and CEO is the sixth richest person in the world this year, sitting pretty with $28 billion as his estimated net worth.

Sergey Brin & Larry Page: $17.5 Billion Each

The two Google co-founders both place 24th on the list with $17.5 billion in estimated net worth.

Steve Ballmer: $14.5 Billion

Thanks to a rise in Microsoft’s stock price, Ballmer saw his net worth rise and he sits at #33 on the overall list.

Paul Allen and Michael Dell: $13.5 Billion

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen might appear to spend money like its water, but he’s still ranked at #37 on the list, tied with Dell founder and CEO Michael Dell.

Jeff Bezos: $12.3 Billion

The Amazon founder and CEO is ranked #43 with $12.3 billion in estimated net worth. That’s a lot of eBooks!

Eric Schmidt: $6.3 Billion

Google CEO Eric Schmidt is ranked #117 this year, tied with News Corp. mogul Rupert Murdoch.

Steve Jobs: $5.5 Billion

Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs has watch his company’s stock price soar over the last twelve months. He’s ranked #136 with an estimated $5.5 Billion.

Pierre Omidyar: $5.2 Billion

The eBay founder is ranked #148 on the list.

George Lucas and Steven Spielberg: $3 Billion each

While most filmmakers don’t necessarily fall into the category of technology players, I think we can make an exception for the guy who gave us Jaws, E.T. and Minority Report and the guy that gave us Star Wars and Howard The Duck. Both directors are tied at #316.

Jerry Yang: $1.3 Billion

Hey, being ousted wasn’t the worst thing to happen to Yang — Yahoo’s stock was up 26% in the last year, buoying the co-founders net worth along with it.

href="http://api.tweetmeme.com/share?url=http://mashable.com/2010/03/10/google-fiber-pitches/&service=bit.ly">width="51" height="61" src="http://api.tweetmeme.com/imagebutton.gif?url=http://mashable.com/2010/03/10/google-fiber-pitches/" align="right"/> class='feedflare' href="http://www.google.com/reader/link?url=http://mashable.com/2010/03/10/google-fiber-pitches/&title=Google Fiber Sparks Online Competition Between Cities Nationwide&srcTitle=Mashable&srcUrl=http://mashable.com">src="http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-digg-this/i/gbuzz-feed.png" align="right" />

src="http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/google-fiber.jpg" class="alignright" alt="Google Fiber Image">It seems like every city in America wants Google Fiber. And who can blame them? Ever since Google announced its plan last month to bring href="http://mashable.com/2010/02/10/google-isp/">ultra-high speed Internet connections (as in, up to 100x faster than what most of the country has today) to between 50,000 and 500,000 people, cities across the U.S. have been clamoring to curry the favor of the search giant.

First there was Topeka, KS, which href="http://mashable.com/2010/03/03/google-kansas/">renamed itself by proclamation to Google, KS. Then Duluth, MN upped the ante by promising (comedically, we hope) to href="http://mashable.com/2010/03/03/duluth-google-topeka/">name all the town’s first-born children after Google. Then Greenville, SC entered the fray with their all-out “href="http://mashable.com/2010/03/09/google-fiber-greenville-sc/">We Are Feeling Lucky” social media campaign that included a landing page, YouTube channel, Facebook events, and Twitter hashtag.

But will any of these efforts be enough?

href="http://api.tweetmeme.com/share?url=http://mashable.com/2010/03/10/social-media-guide-sxsw-2010/&service=bit.ly">width="51" height="61" src="http://api.tweetmeme.com/imagebutton.gif?url=http://mashable.com/2010/03/10/social-media-guide-sxsw-2010/" align="right"/> class='feedflare' href="http://www.google.com/reader/link?url=http://mashable.com/2010/03/10/social-media-guide-sxsw-2010/&title=SXSW 2010: The Complete Social Media Guide&srcTitle=Mashable&srcUrl=http://mashable.com">src="http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-digg-this/i/gbuzz-feed.png" align="right" />

src="http://cdn.mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/SXSW-header.jpg" class="alignright" alt="sxsw logo">This year’s href="http://mashable.com/sxswi/">South By Southwest (SXSW) festival is rapidly approaching. Beginning with the Interactive Media events on March 12th, Austin, Texas will be the place to connect with the brightest in tech and media and get the scoop on some exciting new ventures.

Whether you plan to physically attend or not, social media will be critical to how people connect and share ideas at this world-class event. If you want to keep in touch with all the goings-on, look no further than these tools that you can use on the web, your mobile device, and your favorite social networks.

For Those Headed to Austin/>

---

While in-person networking is the goal of many, social media will be key in bringing interested parties together across this vast festival that this year is spread across four separate campuses. If you’ll be in attendance, check out these resources for staying connected.

href="http://sxsw.com/first_time" target="_blank">The Official SXSW First-Timers Guide/>

---

If you’re brand new to SXSW and feeling a bit overwhelmed at the scope, the first-timers guide has a wealth of resources to assist the uninitiated. These include links to online registration (if you still need to sign up), hotel booking, scheduling tools, maps, and this informative video.

href="http://my.sxsw.com" target="_blank">my.SXSW and href="http://sxsw.com/qrcodes" target="_blank">QR Coded Badges/>

---

The official social network of the festival is my.SXSW, and you are automatically invited to join upon registering. This closed network, just for attendees, allows users to build personalized conference schedules, join exclusive groups, and connect with others at the festival.

The addition of QR codes on registered badges gives attendees with smartphones an added way to solidify in-person connections. Simply scan a new friend’s personalized QR code and you’ll automatically be following him or her within the my.SXSW network.

For additional ways to utilize the my.SXSW network, check out the info on their href="http://my.sxsw.com/tools" target="_blank">tools page.

href="http://sxsw2010.sched.org/" target="_blank">SXSW2010 Event Calendar on sched.org/>

---

Sched.org is an interactive calendar with social media integration that makes it ideal for festivals like SXSW. An “unofficial” but highly useful calendar has been created for SXSW that will give you an overview of each day’s events, talks and panels.

Sign in with href="http://mashable.com/social-media/facebook">Facebook Connect or href="http://mashable.com/social-media/twitter">Twitter and start compiling a list of the events you’ll be attending. By clicking on a particular event, you can also see who else is attending, and view real-time updates about the event from other attendees on social networks. With a bit of effort, this tool could become your go-to social dashboard and connection builder for the entire festival.

href="http://www.sitby.us" target="_blank">SitBy.Us/>

---

Social media aficionados will be converging on Austin from all over the U.S. and the world. It’s likely that some of your Twitter friends will be in attendance while you’re there.

Don’t let an opportunity for an in-person meeting slip by. SitBy.Us is a useful tool that lets you see which panels your Twitter friends will be attending, and even where in each room they will sit.

By logging in with your Twitter account (via OAuth), SitBy.Us provides a mobile-optimized web interface that allows you to plan and coordinate panel attendance with people you’re looking to connect with in person (and perhaps even avoid those you don’t!).

href="http://foursquare.com/sxsw/" target="_blank">SXSW Badges for Foursquare/>

---

Foursquare has created 16 new SXSW-specific badges for those location-based networkers who are Austin bound. What’s more, if you do unlock a badge, you can track down a Foursquare team member at the festival and claim a temporary tattoo with the mark of honor.

Cliqset’s href="http://sxsw.cliqset.com/" target="_blank">SXSW Map/>

---

Cliqset.com has created a real-time map that aggregates all of the geo-tagged activity in the festival area of Austin. Pulling in data from the major location-based social networks (href="http://mashable.com/tag/brightkite">Brightkite, href="http://mashable.com/tag/flickr">Flickr, Foursquare, href="http://mashable.com/tag/gowalla">Gowalla, href="http://mashable.com/tag/qik">Qik, and Twitter), the map will give you a bird’s eye view of who is at SXSW, where they are, and what they’re doing.

Click a pinpoint on the map to expand the user’s status update. It should be interesting to see the map fill up with notes come festival time this Friday.

Disclosure: Cliqset is a Mashable sponsor

href="http://austin.mashable.com/">Mashable’s Austin Real-Time/>

---

Looking to connect with like-minded festival goers or other attendees from your hometown? Check out Mashable’s own href="http://austin.mashable.com/">Austin Real-Time Network. Sign in with your Twitter, Facebook, or Cliqset ID and browse or search for other festival patrons by common interest or location. By adding yourself to the network, you can also share what you’re doing and where you are via your favorite social networks.

For Those Who Will Watch from Afar/>

---

If you’re not able to make it to Austin this year, don’t fret. The magic of social media and the web can bring the festival within reach. While you may not be able to hob-knob with your favorite tech and music geeks in the warm Austin sun, you can still get your SXSW fix with these resources.

The Official SXSW href="http://twitter.com/sxsw" target="_blank">Twitter and href="http://www.facebook.com/SXSWFestival" target="_blank">Facebook Accounts/>

---

Being the socially-savvy team that they are, the crew behind the festival does a good job keeping their fans and followers in the know. If you want to keep an eye on developments in Austin, be sure to add these official channels to your social feeds.

href="http://sxswvideos.com/" target="_blank">SXSW Videos/>

---

Though not officially connected to the festival, SXSW Videos is a user-generated destination for footage from the event.

Powered by href="http://mashable.com/tag/viddler" target="_blank">Viddler, the site lets you browse videos that come out of SXSW (in various categories, including Interviews, Shows, Bands, etc.) as well as upload your own if you’re in attendance.

The content can be a bit of a grab-bag, but if you’re looking for some first-hand video accounts of what’s happening on the ground, check in there every once in a while.

SXSW Blogs/>

---

Searching for other ways to live vicariously through the SXSW attendees? Dedicated blogs are a good way to stay in the loop.

href="http://www.ningrvip.com/" target="_blank">The Unofficial SXSW Insider’s Guide is a blog/community built with href="http://mashable.com/tag/ning">Ning where festival attendees (and interested parties who couldn’t make it) can blog, upload photos, and discuss events.

You can browse the site blog-style to see what people are up to, or connect with individual members to get a more social scoop.

href="http://www.sxswbaby.com" target="_blank">SXSW Baby is another unofficial blog that will be covering the events throughout the festival.

Currently, they have quite a few tips for those who are enroute to Austin. But if you’ll be checking in from home, stay tuned for further updates as the festival kicks off this Friday.

Mashable’s href="http://mashable.com/sxswi/" >SXSWi Channel/>

---

Of course you can always stay up to date on the latest news coming from Austin with Mashable’s own href="http://mashable.com/sxswi/">channel, dedicated to the Interactive Media portion of the festival. Members of our team will be on the ground in Austin to get you the social media and tech scoops that are sure to break in the days ahead.