Today was my second whirlwind SXSW Interactive day, and I have much knowledge to report.  Since I don’t want to reinforce my sense of TMI, here is a brief overview of the most salient points from the panels I attended today:

1) Blogging vs. Twitter

Who: A bunch of veteran bloggers.

What they talked about: Blog authentically and regarding things you have a passion for. Blogging is certainly not dead and those who think Twitter replaces blogging have no idea what good writing is. Don’t feel blogger guilt for not writing every day…write good content instead of quantity.

2) How to Make Viral Videos

Who: An executive from YouTube, Damien Kulash from OKGO, and director of film at TED.

What: Think about why your video should go viral. People usually spread videos which are funny and positive, think about how to grasp human emotion in your videos. Take a cue from videos that have gone viral and see similarities. It’s hard to sell anything in a viral video, the sales message has to be extraordinarily subtle.

3) Unsexy and Profitable Businesses

Who: A few entrepreneurs who run “unsexy” businesses such as college textbook distribution and transportation.

What: Who cares if a company is sexy as long as it is profitable? This should be the number one goal for entrepreneurs setting out to create a business plan. Although PR can be challenging for “unsexy” businesses (meaning not Twitter or music) build the business and news will come. In fact, outsourcing PR to an agency may be a bad idea because they may lose your business’s message in the process. At the end of the day, as long as the business is there and something innovative is being achieved, who really cares about how flashy the company is.