Don’t bother.

That’s the executive summary from the entrepreneur turned VC, and a lot of me agrees with this line of thinking. SXSW is big. Really big, and having your little incubator project stand out is going to be at most twenty people in a crowd of twenty thousand.

And in that crowd, do you think your budget for an hour or two at one of Austin’s many bars can rival the parties that are going to take over all of Stubbs, the Mashable house, a surprise gig with Queens of the Stone Age?

Exactly.

Think carefully about your goals for SXSW, and how to make best use of your budget. Ten thousand dollars doesn’t go far nowadays, so plan wisely , spend carefully, and aim to build a solid foundation in Austin… not the entire tower.

Want to read all of Suster’s advice? You can find it here.

The heckles are sure to come in, but that’s fine, because anyone taking on board Comedy at SXSW is going to get quite a few comments, so let’s just skip over the obvious stuff (the gender balance, how much the comedians are being paid, how many are here to promote and how many to perform) and point out the full line up of comedians who’ll be in town for SXSW is here.

This year you’ll find a mix of nightly showcases during Film, Interactive, and Music, either in Esther’s Follies or at the stages in the Austin Convention Center, while comedy podcasts will be recorded, again mostly in Esther’s Follies, but do check SXschedule for the exact dates and locations.

Personally, I’m looking forward to two of the ‘special events’ that are under the Comedy banner. A Carlin Home Companion see’s Kelly Carlin bring out personal memories and video footage of her father, George Carlin. The second is Paul Provenza’s session on Thursday 15th, promising a mix of traditional stand up and improvisation in Stand-up without a Net.

There’s a certain amount of chutzpah on show by Larry Chiang in his "How to Launch Your Startup At SXSW For Only $217" but I suspect that the article is more about getting page views than actual advice.

Chiang is suggesting you put together a quick page on Eventbrite or Plancast, buy in some cupcakes, tacos and pancake batter, blog about the party and "boom", you’ve launched. For the record, his food prices are $80 in cupcakes, $20 in pancake batter, $150 in tacos… which is $250, he’s already over his budget!

There is some smart advice in here, but I thin that lo-balling a SXSW presence, on top of transport and airfare (even if you’re only staying one day and can skip the hotel) is not the best use of resources in the intense roller-coaster speed that is SXSW Interactive.

That said, Foursquare did not bad a few yeas ago with a big box of swag, giving it away if you could beat the dev team at a game of Foursquare – yes the real game, with a bal. Total cost? The swag, and a box of chalk to draw the game boxes on the path outside the Convention Center each day.

So there are ways to be cheeky and get seen without spending a fortune – and half the fun is seeing what people come up with for the Austin get together every year!

SXSW Eco will provide an open and creative space for experienced, passionate and pragmatic professionals to network with a diverse group of influential organizations and individuals, while contributing to cutting-edge discussion. The conference will feature a mix of sessions, including keynote presentations, panels, and core-conversations. Session ideas submitted via the SXSW Eco website will be considered by SXSW Eco staff as well as the SXSW Eco Advisory Board.

Now this is interesting, initially on two fronts. The first is that there is now a SXSW conference in October, and the second is that it’s an expansion of the brand into a new area. My worry is that it does a "Ted" and devalues the power of SXSW as Spring Break for geeks, filmsters, musicians and hipsters.

Let’s see what happens.