A team of USA TODAY reporters have been here chronicling the start of the festival which runs through March 18. Here are some highlights so far:  Robert Scoble: SXSW sure ain't what it used to be  Scoble, who runs the influential tech blog Scobleizer, says that the conference has drastically changed from its early days — when just around 1,000 people would converge in Austin to talk tech. He estimates that about 45,000 people show up now.  "It's much harder to get around town. You can't see it all. It's an abundance of resources. You can't go to every panel. And there's so many parties now," he says. "Plan on not sleeping very much."  SXSWi, the "interactive" part of the conference, is very much for the early adopter crowd, he says. Web designers and Web developers show up in force as do people hawking new startup companies.  Should you go to SXSW Interactive?  No, say Scoble. Well, unless you fit that profile. If you're just looking to have a good time wait a few more days and come to the music portion of the festival.  You need more than 'badges' to make your startup stick.  OK, those are our words, not the words of Charles Duhigg, New York Times reporter and author of The Power of Habit. Duhigg says to become really successful a startup company needs to do more than just offer a service, it needs to become part of your daily habit.  Duhigg, who stopped by Tech Cocktail's #Startuplife celebration at SXSW, says that habits are comprised of a cue (I'm feeling sleepy!), a routine (Coffee makes me feel not sleepy) and a reward (I'm not sleepy anymore!).  Companies try to tap into this routine by playing to this series of actions. The best ones, like Facebook, are intrinsically habit forming. The worst ones try to create fake habits by giving nominal rewards that don't actually resonate in our brains.  SoundCloud, which lets users easily record and upload audio clips to the Web, set up shop away from the glitzy Austin Convention Center in a pub several blocks away.  "We wanted to replicate the feel of our first SoundCloud building (an old post office in Berlin)," a SoundCloud exec said.  SoundCloud had a few partners to share the space with, including Storify, which is social media nerds' preferred way to curate breaking news events.  Storify lets users create narrative-like stories from disparate tweets, Facebook posts, YouTube videos and, yes, audio clips from SoundCloud.  'Cabin in the Woods' premieres amid downpour  The movie, which opens nationwide on April 13, features Bradley Whitford, Kristen Connolly and more. Written by the guy responsible for the terrifying found-footage film 'Cloverfield,' the movie is being billed as a horror film unlike any you've ever seen. "People will be surprised and they will also be scared and amused," says producer Joss Whedon. The film premiered on Friday night to open the festival. On Saturday, Whedon led a panel for festival-goers called "A Conversation with Joss Whedon."  Great SXSW stories from around the Web:  Google exec: We won't break users' trust  Entrepreneur astronaut: Here's how you'll get to space  The changing culture of SXSWi
Everything is bigger in Texas, and the South by Southwest interactive, film and music festival is no different.