Curious on what “the next big thing is” at SXSWi? Often, it can be hard to judge before getting there, but after reading what feels like a trillion blog posts these past weeks, I have a bit of an idea on what’s going to pop. Here are some thoughts on things you might want to pay a little more attention to.

Hashable:

Lots of people have been talking about Hashable, a social networking tool that is making a “formal” launch at SXSW this year. In fact, the company even “recruited 20 of its top users across the U.S. (and one from Canada) to attend the conference.” With one requirement: that they leave their business cards at home. Why? Because how Hashable works is that users “check in ?) with people, broadcasting who they are #meeting, #raninto or #hadbreakfast or #beers with to Twitter. Then Hashable records those “meetings” and connects their information—hopefully opening them each up to each other’s networks. Although it seems like SXSW is the perfect place to launch, will Hashable have any steam leftover after the conference? Are people really willing to give up on businesscards? What would Patrick Bateman say?

SCVNGR:

SCVNGR is an app that uses location-based game, where you earn points by going places and completing “challenges” using a mobile platform. Started in Boston, SCVNGR is one to watch this year, not just because they were recently funded $15 million but also because “Chief Ninja” Seth Priebatsch is giving one of this year’s keynotes.

Canv.as:

Another keynote speaker, Christopher Poole (or moot, as he’s known as the founder of infamous 4chan), is not only speaking at the conference, but he’s also helping to publicize the launch of his latest venture: Canv.as. While I have not gotten myself a coveted invite to the service yet, Canv.as looks to be an image-based community, focused on having users share and create internet art and memes.

VYou:

VYou’s already been making waves across the web, but the YouTube-mixed-with-Formspring platform is planning to launch their mobile app at SXSW.

Beluga & Group.me:

Since SXSW is all about keeping tabs on your friends, it’s a perfect place for mobile messaging apps to launch. This year, there are two that people have been speculating about: Beluga and Group.me.

Group.me is a brilliant execution of an idea that practically everyone has had: group text messaging. Even those without smartphones and the Group.me app can join—a group gets assigned a unique number that, when texted, goes to the entire group. The Group.me app adds some smart thinking: letting the user turn off the SMS and use just data in the app. You can switch back and forth between data and SMS, depending on your available service.

Beluga is similar, but people are noticing it mainly because it was just acquired by Facebook. The app gives users the ability to group chat – with built-in mapping and photo-sharing – over data. This cross-platform messaging is what users have been looking for ever since we started migrating from Blackberries to iPhone/Androids. Miss BBM? This is a solution.

Well, those are a few (out of many!) things to keep track off at SXSW. Have anything to add? Comment!