It is a two-part system.

The first part of the system takes place “IRL” – or “in real life”. It is voting with your feet – if you don’t like a talk, you just get up and leave, even if you are sitting right at the front, and even if part of you thinks you might hurt the speaker’s feelings a little bit.

The second part of the system takes place on Twitter, and has a specific name, – “Backstream” – but outside of the Twitter / SXSWi  context backstream goes by equally-slash-more evocative names like “the word on the street” and “the grapevine”.

The two components of the feedback system interact: backtream powers voting with your feet – if you are not digging the talk you’re at and @somebody_or_ other is #awesome-ing some other talk, the temptation to vote with your feet can become overwhelming.

Equally, if enough people are voting with their feet, then there is a negative effect on the tone of feedback into backstream.

There was a good example of SXSWi’s feedback system around Evan William (of Twitter)’s keynote address yesterday afternoon. Feedback IRL and backstream were largely negative. @ev boldly piped up soon after saying that he would take more probing questions (accusation had been he got an easy ride from the interviewer) via backstream. On Twitter of course.

The rocket fuel which powers the feedback system is panel envy. See graph below.

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