We know that over a billion people spend virtually infinite time on Facebook and Twitter, and much of that time is talking about, and interacting with brands. But what does all that time mean for advertisers? Some new studies reveal the real impact—or lack thereof—of various types of social interactions.

Electronic Arts CEO John Riccitiello is stepping down as CEO effective March 30 after over six years on the job. Board member and former CEO Larry Probst will take over as executive chairman as the company looks for a new CEO.

Riccitiello said in a letter that his decision to leave is "really all about my accountability for the shortcomings in our financial results this year. It currently looks like we will come in at the low end of, or slightly below, the financial guidance we issued to the Street, and we have fallen short of the internal operating plan we set one year ago. And for that, I am 100 percent accountable."

For the first time in this century, the music industry may have a winning hand. It's at the center for the battle for consumers—Twitter, Apple, and Google's YouTube all are reportedly working on streaming music services, joining the likes of Pandora and even Microsoft.

Why are they jumping on this bandwagon? Because music is mobile, social, and everywhere. And these giants know that whichever service wins over consumers' listening habits has an advantage in the fight to control the operating system of users' smartphones.

The term "binge viewing" first entered the mainstream when Netflix started talking about the way people streamed its content—entire seasons at a time. Now Comcast is embracing the trend, bringing TV networks on board to host a "watchathon."

The company has wrangled more than 30 TV networks into offering more than 3,500 shows for free and on-demand for its Xfinity Watchathon the week of March 25. Comcast is opening the doors to premium content, giving XFinity subscribers access to channels not included in their subscriptions, including top shows from HBO, Showtime, and Starz, as well as AMC and others.

Dennis Rodman's trip to North Korea has sparked a slew of headlines, raised a lot of eyebrows, and drawn a ton of criticism. It was engineered Vice Media CEO Shane Smith, who wanted to get his camera crews the most access possible for the HBO show the company is producing.

"We know that North Koreans love basketball and in particular they love the Chicago Bulls," Smith said. "So we put a delegation together, actually mostly for community outreach to play basketball with the kids."

The South By Southwest Interactive festival draws so many entrepreneurs, it naturally also draws venture capital investors hoping to find the next big thing.

"This is such a nexus of energy and smart people and cool stuff," said Kleiner Perkins partner Bing Gordon, who co-founded Electronic Arts and sits on the board. "Anytime technology can hang out with entertainment it's always worth showing up. This is like the Coachella of tech."

Gordon said he's excited about the potential of "the maker movement"—new products that came about thanks to the growing availability of 3-D printers like MakerBot. He pointed to Ouya, a new video game console that gained traction on Kickstarter, Leap Motion and Memoto's life-blogging camera.

"Atoms are a good way to go," Gordon said of the rise of gadgets instead of prior years' obsession with apps.

(Read More: Gadgets Grab Buzz)

The South by Southwest festival draws tens of thousands of people, from investors to early adopters, hoping to find the next big thing. As a result, big brands clamor to be a part of it, hoping to boost their cool factor and draw new customers.

The Fortune 500 brands at "South By," as it's called by influencers, know that they have to do more than just slap their name on a party with free tacos and beer. To really get in good with the South By Southwest crowd, they have to showcase their product and brand in a way that sparks conversation and could go viral.

The big tech names are here, looking to remind bloggers and entrepreneurs about their services. Yahoo is showcasing its Flickr photo-sharing service with a wall of photos and a photo booth. And it's drawing attention to its original videos with "watch parties."

Though South By Southwest is famous for being a launchpad for social networks like Twitter and Foursquare, physical products are in the spotlight this year.

"I have seen more gadgets at this conference than I think I have sen in any other prior year," said Andreessen Horowitz partner Scott Weiss. "It feels like this is going to be the year of gadget."

One gadget grabbing headlines isn't even going to go on sale: a Google-modified Adidas sneaker that talks.

On Saturday, Google showcased an experiment with its platform called "Art, Copy, and Code." And the talking shoe is called "An Experiment in Connected Objects," part of a series of experiments to re-imagine advertising. Google stresses that it's not prototyping a talking shoe or planning to put one on sale, but they certainly captured the attention of SXSW attendees.

South By Southwest Interactive was famously a turning point for Twitter back in 2007. Now the conference is a key destination for Twitter to meet with its exploding advertiser base. We spoke with Twitter's president of global revenue, Adam Bain, in between his standing-room-only, on-stage Q&A and his back-to-back meetings with advertisers.

"There are hundreds of chief marketing officers now descended on SXSW," he said. "When I first joined the company two-and-a-half years ago, the question was, 'Why Twitter?' and now it's 'How Twitter?' "

Bain added that he's now focused on how to educate marketers with best-use cases.

The company is showing marketers how the new partnerships it's inked in the past few months can work for them. Bain said the launch of a Twitter ads application programming interface, or API, just a few weeks ago will make it much easier to buy Twitter ads.

Disney's prequel to "The Wizard of Oz," "Oz: The Great and Powerful" was a risky move for the giant studio, which reportedly poured $215 million into producing the film.

Revisiting a beloved story can go either way when it comes to ticket sales. For example, Universal's "Snow White and the Huntsman" was a huge hit with movie-goers, but Relativity's take on the Snow White fairy tale, "Mirror Mirror," was a bomb.