Click to download: Austin powers

It's that time of year when a large chunk of the UK music industry decamps to Austin, Texas for the South by South West (SXSW) festival. Most are drawn to the event, which began on Wednesday, in the hope of either seeing or being the next big thing. But those of us left back in Blighty can keep our fingers quite firmly on the festival's pulse by following it online. The best place to start is the official site, sxsw.com/music . They've abandoned their previous policy of giving away free MP3s from hundreds of the acts performing the event, but that has been replaced by a Music Player, which vaguely recreates the feel of stumbling between Austin's multiple venues by delivering a random, continuous steam of tracks from participating acts. That should help provide you with the all-important SXSW discovery that nobody else has heard of. For the record, mine is spirited Colombian singer Sol Okarina. Of course, you'll also need to have a strong opinion on the acts everyone's talking about. To give you a head start, Musicmetric, a London-based company which provides music web analysis, has put together a list of the 20 acts with the most "online buzz and fan activity" ahead of the event, complete with links to hear them online, at bit.ly/mumesxsw . The Temper Trap, who top the list, were actually one of 2009's big SXSW breakthroughs, but it does also spotlight several less widely known acts, including punchy LA funk/soul collective Orgone and pleasingly dreamy Icelanders Seabear. Other acts likely to crop up in SXSW dispatches include Noush Kaugen, a London-based indie-rocker who has managed to become Twitter's most popular unsigned act, with 1.2 million followers. Last week she was invited to Twitter's San Francisco HQ to play to staff. You can watch a video of her performance at noushskaugen.com . Also likely to attract scrutiny at the festival is Swedish singer-songwriter Jonna Lee. She has replaced Christina Aguilera as the artist most likely to be behind the brilliantly creepy viral videos which continue to appear at youtube.com/iamamiwhoami . The latest has provided some crucial clues, including the apparent appearance of Lee's organ and backing band, as explained by an amateur sleuth in a video at bit.ly/iamjonna . SXSW might just provide the stage for her big reveal. There is also plenty of live online coverage of the festival itself. The excellent National Public Radio is streaming full shows from bands including Spoon, Local Natives and the Walkmen via npr.org/music , while local station KUT is broadcasting news and music throughout the festival at sxsw.kut.org . You can even watch some excellent videos of acts performing acoustically around Austin, at IFC.com/sxsw . Send your links to [email protected]