Posted By
Robin Stevens on 03/12/2010
Preparing for an excursion to South by Southwest Interactive is a
little like preparing for a week-long trek through the backcountry. You know
it’s going to be a beautiful experience, but you don’t want to be caught up
short. You study the terrain, you hope you’re packing the right things, and you
plan a loose route that allows you enough flexibility to go with the
inspiration that you discover while you are there.
I’m sure there are iPhone apps for a trek through the
backcountry—okay, this is going to make me download that Compass app I’ve been
hearing about. But for this year’s sold-out Austin Texas future-fest, my app
updates are leaning a bit more towards the practical. There’s My SXSW, which
will show me all of the panels I’ve bookmarked from among the hundreds of
scheduled events. There’s South by News, which offers another lens to the
activities happening there. It doesn’t look like there’s an app for the unofficial,
but awesome, South-By scheduler. Here’s
hoping that their Web interface is optimized for my iPhone.
I’m game to try Tabbed Out, which promises to help me settle my bar tab (and even fork over a tip)
without waiting for an overworked waiter to return to my table. I only
recognize one bar on their list (that’s the Mohawk), but since that’s the venue
for Visions on Friday night,
I’ll get my chance to try it out even as I’m being awed by the convergence of
interactive multimedia artists around me. And I’ll bite: time to download Foodspotting to make sure I know my
options when it comes to the restaurants that will help me stay ahead of the
Austin hordes.
Of course, there are some serious technology developments on
my radar this year:
- I’d like to see Foursquare
in action to see if it helps our White Horse posse to keep up with each other.
- I want to compare the Foursquare interaction
model to Gowalla’s.
- Time to understand the appeal of music-sharing
service Spotify before it hits the
U.S. later this year.
- ActivityStrea.ms:
What’s that? On a personal level and on behalf of our agency clients, I think
it’s time to serious about making sense of our social networks and
consolidating them into useful social capital. Doesn’t it figure that Citizen Agency is leading a discussion
on the topic? Yay.
This year my SXSW visit will be made all the more enjoyable
by the biggest White Horse contingent yet. We’ll be slogging (that’s speed
blogging for those of you wondering) daily and recruiting some compatriot
sloggers for a Saturday event along the way.
Austin, here we come.
Tags: Blogs, Web Communities, Social Networks,
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