March 2013
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WatchMood Rings 2.0: The creators of Neurowear ears say the headband can detect your brainwaves and turn the fuzzy ears up or down depending on your mood.
- Deborah Acosta
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Each year, thousands of tech enthusiasts flock to... →
First dispatch from the ground: A Friday feature looking at the crush of hot hardware start-ups that are hoping to make a splash at SXSW.
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Going Going Back Back To Austin Austin
This Friday marks the start of another South by Southwest Interactive conference, where thousands of early-adopters, entrepreneurs and venture capitalists make their annual pilgrimage to the sunny sprawl of Austin, Tex., to talk tech and get their fill of barbeque.
And once again, The New York Times will be there, with extra chargers, notebooks and cowboy boots in tow.
As part of our coverage of...
March 2012
55 posts
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The only other time I’ve been to SXSW Interactive was in 2001. That was soon after the collapse of the first Internet boom. One panel was called “Internet Industry Trends 2001: Is Anyone Making Money?”
I wasn’t there to find out the answer to that question. I was there because I had become fascinated with blogs and the other new forms of what we now call social media. It...
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For Everyone and for the Few
SXSW Interactive is, in a way, one big conflicted mishmash of openness and exclusivity. In this context technology, both hardware and software, is about enabling communication for worldwide social networks and individuals alike. Share your location with 50 million others, but keep your password to yourself.
There are the panels about privacy and anonymity, and there are ones about transparency...
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“We saw it as a means to raise awareness by giving... →
Saneel Radia, the director of innovation at BBH Labs who oversaw the Homeless Hotspots program, that hired homeless people to walk around carrying mobile Wi-Fi devices during SXSW, defends the project, which has set off a controversy around the Web. — Jenna Wortham
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WatchFor our second experiment with Google+ Hangouts from SXSW, I spoke with Rick Webb, who is the co-founder of The Barbarian Group, an Internet marketing firm, and an angel investor in technology start-ups. — Lexi Mainland
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WatchBetween sessions on the corner of Trinity and 4th St. outside the Austin Convention Center.
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“It’s the best app for stalker publicists EVER.”
– An anonymous P.R. person raving about the Highlight app outside the Hilton hotel on Sunday. Reporters, beware.
“The decline of larger companies did allow us to become the underdog. If Nokia or...”
– In a afternoon panel called “Being Considered Obsolete is Awesome,” Alexandra Klasinski, the online US head of Lomography, a film community and social network, said that the world of analog photography is alive and well. Ms. Klasinski said that her company, which sells film cameras like...
CNN in Talks to Acquire Mashable →
Though no announcement is expected this week, attendees at SXSW are abuzz about the possibility of CNN scooping up Mashable. Details…
"Many start-up companies trying to attract... →
One of the hot topics of conversation this weekend: Is South by Southwest still the place where the next big thing is launched? Unlike Foursquare, which hit big in 2009 and 2010, and GroupMe, which took off last year, Pinterest, the most talked about company of the weekend, has yet to set foot on the Austin fairgrounds. In what will surely be a well-attended panel, Ben Silbermann, one of the...
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Getting a decent data connection at SXSW can be a challenge, given that it attracts what may be the most data-hungry crowd in the world. With a project called Homeless Hotspots, a marketing company is helping out with this, while helping the homeless and promoting itself. Homeless people have been enlisted to roam the streets wearing T-shirts that say “I am a 4G hotspot.” Passersby can...
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Convening at SXSW via Google+ Video Hangout →
In between the panel sessions and festival events, Jenna Wortham, Brian Stelter and I connected with Matt Buchanan, an editor at BuzzFeed, and Andrea Vaccari, the CEO of the new mobile app Glancee, to download each other on the goings-on. — Lexi Mainland
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“The invisible boundaries that separate people from technology are all around us.”
– Jo Guldi, a Harvard professor, speaking at a session called “Roads to Power.” She suggested that tech types ask the people they see in the real world — say, a cashier at a grocery store — about technology. “How do you rent an apartment?” “Do you read books...
OHatSX: a Twitter feed for the most ridiculous... →
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“Barry Diller, chairman of IAC: I’m not saying that cable and satellite are...”
– In this morning’s discussion with Barry Diller, where he walked the audience through his forthcoming Aereo cloud-based TV service. Unless a lawsuit stops it from debuting next week, it will stream live broadcasts to Internet devices for $12 a month. — Lexi Mainland
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“Have you ever had a good conversation with people who just agreed? It’s...”
– Nick Denton, Gawker Media
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“Gossip is just the news that you really want.”
– Nick Denton, Gawker Media.
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Not With A Bang, But A Downpour →
“Something can only be popular for so long in America before either going bad or getting rich, and SXSW got rich.” Scott Lamb of BuzzFeed on the end of a small SXSW tradition.
Dennis Crowley of Foursquare, interviewed by MG Siegler, said his service’s Radar function, which pops up messages about nearby friends or good places, is still a work in progress. Mr. Crowley, who answered questions in his standard happy-go-lucky mode, said Foursquare was thinking about ways to automatically adjust the way Radar works when a user is in an unfamiliar city and might be in...
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“I don’t think the moral prism works very well.”
– David Carr on curation and aggregation @ “The Curators and the Curated”
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“We’re about the upgrading of our own humanity and our own freedom.”
– Baratunde Thurston, in his SXSW keynote address, discussing the motivation to use technology for more than “the check-in and the status update.” — Lexi Mainland
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“Weather is something we all know and understand,”... →
A mobile social network that revolves around the weather sounds like it would be a flop. But after 24 hours in Austin, where the bleak skies and drizzly weather are all anyone’s talking about, it doesn’t seem so implausible after all! — Jenna Wortham
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