I’m finally getting through some of my notes, tweets and photos from South by Southwest’s Interactive Conference in Austin just over a week ago. I’ve found more good tidbits than I know what to do with, so for the next few days I’ll post some of the juiciest content. Enjoy!
10 of my favorite session takeaways at SXSWi 2013:
I now know what Path is. Built in late 2010 to be more intimate than most other social platforms, Path only connects you to 150 people maximum. As founder Dave Morin said in his keynote talk, they’re aiming for more of a small town feel: “We made a decision to focus on closedness, not openness, to focus on the right people, not all people.” Path has been popular with a niche of social media-ites for its easy usability. “We [at Path] program for ourselves. If we can use tech to bring our own families and small towns together, maybe others can, too.”- Millennials actually aren’t the laziest generation. “85% of millennials would take a job that pays them less if they feel the company is socially responsible and gives back.” It may seem unlikely, but with Gen Y buying houses later, getting married later and waiting to have kids, they have the flexibility to be a bit choosier. And better yet, 15% of millenials are starting a company right out of college, up 300% from just 20 years ago, according to David Burstein.
- “Of those who tweet about TV, 76% do it while watching TV live. It’s a watch-with-other-people thing!” – Justin Goldsborough’s tweet from the #tweetTV session with Jenn Deering Davis. In fact, 1-in-3 TV viewers tweet while watching. Davis says Twitter is a great place to build interest for a new show before it ever airs (and can gauge how well the show will do based on Twitter adoption/noise)!
The Waffle Bus – part of a food truck round up – serves their whole menu on a waffle. Nutella + banana + waffle (divine). Even their cheeseburger sliders are served on waffle fries instead of buns!- At one point, according to Josh Williams, Facebook developers actually turned off all access to Facebook.com on their computers and had to use via mobile, tablet, etc. A great way to remember to experience your product from every device/angle!
- “Just because a machine replaces a person, the social norms of people still remain.” G. Jocius of Change the Code points out that in the age of tech, it’s easier to do everything, including easier to get annoyed.
- Elon Musk, head of Tesla Motors, SpaceX and others, when asked what his life is like: “It’s very busy.” [Audience laughter] “I’d actually like to take it down a skosh. 2012 was a great year for Tesla Motors with a lot of success, but I didn’t have very much fun.”
- Wearable tech – like Google Glass and others – were at the front of people’s speculations on what next in tech. Rather than having to look at our phones, “ambient” or seamless technology should augment our real life experiences. The sports industry has already leaned into some of this tech with watches, skin patches, etc. (There are a few Google employees wearing G glasses spotted at SXSW this year, but no try-and-buy yet!)
- Flitto is a new app, born in Korea, that uses crowd-sourcing to translate tweets into up to 14 languages in real-time. Anyone can sign up to be a translator or to follow translated tweets. (Bonus points: the app was launched for Apple and Google products!)
- And the quote that sums up the whole week? “SXSW is where you experience the future for a few days before you have to go home and live in the present.” – Dennis Crowley, founder of Foursquare.
For some marketing-specific goodies, also check out the 7 coolest promotions I saw at SXSWi 2013 on the next blog post…
I’ll be posting at least 4 more “brain dumps” from some of my favorite sessions on Responsive Web Design, Learning How to Learn with Tim Ferriss, Social Media Customer Service and the Real-Time Content Marketing movement. Stay tuned!
