Austin, Texas
March 9 - 13, 2012
TechCrunch TV talked to Path co-founder and CEO Dave Morin last week while we were at the South By Southwest Interactive conference in Austin, Texas. It’s always interesting to talk to Morin, who is widely regarded as one of the most well-connected and in-the-know entrepreneurs in today’s web startup landscape.
In this interview, Morin discussed the latest update to the Path app, version 2.1, which was released earlier this month. We also got his thoughts on Path’s larger API strategy, what Facebook’s IPO will mean for the startup world, his favorite apps of the moment (he is yet another of Highlight’s big-name fans), and Path’s rumored plans for another round of funding. → Read More
What kind of tech startup can be built over four days, while riding across the country on a bumpy bus with somewhat dodgy Wi-Fi? The people who took the StartupBus to Austin, Texas for the South By Southwest Interactive conference found out. The StartupBus had its biggest year ever this year, with busloads of hacker-entrepreneurs from 11 regions in North America coding their way down to SxSWi with the goal of launching a minimum viable web app by the time they arrived in Austin.
Last Sunday, a select group of the best StartupBus apps came together to pitch their work to a panel of potential investors. The winner was Cerealize, a website that lets you custom mix your own blended breakfast cereal and ships a box to your home. Watch the Cerealize team pitch their product to TechCrunch TV in the video embedded above. → Read More
Sponsored Ads
Highlight is one of the most talked about apps out there. It was touted to be the breakout app at this year’s SXSW. But it wasn’t. In fact, almost everyone I’ve talked to who used it ended up turning it off or uninstalling it.
(The same probably goes for Glancee, Sonar, etc.. but I only really tried and talked about Highlight.)
I’ve had many discussions about the app and most have been really polarizing. Either people love the idea, or absolutely hate the idea. I find myself trying to have a more balanced opinion. Although I uninstalled it the first day, I think the overall concept of Highlight is interesting and with enough adoption, could be compelling for the right user.
But SXSW was the wrong place for it to break. Here’s why. → Read More
Every year, before, during, and after South by Southwest, everyone’s eager declare someone the winner of the conference. Then comes the inevitable backlash, with questions about whether Popular App X will ever catch on with “regular people” — or if it’s just useful to techies who are constantly checking their iPhones in search of the next party.
For the second year in a row, mobile Q&A app Thumb (formerly known as Opinionaided) is offering its own take. It made a list of the apps that seemed to be getting buzz at the conference, then polled its users on whether they actually used the apps. The results (there were 4,700 responses total, with at least 220 for each question) are being pitched as an answer to the question, “Which SXSW Apps Do Real Americans Actually Use?” → Read More
Earlier this week, TechCrunch TV hosted a live show from the floor of the convention center at the South By Southwest Interactive conference in Austin, Texas and we were really pleased to have technology evangelist and early-stage startup hunter Robert Scoble as a guest.
Watch the video above to hear Scoble’s thoughts on how SxSWi has grown over the past decade from a few “geeks off in the corner” to a massive gathering, what apps he’s most excited about right now (Highlight gets a mention), his time on the StartupBus, why he’s still bullish on Google+, the kind of startup pitch he’s sick of hearing, and lots more. → Read More
The last time TechCrunch checked in with Brittany Morin was in mid-November 2011, when the former Googler had just debuted her own lifestyle brand, Brit Media, aimed at positioning herself as the “Martha Stewart of Silicon Valley.” So TechCrunch TV caught up with her earlier this week in Austin, Texas at the South By Southwest Interactive conference to find out how things have been shaping up since the launch and what her plans are for the months ahead. → Read More
Sponsored Ads
Some people are surprised when they find out that Getty Images is just 17 years old — its brand name has become such an institution in the image licensing and stock photography space that many people assume it’s been around for decades longer. But starting in 1995 just at the dawn of the Internet age does make it a veteran in many ways, compared to its much younger peers in the web photo space. So we were pleased to have the chance to interview Getty Images’ co-founder and CEO Jonathan Klein while he was at the South By Southwest Interactive conference in Austin, Texas this week to get his insights on how his company has grown up until this point and where it is headed in the months and years to come. → Read More
We sort of saw this coming, given the fact that Ben Silbermann said so at SXSW, but Pinterest has just revamped its profile pages. Those of you familiar with the hottest new social network will know that profile pages originally displayed all of your boards, their titles, with thumbnails of each pin in every board. It got the job done to be sure, but was also pretty simple.
Today, all that changes. If you meander on over to Pinterest, where you’ll likely spend more than an hour of your life pinning, liking, and browsing in general, you’ll notice that if you click on an individual user, things look a bit different. → Read More
Twitter has been working hard over the last year to make photo sharing a core part of its product, taking over the photo-hosting role from third parties and gaining deep new integration with Apple’s iOS. But there’s also a big new winner coming up on top of its developer platform — mobile photo-sharing app Instagram.
New stats provided to us by social photo aggregator Pixable show how this trend played out at the South By Southwest conference in Austin last weekend. → Read More
TaskRabbit, the online marketplace that lets people outsource small tasks and errands to others for negotiated fees, expanded operations into Austin, Texas this past week just in time for the South By Southwest Interactive conference. Now that the Austin launch is out of the way, founder Leah Busque told TechCrunch TV, going forward TaskRabbit will work on deepening its reach in Seattle and Portland. International growth — into London and Vancouver in particular — is also “on the horizon,” she said. → Read More
As South by Southwest transforms from a massive tech party to a massive music festival, Twitter has unveiled Twitter for Musicians and Artists, a page offering tips on how musicians can use the service to connect with their fans.
Even if you’re not a world-famous musician, many of the suggestions will be pretty familiar. (Use hashtags! Reply to your fans!) Perhaps the most interesting thing about the page is the theme that Twitter leads with — that the service represents “the artist’s voice empowered”: → Read More
MTV is handing musicians the new keys to a new website called Artists.MTV.
Van Toffler, president of Viacom’s Music Group, was scheduled to announce the initiative during his speech at South by Southwest this afternoon. Beforehand, I got on the phone with VP of Digital Music Strategy Shannon Connolly to talk about MTV’s plans. She said Artists.MTV comes out of a larger discussion about the role that MTV wants to play in the changing music industry. In some ways, it sounds like the music section of MySpace reinvented, but Connolly called as a “pro-artist initiative” that’s “letting artists take control of their MTV presence.” → Read More
Even in an election year where Republicans and Democrats are at each others’ throats even more than usual, there is still one political issue in the United States that both sides have to get behind in order to stay in voters’ good graces: Job creation. And since so many jobs these days are created by startups and small businesses, a number of politicians have started championing initiatives to make it easier for people to start their own companies. One such example is the Startup Act, co-authored by Republican Senator Jerry Moran of Kansas and Democratic Senator Mark Warner of Virginia.
TechCrunch TV had the opportunity to sit down with Senator Moran this past weekend at the South By Southwest Interactive conference in Austin, Texas, where he was speaking about the Startup Act and meeting with entrepreneurs from all over the country. We were able to get his insights on what exactly the Startup Act could mean for entrepreneurs, why creating startups is a bipartisan issue, how Silicon Valley should engage with Washington, D.C., and much more. → Read More
It’s pretty easy to write yet another post about who “won” SXSW or, if you’re feeling ornery or ambitious, how there are no longer any breakout stars. But there’s an important point lost in this repetitive debate.
SXSW is good at producing cultural phenomena — think apps that take off among a critical mass of digerati, who then fly home and spread these products to other parts of the country or world.
But the conference doesn’t have a track record yet for producing sustainable consumer Internet businesses.
If previous SXSW “winners” Twitter or Foursquare had the revenue growth and the smidge of net income that’s helpful for debuting on public markets, they might have been in the wave of companies that filed for an IPO in the past year. → Read More
Trey Ratcliff, the travel photographer known for popularizing HDR (high dynamic range) photo techniques online through his very popular Stuck In Customs blog and more recently his own apps and Google+ page, hosted a photowalk in his hometown of Austin, Texas this week during the South By Southwest Interactive conference. Watch him talk to TechCrunch TV about his one piece of advice for casual photographers, why online social networks have been so good for photos, how his newest app Stuck On Earth is taking off, and his next big travel destination. → Read More
Karma, the gift-giving app made by the founders of TapJoy, made its official debut just two weeks ago. But with $5 million in funding from Sequoia Capital, Kleiner Perkins and others, Karma has clearly caught the attention of some important people. So we caught up with co-founder and CEO Lee Linden this week to get a demo and see what all the hype is about. → Read More
Looking for a band for your tech conference, wedding, or launch party? San Francisco startup Hear It Local has just launched a private concert booking and crowdfunding platform that connects you to local musicians, just in time to catch the attention of the music crowd at South By Southwest. Smaller venues can also use Hear It Local to fill their calendars with great affordable bands.
Unique experiences are rising in value thanks to mobile devices and social networks that make it easy to share our attendance. As both individuals and big brands throw more events, and services like EventBrite make them easier to mange, Hear It Local could grow by bridging the divide between promoters and talent. → Read More
Here is the second half of our two-part interview with legendary inventor and thought leader Ray Kurzweil (you can see part one here.) Here, Kurzweil discusses why sleep is so important for technological innovation (but it’s OK to party and program all night once in a while), why facts are better off on Wikipedia than being drilled into students’ brains, the latest bit of research with which he’s recently become fascinated, and why you are what you think. → Read More
As South by Southwest Interactive is ending and the music festival is begins, there’s a new app offering a fans a chance to explore Austin’s musical history.
The app is called ACL Archive, and it comes from Austin City Limits, the public television show that first started in 1976 to showcase live performances. I was actually a fan of the show when I was a teenager — or, as I told general manager Tom Gimbel, back when I had a television. Gimbel says that’s exactly why this is an important effort for ACL, as program tries to adapt to changing viewing habits. → Read More
Just in time for SXSW Music, Facebook has updated its Events interface. Admins can now create an event with less details, receive suggestions of who to invite and notifications when invitees confirm, and a more advanced wall lets invitees ask questions and more discretely decline invitations. The revamp could help persuade users to create an event rather than just inviting friends to a get-together via group messaging. → Read More
Sponsored Ads
San Francisco, CA
