Editor’s note: Marc Ruxin is CEO and co-founder of TastemakerX.
If you went to SXSW 20 years ago, you would have been there to see and discover new music. You worked at a label or publishing company, or perhaps you were a journalist or PR rep. Sure, there were locals and college kids swaying next to you at the shows, but in the end, SXSW was an industry event where bands were discovered… → Read More
Editor’s note: Ethan Kurzweil is a VC at Bessemer Venture Partners.
Every year at SXSW, a winning meme emerges that’s attached to the latest hot new “it” company. Years ago it was “tweet everything,” including what you ate, wore, and saw. Then there was the “check in everywhere” year. This year, the resounding meme was “there is no meme!” Who – or what— was behind that? → Read More
When it comes to high-flying superpowers of the tech industry, it doesn’t get much bigger than Sun Microsystems back in its heyday, while it was under the leadership of co-founder and former CEO Scott McNealy. So you can imagine that it was a bit of a culture shock for McNealy when he dove back into the scrappy world of startups with the 2010 launch of his current company, the enterprise-focused… → Read More
Xi3 recently opened preorders for Piston, the company’s gaming-optimized personal computer. I actually had a chance to speak to the company’s chief marketing officer David Politis over the weekend at South by Southwest Interactive, where he described the device as a combination of the best aspects of PCs and gaming consoles. → Read More
Bing Gordon has become known in recent years for his role as a partner at venerated Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, but anyone who knows him will tell you that he isn’t your typical finance head. As someone whose career has spanned not just technology and VC but also gaming, literature, and entertainment, he has a very well-honed creative side.
And… → Read More
While I was at South by Southwest Interactive, I had a chance to meet with the Leap Motion team and try out their upcoming gesture-based controller. We’ve been writing about the comapny for a while now, but this was a chance to see the technology in-person, and to use it with existing apps.
Thankfully, my own feeble attempts to play Cut The Rope using the Leap Motion Controller weren’t recorded… → Read More
One of the big events coming up for comedy fans this spring will be the return of Arrested Development, which will debut its fourth season on Netflix after a long hiatus. Creator Mitch Hurwitz and star Will Arnett took a few minutes out of their busy lives to answer a few questions about the show. So what’s it like being a big star on TV and then going to the Internet instead? → Read More
Last year, to market the Highlight app the founders walked around Austin in company t-shirts telling people about the service. This year Highlight is doing a little bit more, by renting an ice cream truck and cruising around town handing out ice pops. But they’re also using the promotion as a way to show off the app’s new picture feature. → Read More
City governments here in the United States aren’t typically known as early adopters of the latest in technology and innovation — that means that New York City’s first-ever Chief Digital Officer Rachel Haot has a pretty big job on her hands. So it was great to have the opportunity to talk to Haot about her job and her latest projects while she was in Austin, Texas this past week… → Read More
VEVO just rolled out its first new live and programmed music video offering, VEVO TV. The idea behind VEVO TV is to enable viewers to just sit back and have a stream of videos continuously shown to them, introducing them to new artists and allowing them to relive some old music videos that they might have forgotten about. → Read More
Vimeo On Demand allows creators on the site to set their own prices and provides geo-fencing and other tools to control which areas their content is available in. They can also create custom landing pages for their projects, and the ability to provide clips or trailers as a way to entice viewers to purchase their longer-form version of their content. → Read More
From Yamtrader to Das Keyboard, the SXSWi trade show floor is a mixed bag. While not everything lent itself to an in-depth visit with the TCTV camera, we did find a few interesting companies in the mix. → Read More
When OUYA launched the enormously successful Kickstarter campaign for its Android-based gaming console, CEO Julie Uhrman said she had “no idea” whether it would succeed.
“I was scared shitless,” she said.
Uhrman, who gave a keynote interview this afternoon at South by Southwest Interactive, admitted, “our path to market was unique” (though thanks to Kickstarter it’s becoming less unique). → Read More
Foursquare CEO Dennis Crowley discussed the company’s evolution from an app that was primarily focused around helping people to find their friends, to finding out more about the world that they live in. Crowley said that one of the underreported stories is the number of companies which rely on Foursquare’s map data and what developers can potentially do with that. → Read More
TechCrunch TV sat down with Shaquille O’Neal yesterday afternoon here at South By Southwest in Austin, Texas to talk about his current focus on all things tech, and it was pretty amazing.
People who are successful in the worlds of sports and entertainment aren’t usually the types that you’d associate with nerdiness. But Shaq, who was famously one of the first major celebrities to take to… → Read More
When you think of crowdsourcing, you usually imagine something like the Pebble smart watch or the Misfit Shine – gadgets that are hard to build in mainstream ways but take off by sparking a groundswell of support. But what about a crowdfunded Tesla museum? Or how about a grocery store that uses no packaging? Those kinds of projects are what Slava Rubin, founder of Indiegogo, is most excited about… → Read More
Since launch just a few weeks ago, email management app Mailbox has been a pretty big hit — so big that more than 1.25 million people have signed up for the waiting list. The downside to that early success is that new users are added to a waiting list as Mailbox tries to keep up with demand. The company has processed about 500,000 applications so far, and is processing 50 million messages a day. → Read More
Senator Jerry Moran (CrunchGov Grade: A) left his tie back in Washington, D.C., and sat down with me for an informal, yet candid discussion at the SXSW Interactive conference. The folksy Kansas representative has been one of the Senate’s few tech wonks, spearheading a bill to create a new visa for immigrant entrepreneurs, the Startup Visa Act 3.0. We’ve included highlights below. From… → Read More
It’s always a pleasure to talk to WordPress founder Matt Mullenweg, as he’s one of the more interesting and friendly people in the upper echelons of the tech founder sphere. So we took a few minutes to meet up with him this weekend while he was in Austin for the South By Southwest conference. He’s a native Texan, so it was fun to meet in his home state.
And there was quite a bit to talk about. → Read More
After my panel on Friday at SXSW, Paul Underwood of Deloitte and Will Lovegrove, CEO of Datownia, approached me to talk about their companies. Their viewpoints demonstrate the direction of enterprise app development and the shift to a developer-centric IT world. → Read More
The digital team from Marvel Comics is at South by Southwest Interactive this year to show off some new comics reading experiences that they’ve created.
Today they’re demonstrating a technology that’s currently called Project Gamma. Basically, it’s a way to add music to the experience of reading a digital comic — music that actually adapts to the pace at which you read. As a result, every… → Read More
The idea for Jifiti came about because Shaul Weisband — one of the creators of the app and company behind it — wanted to “teleport” gifts to friends. While teleportation is still not really possible, the team at Jifiti has done the next best thing and is aiming to incorporate this into a new way of shopping. And I think retailers are going to like it. → Read More
Howdy! Welcome to another episode of CrunchWeek, the weekly show where a few of us writers get together and chew the fat on a few of the biggest and most interesting stories from the past week.
As you are probably aware (and possibly annoyed about), the South By Southwest conference in Austin, Texas is in full swing at the moment. Our usual CrunchWeek hostess Leena Rao is holding down the… → Read More
Editor’s note: Geoff Lewis is a principal at Founders Fund and formerly served as co-founder and CEO of Topguest.
This email landed in my this week: Hi Geoff! I’m organizing an exclusive dinner on March 9 or 10 at SXSW for a few close friends. @Garyvee might attend and I’d love for you to join. Please RSVP by March 5. “Wow! I’m wanted!” I thought to myself upon receipt. But → Read More
Much like Twitter got a lot of its early traction at South By Southwest Interactive (SXSWi) in Austin back in 2007, Foursquare famously started off with a bang when it launched at SXSWi in 2009.
So it was great to take some time with Foursquare’s founder and CEO Dennis Crowley in Austin at this year’s SXSWi to talk about the past, present, and future of launching apps at the conference. → Read More
Chaotic Moon is probably best known for dev work that it’s done for clients like Rupert Murdoch’s The Daily, or the Marvel Unlimited app that just hit the Apple App Store. But when one of their coworkers was hurt in a brutal hit-and-run bike accident, they spent some time on a side project designed to help cyclists who find themselves in a similar situation. → Read More
During this afternoon’s keynote interview at South by Southwest Interactive, Tesla CEO and founder Elon Musk briefly addressed his recent back-and-forth with The New York Times about a negative article by writer John Broder, which Musk said was “false.” Asked if he would do anything differently, Musk said there was just one thing — he would have posted “the rebuttal to the rebuttal.”
Broder’s… → Read More
Elon Musk’s SpaceX is getting closer to having technology which could dramatically lower the cost of space travel. In a keynote speech at SXSW Interactive, Musk demonstrated tech that could be used to make rockets reusable. During the interview, Musk showed off a couple of videos demonstrating how the technology works. → Read More
Every year, the tens of thousands of SXSW attendees who descend upon Austin cause a huge crunch on accommodations. If you’re lucky, you might be able to book a hotel months in advance. If not, you can maybe find an affordable Airbnb a few miles away. This year, a few lucky attendees were able to score digs in a great location right downtown, as a place called the Firehouse Hostel. → Read More
Meet Google’s “talking shoe,” which aims to translate movement data in witty messages to users and their friends. The concept apparel, showcased at the search giant’s swanky SXSW Interactive headquarters, is part of a new arts project - ”Art, Copy, Code” – which aims to breathe a social, life-like experience into everyday objects. “If standing still was a sport, you’d be world champion,” the… → Read More
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