You don’t need a Twitter account to follow SXSW sessions.

SXSW Scene: In downtown Austin today.

Check out what was going at the Austin Convention Center.

Location Based Wars Heating Up

Unfortunately, I’m still sitting here in Bloomington waiting for my flight.  It’s now been delayed 2 hours and 15 minutes.  It’s given me time to double check things (although I’ll still probably forget something) and update my iPhone.

I’ve already mentioned that the location based wars were heating up before SXSW, but I was shocked when I went to update my iPhone today and had app updates from Foursquare, Gowalla, Loopt, and Whrrl.  And these are just the location based apps I have on my phone (along with Brightkite).

It should certainly be interesting to watch as things progress this weekend as each are running plenty of promotions.  Gowalla is even throwing a party, and the only way to get in is to “find” a virtual VIP wristband by checking in around Austin.  They’re also having a contest giving away some real items if you find them virtually.

SXSW Bound: Chevy’s Recharge Lounge & High-Tech Marketing

SXSW Bound: Can I scan you?

SXSW Bound: The Startup Bus.

SXSW Flashback: Remember three things, Koz.

Bringing it the Best We Can

We’re extremely excited to be bringing you news, events, and happenings “as it happens” at SXSW Interactive next week. However, as you may have experienced at a large event or gathering, cell phone service and WIFI connections aren’t always the most reliable. You’ve got hundreds or thousands of people all trying to connect at the same time, which is an obvious problem. Apparently AT&T got knocked last year for not anticipating all of the iPhones which would be at SXSW Interactive. That’s why this year, they’ve assured us it should be up and running. AT&T told the Austin Statesman that they’ve installed a cellular antenna system in the Austin Convention Center to handle the anticipated cell phone traffic.  In addition, the local cellular towers have been enhanced and a series of temporary cellular on wheels (COW) portable transmission sites will be set up around the region to handle the rest of the traffic. There will be faster backhaul links present to keep bandwidth from getting too congested, and AT&T’s own network of Starbucks-hosted Wi-Fi hot spots have reportedly been enhanced to better meet the needs of attendees.

We’re hoping everything runs smoothly, but you never know what could happen when you’ve got over 5,000 people attending a tech conference with iPhones, and laptops, and Androids (Oh my!).  As the title says, we’ll plan on bringing it to you in photo, video, and words the best we can.

Location Based Networking at SXSW

Since Twitter hit it big on Oprah about this time last year, everyone’s been wondering, “What’s the next big thing.”  The technology that has been emerging as the next big thing appears to be location based social networking tools.  Over the last year, services like Gowalla, Whrrl, and Foursquare have been catching on with the techset and are starting to reach the mainstream.  It has forced other services like Yelp to incorporate location based checkins to their services. 

Just in time for SXSW, one of the players in this area – Brightkite – is planning to launch a universal check-in feature to their service – tieing into the APIs of these other services.  Essentially, this would allow users to check in via Brightkite and it would automatically update their location on Foursquare and others (although Gowalla’s API is currently read-only).

It will be interesting to watch the location based social networking services battle at SXSW this year.  Me, I’ll keep updating the services I have on my phone – Yelp, Gowalla, and Foursquare (just removed Whrrl) – while I’m there.

Twitter at SXSW

We’re about a month away from SXSW and the buzz has begun.  Twitter CEO, Evan Williams (@ev) is scheduled to participate in a keynote interview at SXSW on Monday, March 15.  On Tuesday, February23, several technology blogs reported that Twitter was planning to launch an advertising platform at SXSW.  This stemmed from a report in Media Post that Anamitra Banerji, head of product management and monetization at Twitter, apparently made a comment at the IAB Annual Leadership Meeting that Twitter will roll out an offical advertising platform within the next month or so.  Rumors abound about whether or not we’ll see, or even catch a hint at, what the new ad platform entails.  Some have speculated the announcement will not take place at SXSW at all, but instead at “Chirp,” Twitters first ever official developer conference, to be held a month after SXSW.  If there is any sort of announcement or talk about it at SXSW, we’ll be sure to bring it to you.

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