SXSW 2011 Shows That the Future is Mobile
The South By Southwest festival in Austin, Texas has become the launch pad for startups over the last few years. SXSW has the unique ability to take a company from virtually unknown to the next hot thing in the course of a few days. With its multitude of events spread out across the city, it provides a unique scaling exercise for any startup focused on real time communication and location. The most notable of the companies to experience the success of this conference are Twitter and Foursquare, but since then, others have had similar success.
If you have read any article leading up to last Friday’s start, you already know that the driving theme of this year’s conference is group-messaging apps. New start-ups like Groupme, Beluga, Fast Society and Eightbit are looking to unseat big players like Foursquare and Twitter as the go-to app. While I think that space has quickly become overcrowded, I also think that the key thing here that people may be missing is that this conference is making a clear case that the mobile web is the future.
The common denominator for all of these apps is that almost all of their activity will take place on a mobile device. Their level of success will actually depend on it. Gone are the days where people keep laptops open while they sit in conference sessions. Smartphones and tablets will now replace them. (Given the iPad 2 launch last Friday, I’d be curious to know how many devices will be purchased in the Austin area this weekend.
What are your thoughts on the startups mentioned in this article? Is the future of tech in mobile apps? Share your thoughts in the comments section.
Category: Apps, Mobile | Tags: beluga, facebook beluga, groupme, Mobile, SxSW
About the Author Navarrow Wright is the CTO of Interactive One, Interactive One is a digital and print media company focusing on the African-American and urban market. As CTO Wright is responsible for the technical strategy of all the Interactive One online properties which include Hellobeautiful, The UrbanDaily, NewsOne, Elev8 and BlackPlanet. He is also responsible for the technical management of the Radio One Network’s radio sites Navarrow was formerly the President of Maximum Leverage Solutions ( http://maxlevsolutions.com), An internet technology consulting firm. Wright is the Co-founder of Globalgrind.com with Russell Simmons and The former CTO of BET.com. Navarrow blogs about issues in technology that affect entrepreneurs, minorities and urban youth on his site at http://www.navarrowwright.com
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