SXSW and how it Accelerated me to grab a piece of Toast
Reported by Declan O'Reilly
SXSW, a 10 day long festival of film, interactive and music 2009 is over. I have been to SX before as a participant and yes I spent the $1000+ dollars on the platinum badge but this year when it came time to ask my boss for the now $1145 for the precious badge I was told that I would have to foot this bill myself if I wanted to attend. Rather than get into a long drawn out to do about the whole thing I struck a deal. I would report from the festival and they would give 2 weeks off (paid) to do what I needed to do as volunteer to get a platinum badge.
Not many people realize that the life of an Austinite is changed and turned upside by the influx of people from all over the world that come here to Austin to attend SX. I spent most of my volunteer time at the Interactive portion of the conference. It was here that I witnessed the launch of a new event for SX; Accelerator.
This event showcased some of the web's most exciting new innovations, enabling the entrepreneurial visionaries behind these new products to demo their creations in front of a live audience of industry professionals and technology trend-settters. It was divided into four categories that approximate the various strengths of SX: online video, online audio, social networking and innovative web applications. Finalists in the social networking and web application categories demonstrated their product or service during the first part of the day, while the video and audio finalists showcased their works in the afternoon portion of the event. Winners of the various categories were announced at the end of day.
It was during this event I witnessed the launch of a new company called Moontoast. An online destination where the world comes together, a place where we can find and share our knowledge by actually talking to each other face-to-face and this was by far the most interesting part of Accelerator for me because it actually brought to light a new way to disseminate information in real time. For companies that do business some times things are lost in translation and nuances are lost when we just read text. Case and point; I have a personal friend that writes for travel blog and while I know him to be a lively guy sometimes people reading his blog, (I know I have personally given several people his information because I know he know his adventure travels like the back of his hand) just don't feel the passion in his stories. But what if they could schedule some time with him via web cam and talk to him face to face and learn what he knows in the comfort of their living room, office, etc half way across the world? Maybe they want to plan a trip to hike Kilimanjaro and knew that he (an average guy) had been there, done that and wants to do it again? Expert information like that...what would that be worth to a company? Your company? As I spent time talking to the people of this company and learning more about their launch that they were planning during Accelerator I was asked to be one of their "experts" on the Moontoast site about what I do for a living. I was not sure what I had to offer a company in terms of advice but I am going to give it a go and see where my toast takes me. Check out Moontoast and see if what you do is in need to others around the world!
Posted by World Blog Team at 3/25/2009 12:19 AM 
Categories: Information
Tags: Accelerator SXSW travel Moontoast Austin Socialites technology fan base
Categories: Information
Tags: Accelerator SXSW travel Moontoast Austin Socialites technology fan base
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