SXSW Interactive Wrap-Up
SXSW 2010 Interactive has come to an end and although we were unable to attend, we did catch on to some of the highlights, the major of which was definitely Monday’s Keynote speech by Twitter CEO Evan Williams. Note that Twitter was launched at XSXSW in 2007. Williams was to address our speculation about the future of advertising with Twitter.
Keynote
In 2009, and mainly through partnerships with Microsoft and Google, Twitter earned about $25 million in revenue. on Monday night Evan Williams announced a new platform for integrating Twitter ( features for websites. It lets users follow an account or columnist directly from their third-party site. For example, a user could follow a New York Times columnist riht from his or her byline. This helps solve Twitter’s “discovery” problem of finding interesting people to follow. Sites testing it now include eBay, Yahoo, and Digg (. It’s called “@anywhere”. The initial partners are Amazon, Yahoo, Bing, YouTube, Digg, MSNBC, ebay, The New York Times, Citysearch, meebo and Advertising Age.
Evan Williams
New Apps
Of course there are always some cool apps and gadgets that come out of SXSW that allow you to interact with other people. This year Nearverse’s LoKast, which launched at the show, allows you to broadcast all kinds of stuff from your phone to ad-hoc networks of people who happen to be within 300 feet of you.
So you’re on the subway, and you want to show the folks around you somethings cool, who your friends are, or what you are listening to or watching on your phone this very minute. The app will detect other LoKast users and ask if they want to see what you’ve got. They can even tune in to a real-time view of whatever you’re viewing in your browser.
The service detects which networks, like Wi-Fi, cellular or Bluetooth, are available and connects to the fastest one. LoKast is free and available only on iPhone app now, but an Android app is in the works and will likely appear in the coming months.
Check out the LoKast demo video here.
