SummerMash Roundup

August 5th, 2008

It all started during SXSW 2008 at Porter Novelli’s big Mix and Six kickoff party. I met Pete Cashmore, and the Mashable crew was talking about doing events all across the country. No nationwide tour of tech hotspots would be complete without a stop in Austin, and it wasn’t long before I started working with Adam Hirsch to plan SummerMash Austin.

Buffalo Billiards played host to this event, mostly because it was one of the few downtown venues that could hold this huge crowd! To understand the size of the crowd, you can check out some video from the event. Spring.net has an interview that Pete Cashmore did with Will Pate, co-host of CommandN, and about 30 other interviews. Over at the AustinCast there is an hour of video interviews. Tag your pictures in Facebook! There are also tons of pictures on Flickr.

Karen Hartline wrote-up some post event coverage and summed up the event, and Mark Hopkins wrote about Austin being the next Web 2.0 hub. Austin blogger Thom Singer offered up his own angle on the event, and what it means to the Austin technology scene.

This event shows that the Austin tech scene is alive and kicking, and sometimes it just takes some visitors for us to turn out in force and talk about all the great technologies we’re creating. Despite the lack of funding opportunities for Web 2.0 companies in Austin, there are some really exciting companies. It’s also clear that the people who choose to live here, work here, and innovate here love the Austin lifestyle and routinely pass on opportunities in other tech centers like the silicon valley and Boston.

Save the date for the 11th of September for the next Austin Tech Happy Hour!