AustinStartup

The first round of voting for panels for the 2011 SXSW festival ends tomorrow (Friday) at Noon central time. Here’s my panel idea. If you’re Austin-based, please use the comments to tell us about your panel idea.

Personally, I believe that the Semantic Web will become mainstream in the next few years (I actually have a bet on this with some college friends). I know that this is a strong statement, but I am confident that it will happen. Mainstream is defined in Wikipedia as “the common current of thought of the majority”. Furthermore it states that something is mainstream if it “is available to the general public” and it “has ties to corporate or commercial entities”. However, how do you evaluate if something is on the verge of becoming mainstream? I propose the following metric: inclusion at the South by South West (SXSW) Conference!

Today’s Q&A Wednesday is with Edward Cruz from GuruStorms, which was a finalist in the SXSW Accelerator program. MobileRoadie won the category, but being a finalist should help the company’s visibility.

Last week, as the technorati returned home from their working spring breaks in Austin for SXSW Interactive, the backlash began almost immediately. It started with Jolie O’Dell’s post, smartly entitled “Why SXSW Sucks.” It quickly followed with the predictable back and forth, and many reporters and attendees said that this year’s SXSWi was too big, too crowded, and too overtly sponsored.

Today’s Q&A Wednesday is with Anthony Castoro, the CEO of Heatwave Interactive. The company has been at SXSW Screenburn showing off Platinum Life, their iSamJackson iPhone app, and Gods & Heroes. Perhaps you were at their party at The Belmont last night?

Have you been at a bar wanting to order a drink but your waitress or waiter was not around?  Odds are that it has happened to you this week.  If you are at SXSWi here in Austin, it has happened to you more than once.  Busy bars make it tough to order drinks – [...]

If you’ve been to SXSW before, you’re well aware of the glut of panels and parties. There is simply too much to do and too many places to be at once. The conference tries to alleviate the hectic nature with some pre-planning, offering the ability to build your own schedule on their website. But the technology is clunky and laborious; I know my eyes started to glaze over pretty quickly. So in the interest of preserving your sight and sanity, I thought I’d share some panels that jumped out at me.

There’s a little piece of chaos at SXSW for everyone; and every year, some folks navigate the flood of people and sensory overload a bit better than others – the difference between a SXSW veteran and noobie is noticeable at first glance. In an effort to reduce apparent nerd-ism, I’ve put together some helpful tips and found some neat tools for first-timers at SXSW.

We’ve got a guest post today from Better Than The Van co-founder Todd Hansen. When I saw their amazingly cool contest for SXSW, I just had to get some backstory from them on their startup, and how they are hoping to make a big splash at SXSW.
I started BTTV about two years ago as something [...]

Normally you’re out pitching the VC’s. Well during SXSW we’ve got a little party for you where the VC’s will be pitching you. Our friend Larry Chiang, who wrote What They Don’t Teach You at Business School (and writes a BusinessWeek column with the same name) is throwing a Reverse VC Pitch party downtown on [...]