Yet another South by Southwest has come and gone and with entirely too much information to share, we thought we should break it down for you from a bird’s eye view, thereby giving you enough knowledge to partake in conversations and look cool while doing so.
1. Grumpy Cat. Mashable brought down the house this year by making memes into realities. They brought online celebrity Grumpy Cat and a few more including Scumbag Steve to the show and let’s just say it was talked about… a lot.
2. No life changing app launches. Are the days of launching the next ‘it’ thing at SXSW over? Twitter and Foursquare both launched a few years back at Southby and while apps like Highlight, Sonar, Lasso, etc were all the rage last year, they’re basically out of the picture now. I personally don’t think so. Timing is everything though so maybe we’re having a few off years. Southby is literally the perfect place to launch an app from the pre hype to the crazy influencers who attend and their massive audiences, I think the next big thing would be downright silly not to launch there.
3. Big Brand Presence – SXSW put the kabash on street level marketing this year, thereby kicking the pricetag up a pretty penny. Smaller brands tended to opt out, leaving the big spends to the big boys like Chevy & AT&T.
4. Wearable technology. Smart watches, Google glasses, a brilliant software driven coffee artist and even a talking shoe were all the rage this year. A lot of these intros will certainly be fleeting trends but the potential of these prototypes is impressive to say the least.
5. Real time marketing. Oreo was a hot topic this year after their nimble and immediately viral “You can still dunk in the dark” meme during the Super Bowl. The beyond solid panel, which included Gary Vaynerchuck, discussed real time marketing and the future of the space. If you missed it, you can watch it here.
6. Oh.. and Les, CEO of Jacob Tyler, met Dave Grohl from the Foo Fighters.
Pretty solid times at SXSW 2013. Until next year Austin.