festival

Pre-$200 Million Valuation: Flipboard's Mike McCue at SXSW (The Full Onstage Video)

Kara Swisher in News on April 21, 2011 at 11:30 am PT

In March, BoomTown travelled hipster-Texas-style for the South by Southwest festival in Austin to interview Flipboard’s Mike McCue in an onstage interview there. The well-funded Silicon Valley start-up makes an innovative and highly designed social media reading app for the Apple iPad and McCue talks about its next steps in this hour-long video.

Viral Video: "Conan O'Brien Can't Stop" (at SXSW)

Kara Swisher in News on March 15, 2011 at 1:43 am PT

Conan O’Brien has been all over the South by Southwest festival this week, hawking a new documentary about his time wandering in the late-night talk television wilderness after he left “The Tonight Show” last year, titled “Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop.” His hysterical journey, of course, was deftly played out by O’Brien all over the Internet, which was definitely on “Team Coco.”

Video: BoomTown Versus Texas Hipsters and Cheddar Cheese Cats at SXSW

Kara Swisher in News on March 14, 2011 at 12:18 pm PT

As it turned out, BoomTown did not succumb to hipster poisoning on my sojourn this past weekend to Austin, Texas and the famous South by Southwest festival. The annual gathering, which has interactive, music and film elements, started last week and is still going strong–fueled, as far as I can tell, by beer, blogging empanadas and excessive start-up hype.

Viral Video: "Attack the Block" and BoomTown Debut at SXSW

Kara Swisher in News on March 7, 2011 at 12:15 am PT

Like many a geek–and after a decade away–I’m headed to South by Southwest later this week. To get in the mood for the well-known multimedia festival in Austin, here’s one of the films making its debut this coming weekend. It’s called “Attack the Block,” and has the best tag line ever: “Inner City Versus Outer Space.” Which is just about how I am feeling about SXSW!

Viral Video: "The Black Swan"

Kara Swisher in News on September 15, 2010 at 12:13 am PT

BoomTown is very much intrigued by the clear freakiness of the ballet thriller–yes, you read that right–apparent in this trailer for “The Black Swan.” Opening in December, the buzz for the movie–starring Natalie Portman as an increasingly unbalanced dancer with a rival doppelgänger–has been growing both online and off.

Another Digital Spectacle Unfolds: No, Not Today's Apple Event–It's Burning Man 2010!

Kara Swisher in News on September 1, 2010 at 6:05 am PT

BoomTown has never set foot in the dusty dustfest in the desert that is Burning Man, due to the lack of a Four Seasons in the vicinity. Thank goodness, then, for the live stream of the annual event this week, direct from Black Rock City, which you can see after the jump and also on Burning Man’s Web site.

Inside Ford's App-Happy Fiesta–But No Manilow (and BoomTown is a Fanilow)!

Kara Swisher in News on April 26, 2010 at 8:51 am PT

Last week, outside the Facebook f8 developers conference, BoomTown checked out the new 2011 Fiesta model, which will be the first vehicle in which smartphone apps can be voice-controlled via its in-car synching software called SYNC AppLink. While getting a test, I interviewed the Ford dude–Julius Marchwiki–who has been in all the YouTube videos of late touting its digital prowess. And, even though he had no Apple iPhone sync and no Barry Manilow to offer, Marchwiki did manage to keep my interest.

Education Documentary Featuring Bill Gates Gets First Distribution Deal at Sundance

Kara Swisher in News on January 25, 2010 at 1:03 am PT

Bill Gates was at the Sundance Film Festival this weekend–not just to sample some of the fare at the well-known independent film festival, held annually in Park City, Utah, but also to appear at the screening of a documentary about the crisis in public education in which he appears and that scored the first distribution deal at the event. The worldwide rights for “Waiting for Superman,” directed by Davis Guggenheim and produced by Participant Media, were sold to Paramount Vantage, a unit of the Viacom movie studio.