AllThingsD » South by Southwest

Rdio Head of Design Wilson Miner Goes to Facebook

Mike Isaac — Mon, 07 May 2012 19:17:57 +0000

Wilson Miner, the lead designer at streaming music application Rdio, has left the company for a design position at Facebook, according to a message Miner posted from his Twitter account on Monday. Miner was most recently responsible for a complete redesign of the Rdio web application launched at South by Southwest in March, and had been at the company for more than two years. Facebook also recently snagged two other prominent hires to work on design: Ex-YouTuber Margaret Stewart, and Elizabeth Windram, formerly of Quora.

Party On … And On … And On, Geek (But Not Much Else): A Newbie Reflects on SXSW

Ina Fried — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 15:00:50 +0000

Never having been to South by Southwest, I really didn’t know what to expect after I landed in Austin.

As I take off on a plane away from Austin, I have a few observations, many of which seemed to be shared by others I chatted with.

To be clear, I’m referring to the interactive piece of the event. I have far too poor taste in music and movies to pass judgment on those portions, nor did I stay for those parts.

The event is an incredible party.

SXSW Interactive is actually a conference surrounded by many, many small (and not-so-small) parties. But the parties are so numerous and so close to the conference that it is more like one big party than it is a discrete set of events.

It’s mostly a marketing and PR thing.

Marketing and branding are a big part of any event, but they seem to be the raison d’etre for this conference.

South by Southwest is a great place to try to identify your company as hip and edgy, and there are plenty of the kinds of folks in attendance who help decide those sorts of things. It’s also a good barometer for which companies have lots of money to throw around. (Full disclosure: AllThingsD hosted two parties, one for the launch of its new All Things Reviewed site — which was very lovely, if we do say so ourselves.)

It’s not a big place for news.

Folks looking for lots of interesting headlines were disappointed. As far as big trends, the closest thing I saw was the need for a breakthrough in battery life for all our digital gear.

While SXSW has been a place where apps and services have taken off in years past, most of those have been apps and services that help aid the sort of schmoozing that is the best part of the Austin event.

There were good discussions to be had, both onstage and off. I had good chats with people I knew and many people I didn’t.

It’s a terrible place for sleep.

Largely because of the fact that it is one big party, it is very hard to achieve downtime in Austin. There is literally always something going on, and with so much good food and music, even wallflowers can be persuaded to leave their comfort zones. The enforced insomnia was exacerbated by the fact that the event coincided with the shift to Daylight Savings Time, depriving conference-goers of one more precious hour of sleep.

I talked more about some of my experiences on Monday’s “Digits” show, as well as in an interview on Southern California Public Radio’s “Madeleine Brand Show,” discussing the trends from Austin:

[ See post to watch video ]

The Homeless Defend Becoming Hotspots

Geoffrey A. Fowler — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 20:11:48 +0000

An experiment with letting homeless people make money by serving as wireless Internet hotspots raised plenty of eyebrows at this year’s South By Southwest festival in Austin, Texas.

After igniting a media storm in its first three days, the organizers contemplated shutting down the program, which equipped about a dozen homeless people with 4G hotspot cards. Homeless participants, who wore t-shirts to identify themselves, were charging passersby to access their Wi-Fi connections at a conference where network access is in high demand.

Read the rest of this post on the original site »

South by Southwest Parties On, Despite the Rain

Ina Fried — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 18:48:11 +0000

As the people pushed to get in, the music thumped and the crowd gyrated at the Samsung Feed event, I tried to remember the time in high school when I actually wanted to go to something like this.

These days, though, I’m envious of this generation’s nerdy kids with their Friday and Saturday nights home. After a few minutes hanging out with Samsung and the Angry Birds folks showing off Angry Birds Space, I decided to beat a hasty retreat.

On the way back, though, I got some glimpses of the nightlife I was forgoing: Bars with signature cocktails, Trucks cooking up BBQ and Mexican fusion and party scenes that were just warming up.

Here are some images from my brief attempt to see the SXSW party scene.

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

Kara Swisher — Thu, 21 Apr 2011 18:30:38 +0000

In March, BoomTown travelled hipster-Texas-style for the South by Southwest festival in Austin.

I was there to check out the geek-packed scene, but also to interview Flipboard’s Mike McCue in an onstage interview there.

The Silicon Valley start-up, which makes an innovative and highly designed social media reading app for the Apple iPad (iPhone and Google’s Android mobile operating system to come), recently raised $50 million in new funding, giving it a $200 million valuation.

This interview with McCue took place before that, but it’s still a wide-ranging map to where the much-touted Flipboard is headed.

Here’s the video:

[ See post to watch video ]

Exclusive: Flipboard Confirms $50 Million Funding at $200 Million Valuation

Kara Swisher — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 20:23:12 +0000

Late last month, BoomTown posted about a huge venture funding effort by the high-profile and even more highly designed social media reading app for the Apple iPad, Flipboard.

Today, its co-founder and CEO Mike McCue confirmed the $50 million round at an eye-popping $200 million valuation, in a wide-ranging interview at the start-up’s Palo Alto, Calif., HQ.

“We’re obviously thrilled, because we think it confirms our focus that people want a beautifully designed way to interact with content and to share it,” he said. “And there is a lot more to come–on a scale of one to 10, we’re just at a two or three.”

The bulk of the new second round of funding–Flipboard had previously raised $10.5 million–came from New York-based Insight Venture Partners.

Insight’s Jerry Murdock said in an interview that he was excited about the idea of “social endorsement” that Flipboard was pioneering.

“We back great entrepreneurs and Flipboard is that and also in an obviously unique position to solve a problem of media consumption in the digital age,” he said. “The sky is the limit. Or more precisely it is the best environment to consume curated real-time content for Twitter and Facebook, because of the user experience and social endorsement integration with the content.”

Insight is also an investor in Twitter.

Also stepping up in the new Flipboard round is Comcast’s venture arm, as well as previous investors, including Kleiner Perkins, Index Ventures and a spate of well known angels, such as Twitter co-founder and product guru Jack Dorsey, Facebook co-founder and Asana dude Dustin Moskovitz, the ubiquitous Ron Conway, actor Ashton Kutcher and the investment company of former News Corp. exec Peter Chernin.

“From a Comcast perspective, we’re intrigued with Mike and what he’s doing with content aggregation,” said Amy Banse, Comcast Interactive Capital’s new head. “We think we can learn from him and he from us.”

Co-founded by longtime entrepreneur McCue (Netscape, Tellme) and former Apple iPhone engineer Evan Doll in January, Flipboard launched to much attention in July.

The elegant Flipboard–which McCue recently told me in an onstage interview at the South by Southwest conference in Austin had zero revenues thus far–has changed the game on the consumption of social media.

Its innovative social magazine concept is attempting to make the social networking universe more accessible, consumable and, perhaps most importantly, visually arresting via its rich app.

Essentially, Flipboard pulls information from media RSS feeds and sites such as Twitter and Facebook data streams and then reassembles it in an easy-to-navigate, personalized format in a mobile tablet touchscreen environment.

In its current offering, there are pull-quotes, photos, videos, status updates and even the first paragraphs of linked-out content. There is also the ability to comment and share, as if one were on a social networking or microblogging site.

McCue said the new giant pile of cash will be used to increase its 32-person staff to about 50, international expansion, small acquisitions and more product development on more platforms.

The next in the arena will be the iPhone version of Flipboard, said McCue, followed by one for the Google Android mobile operating system eventually.

Left unsaid, of course, was the need for funding to fight the likelihood of increased competition in the hot space for delivering both professional and social content to consumers on a wide range of devices.

Rivals are varied, such as Silicon Valley’s most adorable news reader start-up Pulse and also Zite, a news reader which was recently sued for copyright infringement by a group of major publishers.

There are bigger potential players, such as Google, which is trying to find various ways to move into the social space.

In fact, said several sources, Google and others have made acquisition approaches to Flipboard, which has instead opted for raising more funding and staying independent for now.

McCue declined to talk about that, but did note that he is not surprised by publisher interest, especially of the worried and wary kind, in the arena.

“Anyone not respectful of others’ content is going to get in that kind of trouble,” he said, noting Flipboard has struck deals with 17 big publishers so far, including this morning’s announcement about a partnership with Oprah Winfrey’s and Discovery’s OWN cable network. “There is not one half to this equation.”

Right now, the Flipboard app is free and the business plan is advertising and some possible subscription scenarios.

McCue said advertising will be the key to Flipboard’s business plan in the future, although it’s not clear if the company will ever sell advertising itself.

Rather, it will partner with publishers seeking better distribution in the explosive tablet and smartphone market, where Flipboard has been gaining traction quickly.

But until that is sorted out, there is now $50 million more in the Flipboard kitty to figure it all out.

“With this funding, we can grow at the right pace and have a lot of flexibility to get the product right,” said McCue. “And, that’s the most important thing.”

Pretty Flipboard Fundraising at an Even Prettier $200 Million Valuation

Kara Swisher — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 14:15:12 +0000

Flipboard, the high-profile and highly designed social media reading app for the Apple iPad, is out raising another round of funding at an eye-popping $200 million valuation, according to numerous sources close to the situation.

The Palo Alto, CA, company declined to comment on its new funding efforts, which sources said had recently accelerated.

While that valuation might change, several sources considering the investment said it is unlikely to go down in the current frothy financing market in Silicon Valley, especially given Flipboard’s splashy profile and top-drawer pedigree.

Co-founded by longtime Silicon Valley entrepreneur Mike McCue and former Apple iPhone engineer Evan Doll in January, Flipboard launched to much attention in July.

That included $10.5 million in venture funding from Kleiner Perkins, Index Ventures and a spate of well known angel investors, such as Twitter Co-founder Jack Dorsey, Facebook Co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, the ubiquitous Ron Conway, actor Ashton Kutcher and the investment company of former News Corp. exec Peter Chernin.

At the time, it was unclear what Flipboard’s valuation was. But now, said several sources, it’s clocking in at a hefty $200 million, which is perhaps no surprise at a time of increasingly lofty investments in tech start-ups.

Suddenly, Foursquare’s $95 million valuation seems like a bargain! (Sorry, Dennis Crowley, for comparing you to the Kool-Aid pitcher dude.)

In any case, the elegant Flipboard–which McCue recently told me in an onstage interview at the South by Southwest conference in Austin had zero revenues thus far–has changed the game on the consumption of social media.

Its innovative social magazine concept is attempting to make the social networking universe more accessible, consumable and, perhaps most importantly, visually arresting via its rich app.

Essentially, Flipboard pulls information from sites such as Twitter and Facebook data streams and then reassembles it in an easy-to-navigate, personalized format in a mobile tablet touchscreen environment.

In this offering, there are pull quotes, photos, videos, status updates and even the first paragraphs of linked-out content. There is also the ability to comment and share, as if one were on Twitter or Facebook.

Flipboard has since added a number of features and will be launching its new iPhone app later this year.

Right now, the Flipboard app is free and the business plan is advertising and some possible subscription scenarios.

It will be interesting to see who will jump into this leader in a nascent market, besides its current investors. Sources said one likely target group for Flipboard could be a large traditional media company.

Until the financial dust settles, here is the video of an onstage interview by the Digital Solution’s Katherine Boehret with McCue at the All Things Digital event, D: Dive Into Mobile, in December:

[ See post to watch video ]

(Full disclosure: ATD is part of Flipboard’s publisher beta program.)

Viral Video: Entering the "Source Code"

Kara Swisher — Fri, 18 Mar 2011 07:15:37 +0000

One of the movies that showed at South by Southwest was “Source Code,” an action thriller in which a solider is on a mission to find a train bomber by occupying his body.

Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, it actually looks terrific.

Here’s the trailer, as well as the first five minutes of the film:

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

Kara Swisher — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 08:43:33 +0000

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.

That included a lively live interview with Facebook’s Randi Zuckerberg on Saturday, as well as a series of appearances related to “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.”

The documentary, which will be distributed in the U.S. in a multi-platform deal with AT&T, follows O’Brien on his “Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television” tour.

Here’s a clip from the film:

Video: GroupMe Dudes Talk Group Messaging Phenom (and Drink Beer at the Same Time)

Kara Swisher — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 22:01:45 +0000

If you had to pick the hotsy-totsy start-up to win the media darling of South by Southwest award for 2011–following in the precious footsteps of Foursquare and Twitter from years past–it would probably have to be GroupMe.

The group messaging/conference call/location/photo sharing service has, as these things tend to, garnered a lot of heat since its debut less than a year ago.

That has, of course, also meant the requisite big venture funding–$11.5 million in total–for the New York-based GroupMe, including from SV Angel, betaworks, First Round Capital, Lerer Ventures, General Catalyst Partners and Khosla Ventures.

And, no surprise, the dead-simple idea now has many start-up rivals, all vying to use combine mobile, texting, social, location, groups and smartphones into some unholy megatrend.

Still, GroupMe has built a slick little offering, which is likely to get scooped up by some bigger entity (or perhaps just copied, which is the sincerest form of flattery in tech).

Until then, its Co-founders Jared Hecht and Steve Martocci are enjoying their day in the sun–quite literally, at their free grilled-cheese-and-beer giveaway at SXSW this weekend in Austin, Texas.

Here is my video interview with their-future-is-so-bright-they-have-to-wear-shades pair:

[ See post to watch video ]

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

Kara Swisher — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 19:18:17 +0000

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.

Actually, it was a good time had by me, despite assertions from some longtime attendees that SXSW had somehow jumped the shark.

I personally saw no shark-jumping, but there certainly were a lot of free t-shirts and fake tattoos.

Here is a video of a variety of scenes from the weekend, from all over SXSW, from our very own All Things Digital party (I now can retire, since I had a drink named after me) to encountering a giant cheddar cheese sculpture of cats.

Yes, it was that kind of SXSW.

Enjoy:

[ See post to watch video ]

Pro Tip: How To Stop SXSW Twitter Overload In Its Tracks

Peter Kafka — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 15:32:16 +0000

There’s a lot of cool stuff happening in Austin at the South by Southwest conference this week, and All Things Digital will have three (3!) people on the ground to tell you about it. On the other hand, there’s going to be lots of stuff coming out there that isn’t so cool or interesting, and you may find breathless reports of such clogging your Twitter feed. One binary solution: TweetDeck’s filter function, which allows you to block any Tweet with “SXSW” (or any other term you want) from your feed. Not an endorsement! Just an option.

Microsoft Plans March 14 Launch for New Internet Explorer 9 Browser

Ina Fried — Wed, 09 Mar 2011 17:35:52 +0000

Aiming to ride the hip coattails of South By Southwest, Microsoft said it will launch the IE 9 browser at the Austin event on Monday. Even those not cool enough to be in Austin, though, will be able to download the new Internet Explorer starting at 9 a.m. PT, Microsoft said in a blog. The new browser aims to offer faster performance, greater HTML5 support and new tools to limit tracking by third-party Web sites.

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

Kara Swisher — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 08:15:42 +0000

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 is about a teen gang fighting an alien invasion. Plus, it has the best tag line ever: “Inner City Versus Outer Space.”

Which is just about how I am feeling about SXSW!

In any case, despite my lack of hipster cred, I will be there for a party hosted by WordPress with drinks by The Wall Street Journal Digital Network and All Things Digital on Friday, as well as to interview Flipboard Co-founder and CEO Mike McCue on Saturday in an afternoon session with the subtitle: “Game-Changer or Passing Fad?”

NetworkEffect’s Liz Gannes and The Digital Solution’s Katherine Boehret will also be at SXSW, so expect plenty of coverage from Texas.

Until then, enjoy this movie trailer, y’all:

Facebook Won't Spend Much Bread on Hot Potato

Peter Kafka — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 15:08:37 +0000

Another “buy them instead of hiring them” deal: Facebook is about to pick up Hot Potato, a start-up that specializes in organizing chats about “real time” events.

The transaction hasn’t closed yet, but the social network is set to pay something in the $10 million to $15 million range for the company, people familiar with the deal tell me. That will mean a modest return for the investor consortium that put $1.4 million into the firm last year, but it will still be a return.

Facebook, meanwhile, will presumably get the services of Hot Potato’s small team, led by CEO Justin Shaffer, a longtime veteran of pro baseball’s well-regarded MLB.com site. The most logical place for them to end up would be working on the social network’s mobile products.

Shaffer declined to comment; I have yet to hear back from Facebook PR. TechCrunch first reported on the pending deal.

Hot Potato launched last fall with a well-known team of backers, led by RRE Ventures, Betaworks and Ron Conway, and the plan didn’t call for an exit this soon, at this price. But the service never got significant traction, despite a push at the South by Southwest conference in March.

And given that the problem the Hot Potato crew was trying to solve–how to curate a stream of chatter/commentary for events as they happen–was something that Facebook itself should be tackling, it makes perfect sense for them to end up at the social network.

Here’s an interview I conducted with Shaffer in November, as his service was starting up, followed by a shorter chat with Kara Swisher in May at an event hosted by General Catalyst Partners, and Hot Potato’s own description of what it’s trying to do.

[ See post to watch video ]

Five Tech Investors Reflect on SXSW

Tomio Geron — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 18:00:56 +0000

Ever since Twitter Inc. broke on the scene at the annual South By Southwest festival three years ago, the techie crowds have multiplied at the Austin conference better known for its film and music. Foursquare Inc., another hot start-up, made noise last year when it launched there. Now that the tech portion of the festival has wrapped up, we asked several investors this week to reflect on the event. Most of them still found the conference useful, particularly to meet people from a variety of technology backgrounds from across the country, even if the events were more crowded than ever.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

Foursquare's Next Move: A Big Funding Round

Peter Kafka — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:00:40 +0000

Start-up-of-the-moment Foursquare has lots of buzz, a rapidly growing user base and a triumphant tour of South by Southwest under its belt. Next task: Raising a pile of money.

Sources tell me that the mobile social network, which lets you tell your friends where you are, is lining up a new round of financing to bolster the $1.35 million it raised last August. CEO Dennis Crowley declined to comment.

I don’t know how much the year-old company intends to raise or the valuation it’s looking for. But speculating about both is a fun pastime for venture capitalists, who agree on one thing: The company won’t have any problem attracting suitors.

“Everybody and their mother is humping their leg,” says a VC who readily admits to Foursquare infatuation. So many investors are besotted that the chatter can get feverish. Another VC passes along a rumor that an investor offered to buy into the company at a $100 million valuation.

A more reasonable guess: New York-based Foursquare will wind up bringing in a West Coast-based VC, who will lead a round in the $10 million range that will value the company at something like $40 million. Foursquare’s first round valued the company at more than $6 million.

So what’s the appeal? Like plenty of other social media start-ups, Foursquare has minimal revenue. But it has a great story, which contains plenty of allusions to Twitter.

Like Twitter, Foursquare was founded by an entrepreneur who already built a start-up and sold it to Google (GOOG). And like Twitter, Foursquare launched at South by Southwest to some fanfare, and has seen its user base increase at breathtaking velocity.

When Crowley raised his first round of financing from O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures and Union Square Ventures in August, Foursquare had some 50,000 users. That total is now approaching 600,000, boosted by a burst of 100,000 sign-ups over the last 10 days.

And while Foursquare, like Twitter, doesn’t have real revenue to speak of, it does have a notion of how to get some. It is working on tie-ups with local merchants, who can reward users who “check in” at restaurants, bars, etc.–and by doing so, provide free advertising for those establishments.

Foursquare still doesn’t do anything for me, but the service is doing just fine without buy-in from a middle-aged dude who doesn’t go out at night. And because Foursquare is a fun, buzzy story to write about, it gets written about a lot.

The real question for Foursquare: How will the start-up keep Twitter and Facebook from rolling over it? Twitter added its location feature this month, and Facebook is reportedly adding its own in April.

Both these companies have plenty on their plate, so it’s possible they won’t spend much effort chasing Foursquare’s niche. Still, it’s hard to see room for three social networks that let you broadcast your whereabouts to your pals. But that’s not dissuading guys who can write big checks.

Have Start-Up, Will Travel: "Start-Up Bus" Yields Winners at SXSW

Tomio Geron — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 17:00:35 +0000

A start-up can be built anywhere–even at the back of a bus, near the bathroom.

A group of 25 entrepreneurs took a bus last week from San Francisco to Austin, Texas, with a zany plan–to break up into groups and build start-ups in 48 hours to pitch to investors at South By Southwest, the tech and music showcase.

Despite fighting motion sickness, a spotty Wi-Fi connection and sleep deprivation, the six teams turned out finished ideas from scratch, and two were names winners by a panel of investor judges.

One winner was DateBrowsr.com, a site that aggregates photos from a range of dating Web sites to give people quick access to what they want to see most when seeking a potential date–what people look like. The idea for the site came about almost as a joke, but the group decided it could work.

Read the rest of this post on the original site

How to Hoodwink Twitter (Hint: It's Easy)

Peter Kafka — Mon, 15 Mar 2010 10:00:46 +0000

How can you use Twitter to spread falsehoods? So easy! So many options! Here are three:

Make up a story about the death of a celebrity. Any celebrity.
Make up a story about Apple (AAPL). Any story.
Make up a story about Conan O’Brien and get the crowd at a Digg event to pass it along for you.

We saw the last one in action Saturday night at a South by Southwest event, when pranksters cooked up a stupid story about the unemployed talk show host, designed in part to promote a Web video studio.

This one didn’t get picked up by the mainstream press, but it did find plenty of takers for a while on Twitter.

CNET’s Daniel Terdiman, who happily participated in the hoax, describes it in great detail here. If you want the short version, here’s a video of the event’s genesis, provided by David Spark. Pretty simple stuff: Anyone can do it.

[Image credit: LiveFromAmsterdam]

What, Exactly, Is Foursquare? And Why Are Investors Clamoring for It?

Peter Kafka — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 10:00:17 +0000

Many digerati had this reaction to last week’s news that mobile start-up Foursquare had closed its first financing round: About time.

And many also had this reaction: Why, exactly, should I care about Foursquare?

The first reaction makes sense. Foursquare is just a few months old, but it has received an extraordinary amount of buzz and press since its debut at South by Southwest in March. That seemed to reach a fever pitch this summer when Twitter investor Fred Wilson started blogging about it.

And sure enough, Wilson’s Union Square Ventures did indeed end up betting on the company. The $1.35 million round was actually led by O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, and by all accounts investors were clamoring to throw money at the revenue-free start-up, which may have all of 50,000 users. I know of at least one high-profile VC firm that wanted into the deal but got shut out.

But the befuddled reaction some people have to Foursquare also makes sense. Foursquare is a “location-based” app for your iPhone (or Android-based phone, or even your BlackBerry) that sort of combines elements of Twitter and Yelp and “social” Web/mobile games like Zynga’s Mafia Wars. But even if you’ve used it, it’s not exactly clear what you’re supposed to do with it. You tell your pals that you’re visiting this bar or that restaurant and then…what?

At least, that was my reaction when I played with Foursquare at South by Southwest in Austin: I couldn’t figure out how it was more useful than Twitter at broadcasting my location and/or finding my friends.

And once I got back to Brooklyn, there didn’t seem to be any point to the service at all for me. No point in telling anyone where I am because it’s almost always the same place: My apartment in Brooklyn. Nothing to see here.

But my nightlife problems aside, there are a bunch of people who think co-founders Dennis Crowley and Naveen Selvadurai are on to something. Even if they’re not sure exactly what it may be.

A more cynical take: Crowley sold Dodgeball, his last buzzy mobile start-up, to Google in 2005. And even if Crowley was unhappy about the way things turned out after that–he left in 2007, and Google (GOOG) pulled the plug on Dodgeball (along with a host of other nonstarters) this year–it’s always good to bet on a guy who’s already had one successful exit.

But why not listen to Dennis Crowley explain what he’s up to in his own words? Here’s an interview I taped with him last month, a couple days before he closed his funding round.

[ See post to watch video ]

What Happened at South By Southwest? A Google Guy Explains.

Peter Kafka — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 13:40:32 +0000

Confession: A whole lot of what happens at South By Southwest is above and beyond the capacity of your humble correspondent to understand or explain.

Luckily, we have a professional willing to interpret the goings-on, free of charge. Meet Kevin Marks, whose business card describes him as “developer advocate” at Google (GOOG).

Marks, who has previously put in time at Apple (AAPL) and Technorati as an engineer, now has a job that seems to involve being an, um, advocate on behalf of his employer, specifically for its OpenSocial program. I think of OpenSocial as the “everyone but Facebook” social-network alliance, and Marks didn’t disabuse of me that notion in our chat on Sunday.

But he did add some layers of nuance, and he was game when I asked him to tell me what the theme of the conference has been so far. In a word: Twitter.

The longer version is here:

[ See post to watch video ]

It's Still the Economy, Silicon Valley

Kara Swisher — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 12:29:28 +0000

Last week, the economy took a much needed breather from its toilet-circling behavior of late, with the stock market showing gains for several days running.

Who knows what today will bring, given all the volatility. But most of the big consumer-focused digital companies–I am using Yahoo (YHOO), Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Apple (AAPL) and Amazon (AMZN) as proxies for the sector–saw solid upticks over the last five days.

Yahoo shares rose close to four percent, Google was up just over five percent, Microsoft gained almost nine percent, while Amazon leaped 11.3 percent and Apple shot up 12.5 percent.

You could also feel the revelry from afar at the South by Southwest gathering that started this weekend in Austin, Texas, with lots of Web 2.0 partying and discussions of a Twitterific-Facebooktastic future.

Maybe happy days are here again, right?

Um, nope, just as when BoomTown wrote last September in a piece called: “Dear Web 2.0: It’s Still the Economy, Stupid!”

At the time, I wrote:

“Most companies in Web 2.0–despite their massive valuations over the last few years–-aren’t going to have the chance get frothy and light enough to become so poppable.

Instead, most will likely fizzle away quietly, with no exits in sight as the economy weakens and puts a vise grip on companies that cannot survive the very tough financial road ahead.”

Why? Well, because there still is no traction in sight for a true recovery and there will not be any for quite a while.

You need only to look at those big public companies and their stock market performance over the last six months, the true scoreboard, results that will iterate downward throughout the sector.

And, it has been exactly as the econalypse has advertised: Yahoo down 28.3 percent; Microsoft down almost 38 percent; Google dropping 25.2 percent; Amazon off 11.3 percent; and Apple dipping 31.6 percent.

And, of course, most expect that the next round of first-quarter earnings, coming around the end of April, to be weak overall for this group, given their reliance on consumer spending, advertising and general bonhomie that is surely lacking.

That, in turn, means few acquisitions and still no IPOs for Web 2.0 companies. Although only Facebook is likely to try for that gold ring, its prospects are still uneven at best, despite impressive audience growth at the social-networking site.

So, as I said before and will say again: It’s the economy, and Silicon Valley–as was true six months ago–is still not immune.

One bright light when it does manage to turn is that tech will likely see the first bounce, especially compared to pretty much all the other sectors of the economy.

Tech companies are relatively healthy with strong cash balance sheets and have shown a commitment to making cost cuts and layoffs that are long past due.

That’s all good. But, of course, the only thing that will send this all back into truly positive territory will be new products and innovations to introduce when the world is ready to spend again and grow.

As in: A lot more nose to the grindstone and a lot less party-hearty inanity.

Why Is Pepsi Paying for Web Radio, Twitter and Facebook?

Peter Kafka — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 17:10:17 +0000

Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook are entertaining diversions for marketers, but with the economy in the gutter, serious companies have to stop playing and get back to the business at hand: Selling more stuff.

Right? No, says Bonin Bough.

Admittedly, Bough has a bias here, since he gets paid by a big company–PepsiCo (PEP)–to oversee its digital and social media. But for the time being, at least, Pepsi is still letting Bough spend time and money on newfangled outlets, even though it’s not exactly clear how the company is going to able to use them to sell more soda.

Example for the day: Pepsi’s sponsorship of BlogTalkRadio, an Internet radio start-up that is Webcasting from South by Southwest this week (Pepsi is also sponsoring SXSW in general). Like lots of other Web media, radio/streaming audio is challenging for marketers to get their heads around since the traditional metrics they use to measure their campaigns don’t really exist. But Bough says his company is willing to experiment anyway.

Bough and I talked about Web radio, video, and Twitter yesterday (note to Twitter guys–the “authentication/verification” strategy some of you are talking about doesn’t seem that appealing to Pepsi) on BlogTalkRadio. I’ve embedded the conversation below. Apologies for meandering, amateurish aspects of the chat, which are entirely my fault. Talking on the radio, it turns out, is really hard.

Meet Ms. Techmeme: Megan McCarthy Explains All

Peter Kafka — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 02:37:20 +0000

Favorite blogger pastime: Carping about Techmeme, the aggregation site that calls itself the technology world’s newspaper of record.

Used to be that most of their fulminations generally went unanswered, because:

1) Techmeme creator Gabe Rivera generally keeps to himself, at least in the physical world.

2) Rivera created Techmeme using an algorithm that was supposed to automatically suss out which stories were most important, using a link-based hierarchy similar to Google’s (GOOG).

But dudes who are still unhappy with Techmeme (and yes, I mean dudes; with a couple rare exceptions that prove the rule–hello, boss–this is unfortunately a Man’s Man’s Man’s World) have someone they can vent at/to. Meet Megan McCarthy, the former Valleywag writer Rivera hired late last year to add a human’s touch to the site. Headline for his blog post announcing the move: “Guess what? Automated news doesn’t quite work.”

That doesn’t mean that Techmeme has abandoned the algorithm–just that Rivera wants McCarthy tweaking the site and making sure that important/useful/interesting stories bubble up. Or that’s their argument, anyway. Sounds right to me.

If you’re at South by Southwest this weekend, you can chat McCarthy up yourself–she’s the very tall, very pleasant woman who seems to know an awful lot of people. Or you can watch this clip, where she bravely agreed to let me hold a Flip camera in front of her face.

Important (at least to some people) addendum to my interview: When I argue that Rivera “favors” certain kinds of coverage, I mean just that–that he’s more interested in, say, Web 2.0 news than he is in gadget coverage, and that he’s set up Techmeme to reflect that.

[ See post to watch video ]

What Does Facebook Connect on the iPhone Mean? A Big Web Brain Explains.

Peter Kafka — Sat, 14 Mar 2009 20:45:31 +0000

Maybe it’s because the Web 2.0 bubble has deflated. Or maybe it’s because the remaining Web 2.0 companies have figured out that it’s best not to make try to make noise at the same time everyone else does. But so far, South by Southwest has been blessedly light on rollouts/news/announcements, etc.

Which is probably why Facebook’s presentation on Saturday morning was completely full–there wasn’t much else going on. I didn’t get in myself, but I got the gist: Facebook is rolling out its Facebook Connect network/platform/connecty-thingy to Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone .

But I don’t quite get what that means. I suspect that’s because, as with most other technology rollouts/news/announcements, etc., trying to divine the impact 30 seconds after the fact is pretty pointless. You need to see how this stuff is actually used in real life. That can take days, weeks or months to figure out.

But Charlene Li, who gets paid to tell people what this stuff means, helped me out: It’s an incremental step toward social networks’ inevitable migration to mobile. That was easy!

Li, the former Forrester social network analyst who has hung out her own shingle at the Altimeter Group, didn’t make it into the Facebook event either. But after it was over, we walked into the room where the event had been held and talked about it. Meta!

We also got a brief cameo from an Austin Convention Center employee. If you want to skip that part, head straight to the 45-second mark in the following clip. But we got a giggle out of it, so in it stays.

[ See post to watch video ]