There is so much to takeaway from SXSW that it really will take me days to write it all down, let alone think about it and then turn it all into actions. For now though one abiding memory will be that one of the reasons that SXSW is what it is, is because of the city of Austin and the people of Austin. “South By” would not be the kind of gathering that it is in another US city. Austin has creativity and innovation in its soul and its people listen and are genuinely interested in what you have to say. Its the Austinness effect. Like the developer from Yahoo and the ex-editor for PC Magazine who is now the Senior Technology Editor at JWT in NYC managing the Bing account, whom I shared a taxi with. I told them about our Manchester Aiport Twitter departure board and they listened and were impressed.
The Great British Breakfast Networking Event at SXSW
I also told them my Google joke – “So I walked onto the huge Google stand at the trade show and picked one Googlian who was not talking to anybody, went up to him, looked at the massive Google logo above his head and said “So what do you guys do?” His jaw actually physically dropped. The little Googlian couldn’t speak at the thought that somebody didn’t know what Google did. I suppose you had to be there. Anyway the Yahoo and Bing guys laughed but they would wouldn’t they.
Today started with “The Great British Breakfast” networking event organised by our hosts Chinwag and UKTI in a restaurant called Paradise. The owner had sent out to another state to get Heinz beans! An example of Austinness. Another succcess from the Chinwag crew.
Then it was time for Daniel Ek founder of Spotify to be interviewed by Eliot Van Buskirk from Wired Magazine. Funny who you sit next at these do’s. Today I sat next to Dan Oliver, Editor of .net magazine. Useful in itself. All I can say is next time Ev Williams take note. Insist on a decent interviewer, Eliot was great. Ek is a hugely impressive guy for a 26 year old. Ek’s mantra is “Music like water”. He let out that Spotify has north of 320,000 paying subscribers in the seven European countries they are in and 100m playlists from 7m users. He also said that it is not his strategy to make Spotify a social network but the new platform, which they will release when they crack the US market, will piggy back on Twitter and Facebook. Hmm what could he mean. Ek wouldn’t elaborate. Other hot news is he demonstrated Spotify for android platform in front of the audience who of course are gagging for any Spotify anyway as it isn’t here yet due to all the contracts Spotify are having to sign. This was a bit like really rubbing it in to the US members of the audience but in a good way. It looks fantastic though I must admit. He demoed it on a Sony X10 mini which intself looks a pretty funky little handset.
One thing is for sure Daniel Ek is a smart cookie and if he cracks the States, may I be so bold to predict Spotify will catch Facebook making Ek one hell of a rich guy. Good luck to him.
The lead singer from rock band Las Vegas
Finally, last night was spent courtesy of Rackspace at their *ahem* mixer event. Thanks to Cara Nichols in marketing for looking after us. By the way if you are Cara’s Boss, she needs a big payrise. She told me to say that.
And very finally my new best friend is the lead singer of the band that played last night. They are called Las Vegas. He loves me man and I think I invited him to stay when they are touring the UK, Oops. Great band though check them out. Off now to meet Lemmy from Motorhead at the UKTI event.
Laters
