What's Next? CNN's South by Southwest blog
New West Records
March 11th, 2011
11:00 AM ET
Ponderosa prepares for SXSW
Formed within the creative comfort of the now closed Nickel and Dime studios in Decatur, Georgia, Ponderosa has grown from a studio project to one of the most anticipated bands to see at South By Southwest 2011. Delivering classic rock n’ roll with a Southern twang, Ponderosa’s music and performances give hope to those that feared the best of rock was left in the 1970s. Last year the band played several showcases at SXSW and this year they are preparing to invade Austin, Texas again.
“South By Southwest is like a huge band vacation,” explains bassist JT Hall. “It’s really good for band morale. Bands rarely get signed at South By; it’s more of labels showcasing their artists. But, it is so cool going to see people doing what you do.”
“It really is like Disneyland for bands,” adds keyboardist John Dance.
Before SXSW 2010, Ponderosa had just signed with New West Records, partly based in Austin, which gave the band the unique opportunity to share the stage with some of their favorites.
“Last year’s highlight was playing the New West showcase and opening of John Hiatt, Buddy Miller, and all these musicians that I’ve admired for years,” says Dance. “That’s also the unique thing about South By, it’s like checking off your ultimate music Bucket List. “
Luckily for people wanting to check out Ponderosa and other music acts, the layout of Austin makes it easy for bands to play multiple stages as well as music fans to see all their favorites.
“Everything in Austin turns into a stage for a band,” says Hall. “Austin is just small enough that you can walk to wherever you need to go. Sometimes it feels like the venues just come to you.”
In true rock star fashion, not only is there an abundance of live music but also plenty of parties offering free drinks and food.
“Everywhere you go there is free stuff,” says Dance. “It’s awesome for struggling bands, but the whole experience also becomes a blur with all the free drinks.”
It turns out SXSW is not only the place to see rock stars, but also party with them and like one. Pace yourself.
Post by: Kim Burdges, CNN
Filed under: Music
Olivia Horton stars in "Room 4 Rent," a short culled from the feature "Summertime" by Max Weissberg
March 11th, 2011
01:12 AM ET
Who's Next: 'Room 4 Rent' director Max Weissberg
Who: Max Weissberg, 29, New York
Why he's coming to SXSW: His short narrative, "Room 4 Rent," is screening as part of SXSW Film.
Why you might know him: Weissberg produced and appeared in the 2008 documentary, "Hotel Gramercy Park," about the legendary New York hotel, which, for better or worse, his family owned and lived in.
What you need to know about his film: "Room 4 Rent" is a short that stands alone for about 8 minutes, but its actually a scene from a larger feature film, "Summertime." Weissberg shot the feature film in 2009 with a Kickstarter-fed budget of $55,000, and a (paid!) cast of actor-friends. But he's editing the movie on his own, and it's still a work in progress. For now, he's hoping "Room 4 Rent" will generate some attention.
The even shorter version of his short: A young woman, played by Olivia Horton, needs to rent an apartment in New York. She finds a great one. There's just one problem...
Where you'll find him: He'll be the guy handing out condoms stamped with the name "Summertime." He could've just handed out postcards like everybody else, but condoms "sort of explain the film, in a way," he said. "The film is basically about people who are trying to sleep with each other. Even the (short) version, there’s sexual chemistry." Besides, he points out, people just shuffle postcards into a stack. He's hoping people will use his promo item. You can also find Weissberg answering questions at "Room 4 Rent" screenings. It's paired with a feature film out of Chile with a name we're not allowed to type in this blog because our mothers might be reading.
Post by: CNN.com producer, Jamie Gumbrecht
Filed under: Film • Scene
March 10th, 2011
09:12 PM ET
5 Things: trends to watch at SXSWi
It's the festival that launched Foursquare and popularized Twitter.
So even if you've never heard of the SXSW Interactive festival (it's short for "South by Southwest," but if you want to be completely beyond hip, you can call it "South by"), your geek-tuned ears should perk up for some big tech news this week as this conference gets under way in Austin, Texas.
The Web, apps, social media and tech start-ups have traditionally been the themes of this conference, which kicks off Friday. In addition to being a launchpad for new sites and apps, however, SXSW Interactive is all about big ideas in technology: Where are we going, why, and how will we get there?
Here's our best stab at the ideas and trends that will pick up steam this year at SXSWi. Of course, all predictions are subject to change.
And before we get there, a shameless plug: Check our SXSWi blog for continuous coverage from Austin. Also follow @cnntech, @markmilian, @jdsutter and @griggsbrandon on Twitter for nano-sized updates.
'Second-screen' apps
Smartphones and the internet have rewired our brains to the point that paying attention to one thing at a time seems way too boring.
Cue the rise of smartphone and tablet apps designed to provide a "second-screen" experience while you're watching television.
It's common knowledge that people tweet their way through the Oscars and use Facebook to discuss their favorite sitcoms in real time. But a host of apps are emerging to take these second-screen experiences to a new level.
The "Backstage Pass" app for the Academy Awards, for example, let iPad users choose which video feeds they wanted to watch. Instead of focusing on the red carpet, for example, viewers could choose to hang with the paparazzi or in the celebrity champagne room.
Others are trying to sync their apps to live TV programming, using the microphones on tablets and smartphones. If your gadget listens to the TV while you watch, it can offer up quizzes, trivia and ads that are tied to what's going on in the show at that very moment.
Localized group texting
Texting? Yes, texting - but with a 2011 twist.
If Facebook and Twitter were all about expanding a person's online social network, think of group texting as an effort to rein things back in.
An app called GroupMe - already a pre-SXSWi darling with tech bloggers - integrates with Foursquare to let you have private text message chats with all of your friends who are close by. Another, Beluga, which was recently acquired by Facebook, lets users start private text message conversations with small groups of friends.
Extreme use case: You're throwing a last-minute party, but your apartment isn't large enough to host all 2,000 of your Twitter-follower friends.
Beyond Facebook
Continuing with this trend of Facebook not being the end-all-be-all of social networking, expect non-Facebook social networks and apps to get plenty of buzz at SXSWi. None of these are likely to try to unseat Facebook as the world's dominant online social network, but some are worthy supplements.
Instagram, a photo-sharing app, is one hot example. It lets users apply all kinds of retro-looking, hipster filters to their smartphone photos and then share them instantly on Twitter, Flickr, Tumblr, Facebook and Foursquare.
Other social networky apps and sites focus on other features Facebook either lacks or hasn't mastered just yet: Quora focuses on answering questions; Path is designed for groups of 50 friends or fewer; and Foodspotting is a social network that's fixated completely on the idea of foodie restaurant pics.
Taming the internet
The internet is a crazy-overwhelming place.
As Farhad Manjoo writes in The New York Times, the personal computer "has become one of the most distracting machines ever invented."
Expect at least a few Web gurus at SXSWi to push the idea of "content curation," meaning they're out to answer this question: How can we make interesting and relevant information rise to the top of the internet, where users can access it quickly and without stress, rather than forcing them to swim through an ocean of Charlie Sheen tweets just to find what they are looking for?
Google, Bing, Facebook and the like obviously have a hand in this.
But some up-and-comers - a la Instapaper - may dominate this space at SXSWi.
Is technology making us happier?
Traditionally, SXSWi has been a clubhouse for the digital utopian crowd - the bike-riding, glasses-wearing, cardigan-snuggling folk who think technology is saving the world, or is going to really soon.
But, based on a the SXSWi panel list, expect this year's festival to also give rise to a healthy bit of skepticism about what tech is doing to us.
Are smartphones making us scattered? Is Facebook actually improving friendship? Does any useful info come across Twitter?
As these technologies go from the stuff of early adopters to mass-market phenomena, look for the tech elite to start asking these kinds of questions and providing some solutions - probably by using more technology.
Post by: John D. Sutter CNN Tech writer
Filed under: Scene • Tech
March 10th, 2011
09:11 PM ET
We're iReporting from Austin – wanna join us?
Team iReport, along with loads of CNNers, is heading to Austin, Texas, this weekend to capture the magic and insanity of SXSW. And we'd love for you to join us.
If you're headed that way - or even if you're just following along from home – tell CNN what you find most interesting and important by sending your take to iReport. We'll be posting fresh challenges, questions and the occasional surprise on this iReport assignment and also on Twitter @CNNSXSW.
And, if you're attending the conference, stop by and say hi at the iReport Booth in the SXSW Tradeshow. We've got a little surprise planned there, too. It opens Monday, March 14 and runs through Thursday, March 17.
(P.S. That photo is a shot of the inimitable Sharon Jones performing at the 2010 SXSW festival. See all those cameras right up next to the stage? They could totally be iReporters. Or you!)
Post by: Lila King
Filed under: Scene
March 10th, 2011
09:08 PM ET
Five Things: Bands to check out at SXSW
Just so we all know the score, there were 1,967 musical acts (!) booked at SXSW Music at last count. That certainly doesn’t include all the huge names that will fly in for a few hours to play private parties, nor the groups who just show up in search of any open stage or street corner. On the schedule, there's new-and-naive, veterans of a long-dead version of the music industry and acts that are famous in their hometowns but new to the rest of the world.
There is no honest way to say which shows will be the most crazy, beautiful, gross, memorable, shocking or sought after. (We’re pretty sure there's already a line forming for The Strokes, so pack a lunch or 20.)
Does this stop us from picking out a few we’re excited about? Of course not. Here are five we’ll be looking out for:
Schmillion
The first things to know about Schmillion is that the all-girl, Austin-based group released its first EP in December. Even before that, though, the group won the Austin Chronicle's award for “Best Under 18 Band.” Let's be clear: They're teenagers. The gals will play at SXSW with Sick of Sarah and The Bangles, who been inspiring women to rock since before the Schmillion members were born.
Tennis
The story behind this wife ‘n’ hubby duo: They met in college, sold their worldly goods, learned to sail and spent months living on boat while they made their way along the North Atlantic coastline. The experience inspired Alaina Moore and Patrick Riley to make music under the name Tennis and release “Cape Dory,” on the Fat Possum label in January. Love a '60s retro sound behind '80s-tastic album cover art.
Middle Brother
This supergroup debuted at 2010’s SXSW under the name MG&V – that is John J. McCauley III of Deer Tick, Taylor Goldsmith of Dawes and Matt Vasquez of Delta Spirit. The group released the album, “Middle Brother,” on March 1 with what Rolling Stone called an “alt-country round robin, with raw harmonies and punk-rock sentiment as unforgiving as a prison shiv.”
Beans
New York-based Beans played SXSW last year with a recently reunited Anti-pop Consortium, but returns this year with a new solo album, "End It All," on Anticon. He's known for telling stories to a staccato beat, spreading lyrics that feel like poetry, and hard beats a few years ahead of their time.
Braids
What’s that buzzing sound? Oh, just the sudden influx of press surrounding this young Canadian band’s first album, “Native Speaker.” These high-school-pals-turned-music-making-partners are constantly described as something like Animal Collective, but with female vocals. But they keep backing up the attention with more positive reviews and sold-out shows.
Post by: CNN.com producer, Jamie Gumbrecht
Filed under: Music
Location apps like Foursquare and Gowalla are just a couple of the mobile tools to keep you sane at SXSW.
March 10th, 2011
08:50 PM ET
Must-have apps to keep you sane at SXSW
As South by Southwest Interactive (and, to some extent, the festival's movie and music portions) kicks off, pedestrians should beware.
Walking on Sixth Street and the rest of downtown Austin could be perilous due to the number of folks stumbling around with their faces in their smartphones.
Lots of budding tech entrepreneurs will be pitching their new apps at the festival, to be sure. But existing apps could play a key role in helping festival-goers stay sane amidst the SXSW craziness.
Here are a handful of apps we'll be using to navigate the fest - and hopefully emerge in one piece.
SXSW Go
This is the festival's official app. Last year's version took a couple of hits in the tech press, but by all accounts this year's model is souped up and ready to help.
The app lets you build and view your schedule, see a map of Austin with details on festival venues and ways to stay connected through your other social apps like Austin-based Gowalla (sorry, Foursquare, they're the hometown folks), Twitter and Facebook.
It lets you browse exhibits from the trade show and share your favorite events with others.
SXSW Go is free and available for the iPhone, iPad, Android, BlackBerry and Windows Phone 7.
Hashable
Whether you're pitching your indie film, trying to find a new start-up to lavish with venture capital or just looking for the bar with the shortest line, "South By" is largely about networking.
Hashable is a new app - still technically in beta testing - but it's getting a lot of buzz. While some folks are wondering about its day-to-day usefulness, it seems tailor-made for festivals and conferences.
The mobile app lets you share a digital business card using your new contact's email or Twitter handle.
You can digitally introduce Hashable friends who haven't met each other, post to Twitter and Foursquare to share your new meetings simultaneously and privately share your whereabouts or other info with an "inner circle" of friends.
You'll get your own real-time tips from that inner circle (business partners?) and create a digital address book with the app.
Hashable is free and available for iPhone and Android.
Hot Spot @ SXSW
Where's the party?
Let's be honest: The daytime panels may expand your mind, but abusing your liver after hours is a big part of the SXSW experience.
This unofficial app is simple. It uses a map of Austin and scans Foursquare check-ins to create a "heat map," telling the user where the action is at any given time.
Or, we suppose, if you're looking for a rare moment of quiet, where the action is not.
Hot Spots @ SXSW is free and available for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad and Windows Phone 7.
Foursquare and Gowalla
OK, these guys aren't new. And, arguably, last year was their year, when the two mobile apps dueled for the hearts of the tech elite at SXSW.
But regardless of your opinion on using mobile apps every day, they can be invaluable at big, constantly moving events like South By Southwest.
Keeping up with your crew can be a minute-by-minute deal on the streets of Austin. And both teams are no doubt gearing up with new and fun badges and other fun surprises for South By. (Last year, both apps quickly created a check-in for a false fire alarm at the convention center).
Numbers-wise, Foursquare has emerged as the clear leader in the mobile space. But SXSW is in Gowalla's backyard, so even if you don't usually check in with them, they might be worth a look.
Drunk Blocker
After those tequila shots and Lone Star beers, don't let SXSW cause a walk of shame the next morning.
Android users can download Drunk Blocker, an app that lets you create a list of particularly precarious phone numbers. If you try to call one of them after a pre-set time (we'd suggest no later than midnight, but your mileage may vary) the app will make you pass a "drunk test" before dialing.
Careful, though ... there's no filter for an ill-advised text.
For the non-droids out there, we can at least offer up "The Social Media Sobriety Test" to keep your laptop from landing you in similar distress. The free Firefox plug-in keeps you from posting to Facebook, Twitter, your blog or any other site you've chosen, without passing a drunk test.
Drunk Blocker is free with ads or $2.99 for Drunk Blocker Pro, with no ads.
Post by: CNN Tech producer, Doug Gross
Filed under: Scene • Tech
"The City Dark," a documentary about the effects of constant light, will premiere at SXSW.
March 10th, 2011
08:34 PM ET
5 Things: Must-see films at SXSW
Time for a quick numbers check.
Some 984 films were submitted to SXSW's narrative feature competition, and 808 documentary features. Eight of each got into the festival. Add to that some big-name movie debuts, shorts, animations, music videos, student films, midnight screenings and international fare, and, well, here's the number that really matters: Nine. That's the number of days to see all those films at the festival.
You can peruse the full schedule here or check out our list of the five must-see films:
The City Dark
It's pretty tough to get worked up about humanity leaving the lights on too long, but indeed, this doc takes on the subtle and hidden effects of light pollution. There's precedent for this: When filmmaker Ian Cheney took on the oh-so-sexy topic of corn in the 2007 film "King Corn," it made for compelling watching and earned a Peabody. Look for more of that curiosity and gut-sinking activism in this world premiere.
Charlie Casanova
"A ruling class sociopath knocks down a working class girl in a hit-and-run and uses a deck of playing cards to determine his fate." So goes the short description of the film by Irish director Terry McMahon. What it doesn't mention is the reportedly crazy back story, wherein the filmmaker, angry about his projects collapsing, uses Facebook to gather a cast and crew for a budgetless movie he wants to make on an impossible schedule.
Conan O'Brien Can't Stop
The Conan O'Brien love train rolled on from late-night TV, to not-on-TV, to Twitter, to stage, to cable TV, and now, to the movies. Filmmaker Rodman Flender followed his famously funny Harvard classmate during the not-on-TV parts of the journey, filming O'Brien's "Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television Tour." You know, before CNN and Coco became cafeteria buddies in the big, happy Time Warner family. Expect antics from on-stage and revealing moments off stage.
Kill List
Soldiers-turned-contract killers drive this film from director Ben Wheatley, but you won't find much more information about what goes down. Whatever dark underbelly the characters expose is the stuff of much Internet buzz right now. This is one of the late-night selections playing as part of SXFantastic, a sidebar to Fantastic Fest, the annual gathering of horror/fantasy/sci-fi/action films. Wheatley won a screenplay award at Fantastic Fest in 2009 for "Down Terrace," so it was only natural for his new film to premiere in Austin.
Five Time Champion
Lest you to forget that SXSW has always called Austin its home, there's an entire series of films made in or about Texas. Among them is "Five Time Champion," a 92-minute feature written and directed by one-time University of Texas student Berndt Mader. In the film, a teen scientist starts to ask real questions about the adults in his life, and sets off to find his father.
Post by: CNN.com producer, Jamie Gumbrecht
Filed under: Film
March 10th, 2011
08:30 PM ET
What SXSW is, and why it matters
Every March, thousands of young, jeans-wearing techies, filmmakers and musicians descend upon Austin, Texas, harboring dreams of getting noticed and hitting it big.
They come not just for the balmy weather or the Tex-Mex food but for South by Southwest, a collection of conferences and festivals that's considered one of the most influential happenings on the annual cultural calendar.
Abbreviated as SXSW - and nicknamed "South by" by festival veterans - the 24-year-old conference kicks off Friday and runs through March 20. The three-headed event encompasses separate festivals for film, music and interactive technology and has helped launch everything from Twitter to Broken Social Scene.
It's where hipster culture meets geek culture, and where internet entrepreneurs are treated like rock stars.
SXSW first kicked off in 1987 as the place where relatively unknown bands played gigs with hopes of attracting the attention of critics, talent scouts or big-time musicians seeking an opening act for their tours. Conference organizers integrated film and technology segments in 1994 as a "multimedia" event, and a year later, the separate South by Southwest Interactive was formed.
The event's film portion now takes up nine days - almost as many as the interactive and music sections combined. Past SXSWs have witnessed the premieres of "Kick-Ass," "Knocked Up," and countless documentaries. This year's lineup features such high-profile premieres as a Conan O'Brien documentary about his recent comedy tour (O'Brien's show, like CNN, is a Time Warner property), the Jake Gyllenhaal thriller "Source Code" and "The Beaver," directed by Jodie Foster and starring Mel Gibson.
Yes, geeks like to party
Within this swirling hotbed of culture are dozens of fledgling internet startups hoping to capture some of the Texas voodoo that helped catapult Twitter and Foursquare early on.
Daytime hours feature hundreds of Interactive panels on everything from "Social TV" to "Has Facebook jumped the shark?" At night, geeks swarm to startup-pitch contests or crowded parties hosted by such names as Bing, StumbleUpon, Hipmunk, Zynga and I Can Has Cheezburger (with pictures of LOLcats on the digital invitations).
Tech-savvy attendees coordinate meeting points with friends on Foursquare or Gowalla, or by using hashtags like "#sxsw" on Twitter.
These nightly events, while expensive to organize, are among the most popular promotional vehicles for young Web companies, which are often happy to dip into their funds to buy out a downtown bar for a few hours. Some hosts, like Gowalla, say SXSW parties are a planned annual expense.
"We did (a party) last year, so we're kind of rehashing that this year - but bigger and better," said Josh Williams, CEO of Austin's homegrown Gowalla, the location-based, social-networking service that's throwing a 1,200-person bash on Monday. "This is the year I think 'South by' kind of blows up to the point that we're all kind of left with our heads spinning."
Not only do parties help add a new name to people's vocabulary (hey, who's going to Tweet House on Friday?), but organizers also can use them to plant the seed for a product while patrons are lubricated. At a party last year, Drew Olanoff said he talked a lot about an emerging concept called "group messaging" to get audiences familiar with the idea.
"People were like, 'Oh, what's that?' 'Well, it's like reply-all in e-mail,' " said Olanoff, who works for a company called GOGII that develops a group-texting app, textPlus. "Last year was education. This year, we're putting it into action."
Group messaging is expected to be the hot category in social networking this year, according to several industry observers.
GOGII will have staff on the streets near the convention center giving out "respect" stickers. They're hoping to create buzz by getting people to paste stickers on their friends - a social currency similar to "likes" or "retweets." An advertisement for textPlus is also printed on the stickers.
These guerrilla marketing techniques will be out in full force in Austin. Among TextPlus' many competitors is one called GroupMe, which will be giving away grilled-cheese sandwiches.
SXSW is also where popular app makers launch drastically new versions or websites. Foursquare, Plancast, PicPlz, Ustream and others all plan to release apps with new features this week to coincide with the happenings in Austin.
From CD-ROMs to mobile 'check-ins'
The conference has come a long way since its early years, when it struggled more to get noticed. And its technology has, too.
"In 1994, we were talking about CD-ROMs," said Hugh Forrest, director of the Interactive conference. "At that point, the gulf between the multimedia people and the music people who were attending South by Southwest were like oceans.
"I think that gulf has gotten smaller and smaller as the years go on," he added. "It's still present to some extent. If you're here on Tuesday and Wednesday, the jeans become a lot skinnier, and the tattoos go from sleeves to full-body."
They may not dress the same, but techies seem to have learned some of the musicians' tricks when it comes to promotion and optimism at SXSW. Part of that enthusiasm comes from how integral SXSW was in the histories of two key social networks.
After opening to the public in late 2006, a quirky short-messaging network called Twitter languished in obscurity. But when the small group of employees noticed many of their members were planning trips to SXSW in 2007, they saw an opportunity, said Evan Williams, the company's co-founder and former CEO.
The company paid $11,000 to install monitors in the hallways of Austin's convention center that displayed relevant Twitter messages from attendees, Williams said.
"This was about the only money Twitter's *ever* spent on marketing," he wrote on Quora in January. "And something clicked."
There, Twitter won over a cutting-edge, influential crowd whose increased participation started to weigh on the site's servers, creating an overflow problem that plagued the service for a few years while maintenance played catchup. The excitement carried over to SXSW in 2008, where Twitter again had a major presence.
Then came 2009, when a smartphone-centric service called Foursquare, built around a game of "checking in" at places and competing for the honorary title of mayor, had launched a few days before that year's SXSW. Twitter was by then a ubiquitous tool at the festival, but Foursquare was getting all the hype.
"We went from 50 to 5,000 users," said Foursquare CEO and co-founder Dennis Crowley. "I had no idea that it would blow up."
Foursquare had chosen SXSW as the deadline for launching its service and had taken note of Twitter's successes there. In 2010, Foursquare's chief SXSW marketing gimmick involved pickup matches of foursquare, the real-life playground game, outside the convention center.
This year, the company will host a big party and organize more playground games, but SXSW organizers say they've outgrown their location in front of the conference center, Crowley said. Foursquare now has more than 7 million users.
"This year, I don't know what it's going to be," he said. "It should be the year that Foursquare fades into the background. You know, everyone uses Foursquare. What's next?"
Life after Austin
After a startup gets its wings at SXSW and the hype starts to fade, it can start to see its presence there as nonessential. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was interviewed for a 2008 keynote presentation that wasn't well received, and his company has only attended in a small capacity since.
Twitter co-founders Biz Stone and Williams, who was a keynote speaker at SXSW last year, aren't planning to attend the conference, a company spokesman said.
Perhaps as an indication that it has outgrown its role at SXSW, Twitter won't be hosting a party in Austin this year after throwing one last year.
Instead, the company, now with some 200 million users, is organizing a decidedly less debaucherous Twitter Retreat during daytime hours on Monday. "Escape the madness for some R&R," says an event description.
"At some point, the company gets too big, and it just doesn't work," explained Foursquare's Crowley. "This happened to Twitter. I was like, 'Why aren't you guys going?' You just get too big (that) you can't."
For budding tech entrepreneurs at SXSW this week, that would be a good problem to have.
Post by: Mark Milian CNN Tech writer
Filed under: Tech • Film • Music • Food • Scene
March 10th, 2011
08:29 PM ET
Introducing CNN's 'What's Next' blog!
Hey there! You seemed to have stumbled into the future!
Well - ahem - at least into our new and future-minded blog.
Welcome to "What's Next." It's our new home for never-heard-of-that type stuff that's just around the corner, beyond the sea or over the horizon - pick your metaphor. Point is this: You won't find any last-week Charlie Sheen news or "OMG have you heard of Facebook!" headlines here - only the freshest examples of people, ideas, artistic ventures, trends and technologies that are nudging the world in a bold new direction.
And what better place to kick off the What's Next blog than the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas? SXSW - or "South by" for those of you on syllable diets - is one of the the world's leading playgrounds for creative types. Tech innovators, underground bands, up-and-coming filmmakers and inquisitive reporters all make a yearly pilgrimage to Texas' oasis city - place of pearl snaps and taco trucks - for an event that promises to illuminate our collective path to the future.
Twitter and Foursquare launched at SXSW. Countless bands trace their roots to the festival. And this year, a host of CNN.com writers, photographers and videographers will be on hand to document the brightest ideas and quirkiest happenings.
We'd like you, trusty readers, to take part in the fun, too. Check out CNN iReport and CNN's mobile apps, where you can upload stories of your own - either from your couch or from the crowded streets, bars and parties at the festival in Austin.
This blog will go away for a while after SXSW but will return for other cool events where the future of our culture is on display.
Until then, be sure to check back for frequent updates. We'll be at SXSW through March 20. Happy reading!
Post by: John D. Sutter CNN Tech writer
Filed under: Tech • Film • Music • Food • Scene
Credit: CNN (www.cnn.com)
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