3-D printed candy, flying cars, 3-D selfies, robots, and elaborate and fun marketing hoaxes that draw our attention: you can experience all that at South by Southwest (SXSW), one of the biggest and most intriguing tech events of the year.
For years SXSW was the event where companies like Twitter and Foursquare get their start. Now the event overflows with not only start-ups, but bigger brands, all vying for attention and coverage.
This year was no different. I was curious, though, which technologies dominated the online conversations. So I visited the Black Box Lounge to help me answer this question. A cool lounge run during SXSW Interactive, the FleishmanHillard Black Box Lounge is powered by FleishmanHillard’s intelligent monitoring system, an interactive, portable, human-powered technology platform and content studio that integrates business data – including traditional, digital and social conversations – into real-time insight dashboards and visualizations. The system is sifting through the vast amounts of data and conversation produced around the festival to surface the people, places and things most talked about and shared on social media.
Here is what the team told me the data showed during the first 4 days of SXSW Interactive part of the festival:
Top technologies discussed were:
1. Data security/privacy (NSA, Wikileaks, Snowden, Assange)
2. Wearable tech
3. Payment (BitCoin and PayPal)
4. Mobile
5. Apple and Apple TV
Top brands mentioned in 2014:
- Apple iTunes (Apple launched iTunes festival app ahead of SXSW 2014. The appallows users to live stream the concert’s shows as well as view lineups and artist information. #iTunesFestival)
- Twitter (mentions of Twitter as the preferred platform to communicate on during SXSW by both attendees and brands)
- Google (CEO Eric Schmidt’s presentation on privacy, security and policy on a global scale)
- Facebook (Facebook party, Facebook developer events, Facebook Live Q&As with celebs like Ian Somerhalder and Zac Efron)
- Doritos (Doritos-sponsored Lady Gaga concert at Stubbs, including #boldmoves ticket gjveaways)
Versus top brand mentions in 2013:
- Starbucks (Starbucks presentation at Mobile Saturday on mobile apps and mobile payment. #mobilesaturday)
- Samsung (Samsung offered free battery swaps for Galaxy owners who were running low on power. Owners simply had to tweet #PowerOn to the brand’s Twitter profile and they would be delivered a new fully charged battery via a bike messenger. Samsung was giving away the chargers/batteries again at this year’s event and they were No. 7 mentions-wise, so the novelty has worn off a bit)
The infographic below show a better breakdown of the overall SXSW conversations.
And this word cloud gives a more detailed perspective around the key conversations and brand mentions.
It is exciting to talk “tech of the future” with thought-leaders and brands at SXSW. One of my personal favorites was seeing the prototype of this flying car from AeroMobil. Whoever said that innovation is slowing down was wrong.
That said, my favorite reason for going to the event isn’t about extraordinary technologies and meeting celebrities (this year I met Common, an actor and musician, who was on the same flight as me). The best part of SXSW always was and always will be (re)connecting with people, discussing new ideas, forming partnerships, and soaking in the passion, the energy, and the spirit of innovation and the feeling that anything is possible.
Originally posted in Forbes