SXSWi – it’s the birth of a proto-city: a hive of integrated people experimenting with the tools in the market that, without mass local adoption, would not have any poignancy. It’s where the early adopters can temporarily form a society of mutually founded infrastructure.
Obviously I like to consider myself a fairly early adopter. I am generally picking up the newest thing in beta and giving it a try. The proto-city certainly is a unique experience where these services just work and I’m not at the mercy of my family and friends to adopt the numerous new things I throw at them every week.
This week’s post is all about these services and how they work, a kind of preview to how they would work if a mainstream audience were to pick them up. There are some old and some new, but all based around the ever growing social–mobile & desktop–sector.
The prevailing theme this year was group messaging and location based services. Typically when you look back at SXSW there is one clear launch that will take hold and change the landscape of digital: Twitter, Foursquare, Gowalla, etc. I would say that this year there was no clear winner. This may be perhaps due to development becoming easier and faster than it was a couple years ago, which would correlate to SXSW being fettered with startup after startup, creating so much noise that no single one stood out.
There’s four services that I looked at primarily while down in Austin: Convore, Beluga, Hashable, & Yobongo.
First up, Convore.
If I were to describe Convore simply I would say that it’s a message board based on groups that range from broad to niché. You sign with either Facebook, Twitter, or create a new account. Once you’re in it’s as simple as joining groups. A group is like a board and within each group are conversation threads. I haven’t used message boards for quite a while probably due to the rise in popularity of social networks, but I found Convore rather refreshing. I joined a couple groups of interest and was immediately participating. The SXSW group on convore was quite active and covered topics from where to eat to what panels are must-sees. I’m interested to see how a team could use a group for productivity instead of email and really utilize the service.
Convore is currently available for iPhone and desktop as a web app.
Beluga was one of the more talked about apps at SXSWi. If fact, the CM team used it as the primary means of conversation while we were down there. The short of it is it worked wonderfully. Beluga is simply a group chat room with geo-location services. We were able to keep in contact real-time: organize ourselves, see where each person was on a map, coordinate seating in keynotes… you get the point. It worked well when it was working. The conference centre in general had connection issues so the drop in connection quickly became a point of contention. I still use Beluga today to keep in touch with family and friends.
Beluga is available on iPhone, Android, and web portal.
Hashable was one of the more innovative apps I’ve seen. It’s in a similar vein as Bump in that it’s about connecting people. Hashable is essentially a layer that lives on top of Twitter and uses your existing twitter handle to meet new people in person, or to introduce people you are with. I didn’t do enough smoozing to use this very heavily at SXSW, but I can see it’s use and reviews have been optimistic. If you think in terms of it’s use when watching a panel, or having a conversation with someone on a shared taxi share–it’s simple and informal. Generally there’s less reservation with sharing something like your twitter handle as its already something in the public domain.
Hashable is available on iPhone, Android, and Web Portal.
Lastly, Yobongo. This is pitched as way to “chat with people nearby.” Their video highlights random people talking to each other in local areas, discussing books, picking up girls, etc. My experience of Yobongo is far different. My first day in Austin I launched the app, created a profile and attempted to dive in. Everything went well, up until actually using the app… I found the barrier of entry challenging. There were plenty of seeds for a conversation present, but only that. There was no conversation present. It was basically a local, real-time twitter feed–a bunch of people in the same room talking about different topics. Perhaps it would have more use in a more sparse user base.
Yobongo is available on iTunes, but only available in a few cities.
My goal on this trip was not only to test new apps, but to try some out again for the first time. Just to see how they transform in near full saturation.
Twitter was an interesting contrast. Sure the people you are following stays the same, but use hashtag #sxsw and your following jumps 20 people. The change I was looking at was local tweets which were nearly unusable. Like Yobongo it was aflutter with tweet after tweet, but you couldn’t expect anything different. One of the more interesting were during the keynotes. Each keynote had its own hashtag, which you could follow during the talk for the magic of the collective consciousness. You could immediately tell by the incoming stream of tweets when a chord was struck and ultimately how enganged the audience was. Some of the more droll presentations would produce very few tweets, if any. There is of course the inverse effect for terrible talks where the stream is aflame with disruptive banter.
The final two are the representatives of the gaming layer: Gowalla and Foursquare. Anyone who lives a bit further off the grid, like here in Calgary, knows how tiny the community is in these apps. For me, SxSW was the first experience of the game layer in full swing. It was fun, I won’t lie. I know the stigma attached to “checking in” runs deep into the pretentious ‘why bother’ space, but down in the space where people are genuinely using the service there is definitely more of a feeling of community and sport. With some reservation, you could say that building blocks of the proto-city align with these types of check in services.
I have to say that this, albeit a bit lengthy, is molecular in relative to the entire experience, but it’s an interesting slice in itself.
