As further proof that time flies, South by Southwest just announced it is open for business today.
That means you can register for the conference, which takes place next March 7 through March 16, but it’s going to cost you.
Badges to attend SXSW 2013 are $100 more than last year’s early bird prices for every type of badge. An interactive badge that entitles the holder to attend all the sessions, parties and other events related to the interactive conference costs $695 for 2013, up from $595 for 2012.
A platinum badge that provides access to the music, film and interactive conferences costs $1,195.
A few years ago, Ben Metcalfe reported in a post on his blog that he liked the price increase. In 2011, the price for an interactive badge rose 15 percent to $450 from $395. He argued that the price increase weeded out people who really weren’t serious about attending the event.
And despite the price increases in previous years, SXSW Interactive continues to have record breaking attendance every year. This year, conference organizers expect 40,000 people to attend the event. SXSW has become one of the most high-profile conferences for startup companies looking to gain the national spotlight. In years past, Foursquare and Twitter have found traction with the iPhone and iPad toting early adopter audience. But in the last few years, no clear app has emerged as the next big thing at the show.
SXSW’s mix of media, music and film has also made it one of the most entertaining high-tech conferences. Every year, the parties get bigger and better and have become an important part of the show. In recent years, the SXSW Interactive conference has focused heavily on the startup community with events like Startup Bus competition and the SXSW Interactive Accelerator competition.
So what do you think? Will the price hike lead to quality over quantity and a more manageable event?
Tag: Austin (Page 22 of 37)
GE Aviation has acquired Austin Digital, an Austin-based supplier of flight operations data analysis.
The terms of the deal were not disclosed.
“The acquisition of Austin Digital brings some of the best flight operations technology to GE Aviation’s Services business, further expanding our commitment to deliver results for our customers. We are delighted that Austin Digital is joining our team today,” Paul McElhinney, president & CEO, GE Aviation Services, said in a statement.
Austin Digital has approximately 40 employees. They will join the staff of GE Aviation, an operating unit of GE.
San Francisco-based Pole To Win America will establish a new Austin office next month to offer video game testing services.
Pole To Win America’s Austin office, which will focus on console and personal computer games, plans to hire 50 employees.
The company has more than 80 customers and plans to expand its North American presence with the new office.
Austin has the country’s third largest concentration of video game companies, according to the company.
One of the keys to a successful high tech startup is the team backing the venture.
And solo-entrepreneurs can find it difficult finding a technical cofounder in central Texas where people with technical skills are in high demand. Other startup founders are looking for partners with different skills such as marketing, sales and business development.
A couple of events have arisen to help entrepreneurs find like-minded people who share their passion and are looking for a partner to spearhead their startup.
Tonight, a co-founder meetup will take place at Capital Factory and it’s full. More than 100 people, including a wait list of eight people, have signed up to pitch their company or simply network with other entrepreneurs. OnTechies, Capital Factory and HomeAway sponsor the event. Ricardo Sanchez organizes and runs the meetup.
The companies pitching tonight include:
• Amalgamii
• Escapaide
• GroupWink
• Taskbox
• Zaplings
• Eye in The Sky
• Eborhood
• Hobby Local
• MeatHeadz
• Pinfuse
And if you didn’t sign up in time to attend this co-founder meetup, Damon Clinkscales plans to host another FounderDating session on August 15. The last one was in May. You must apply to attend FounderDating. The organizers seek to get a balanced group made up of half engineering talent.
A startup software company, Jumpshot, has successful raised $98,255 on Kickstarter to create a software program to clean up the hard drive of PCs and combat malware and viruses.
Its Kickstarter program exceeded its $25,000 goal and still has more than 40 days to go.
The software comes on a really cute USB stick and once it’s inserted into a PC, the software goes to work cleaning up tracking cookies, killing viruses and fighting spyware and other unwanted programs.
The program gets smarter as more people use it, according to its founders David Endler and Pedram Amini, two former security research managers in HP’s TippingPoint division. They launched the company in mid-July with a Kickstarter campaign.
“We left our day jobs and created Jumpshot for a totally selfish reason.” co-founder David Endler said in a news release. “We were exhausted being PC tech consultants to our family and friends. Don’t get us wrong, we love to help. But we knew there had to be a better more enjoyable way to assist them. We truly wanted to build something that passed the Grandma test, a product we were proud to leave behind that also wouldn’t impact the quality of our holiday gifts.”
The company decided to launch Jumpshot on Kickstarter because its “a scrappy self-funded startup and we’ve gone pretty far on our own,” co-founder Pedram Amini said in a news release. “Our dream is to leverage the momentum and cash from our backers to truly ‘kick start’ Jumpshot into a viable standalone product. The money will feed directly into USB manufacturing, advancing the Jumpshot engine and driving future improvements. We also appreciate the fact that crowd funding will transform Jumpshot into a better product by listening to the feedback of our early adopters.”
Will Tweet or Facebook post for school supplies.
That’s the idea behind a social charity program spearheaded by Austin tech startup Sparefoot, which puts consumers in touch with storage facilities.
Sparefoot will donate $3 worth of basic school supplies for every Facebook share and Tweet about what memento they’ve stored since grade school. The donations will go to a school supply drive for Communities In Schools of Central Texas, a nonprofit focused on dropout-prevention.
“We launched this company while I was still in school myself,” Chuck Gordon, Sparefoot Founder and CEO, said in a news release. “Our goal with Supply Memories is to give other students a similar opportunity to succeed, no matter their circumstances.
To participate, visit Sparefoot on Facebook or visit Supply Memories to learn more about the Twitter program.
It’s been awhile since I had a baby – 13 years to be exact.
And boy have things changed.
The Austin startup Belly Ballot puts a whole new twist into what’s in a name for baby.
Belly Ballot, which bills itself as a social startup, lets expecting parents survey their friends and family via Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest on the name for their baby. They compile a list and their friends and family vote on their favorite name.
Tip of the hat to Taylor Benefield with TriNet. We met for coffee earlier this week at Juan Pelotas in downtown Austin and he told me about Belly Ballot.
I have to say I think it’s a rather clever idea.
“Parents today are very social beings,” Lacey Moler, co-founder of Belly Ballot said in a news release. “We love apps and sites that allow us to interact with friends on a daily basis. Important decisions are no exception.”
Moler, a mother of three and a former private equity analyst, got the inspiration for her company from her baby shower in 2009 in which she handed out a list of top five boys and girls names on cards to friends and asked them to mark their favorite ones and drop it in the “Belly Ballot Box.”
Since its launch earlier this year, thousands of parents have created a Belly Ballot, according to Moler.
And if you need some inspiration to compile that list of names, head on over to Nameberry, which aggregates lists of the most popular baby names. The number one boy’s name is Jacob and the number one girl’s name is Sophia.
Austin-based Q2ebanking plans to open an office outside of Atlanta in August to serve its growing client base in the region.
The startup company provides electronic banking solutions to banks and credit unions nationwide.
“Expanding into the Atlanta area is a natural move for us and is a testament to the demand we are experiencing for electronic banking services,” Matt Flake, CEO and president of Q2ebanking, said in a news statement. “Atlanta is rapidly becoming an East Coast technology corridor and was recently ranked by the U.S. Census Bureau as one of the nation’s fastest growing cities. Having a presence there gives us access to some of the industry’s most well respected professionals and ensures that our clients continue to receive unprecedented support.”
By SUSAN LAHEY
Reporter with Silicon Hills News
Richard Garriott de Cayeux is passionate about many things. Space, exploration, the environment, the moral imperative of games, building cool houses and collecting things. So how did he choose to make his first game to launch from Portalarium, the most recent incarnation of his gaming company, Ultimate Collector?
“There are all kinds of ideas we kicked around; potential threads to latch onto …to create as our first original title,” Garriott de Cayeux said. “We wanted to create a game that demonstrates very well that we understand the game mechanics and ease of play of this new third wave of gamers.”
Garriott de Cayeux, known just as Richard Garriott until his marriage in 2011 to equity fund manager Laetitia Pichot de Cayeux, was one of the original game creators. His games, inspired by stories like The Lord of The Rings Trilogy, have been rich in stories, levels, multiple players and layers of meaning, he wanted to show that Portalarium could build games for people who weren’t planning to invest a lot of money and time. He needed a game that could show its value fast.
“We wanted an aesthetically familiar enriching experience that would start with an avatar and a world map and let you explore: go to retail outlets and pawnshops, go around collecting in a wide variety of categories. I can tell you that just through collecting I’ve become sort of an expert on fossils, weapons and armor, automatons…just through exposure a little at a time. I’m a big believer in collecting. You can become very knowledgeable and it’s still as simple and light as any other game.”
Portalarium just raised $7 million in Series A funding from M8 Capital, FF Angel, BHV Venture Capital, and Garriott himself. The company plans to release Ultimate Collector beginning with a PC and Facebook game and follow it 30-60 days later as a mobile game among other platforms.The funds will also help launch Garriott de Cayeux’s next RPG, Ultimate RPG/New Britannia, for mobile platforms.
His new company, started in 2009, began with $3.5 million in seed capital. It aims to be “platform agnostic” to adapt to constantly changing technology and gamer preference.
The Austin-based startup Hurricane Party received all kinds of attention at South by Southwest Interactive 2011.
Mashable wrote about them. So did Read Write Web.
TechCocktail labeled Hurricane Party the hottest app of 2011 at SXSW.
Hurricane Party was a mobile app that let people know where the best parties were at.
Then a year later, that company largely folded and reinvented itself as Forecast.
Hurricane Party received $20,000 as a Capital Factory company in the class of 2010. The company, led by Rene Pinnell and Eric Katerman, eventually raised another $80,000 and blew through it all in 12 months, according to this interview. The founders said they took what they learned from Hurricane Party’s failure to create Forecast, an app that lets friends share their plans with other friends.
Mashable, once again, named Forecast one of the hottest apps to watch at SXSW 2012. It was also one of the companies pitching in the mobile category in the SXSW Accelerator competition.
But Forecast ran out of money and shut down its website on July 1st. Forecast posted the following message on its Facebook page and sent an e-mail to all of its users.
“The time has come for Forecast to shut its doors. Starting on July 1, our mobile apps and website will not work.
Although we’re passionate about building great products that help people connect in the real world, we have run out of resources to keep the Forecast project afloat. We sincerely appreciate you taking the time to try our app, and we hope that it brought you some value.
If you have any questions, comments, or just want to keep in touch, don’t hesitate to email us!
Best,
René Pinnell and Team Forecast