In 2007, South by Southwest was primarily known as a film and music festival. But in the same time SXSW Interactive was attracting greater attendance and media coverage. It was there that innovators such as Twitter, laid the groundwork for what the festival would turn into. Today, the innovators of tomorrow scramble together the next ground-breaking technologies, apps, and sites that would consume our media driven lives. All in all,  thanks to Twitter, these digital media heads spend all year making predictions about what technology will break through at the following SXSW.

AdAge Digital has released an article outlining 7 Social Startups, which are debuting at this year's SXSW that marketers are paying attention to. Although each are well-hyped, reading through the list is startling at most. I found myself wondering how some of these applications are even legal. With social media running rampant throughout our lives, drawing the line between personal and private appears to be  becoming increasingly more blurred. Here is a run-down of four of the start-ups that I found most interesting. Are they crossing the line? or well within the boundaries of a useful daily phone app or tool.

SONAR.
A recent beta for Android, Sonar is similar to the appraised Foursquare with a 'facebook-like' twist. Checking into locations gives you the ability to filter those around you who have also been checking in. In detail, you can analyze common interests, mutual friends, and other factors through syncing with other networks. Then you can list your friends and rank the rest according to who's most relevant or who you should probably meet.

So, let me get this straight: in the future our phones are going to tell us who we are suppose to be friends with? Talk about living media consumed lives. When I read this I thought it insane and a bit frightening. WTF!? What this just means is that our generation and those after us are going to end up totally antisocial zombies staring at their phones for contact to the outside world.

On the other hand, this will prove rather useful for marketers and advertisers in gaining insights as well as seeking out target customers. In that sense, Sonar is an useful yet still invasive tool in my opinion. The article also highlights it's benefits towards networking, perhaps at a conference, in which yes this is a great tool. Still creepy.

BAN.JO.
Ban.jo will be updating their app for SXSW in a similar fashion. The upgrade will allow location data from other networks to be presented to users with a map of people nearby. Yet, unlike Sonar, these people will be ranked by proximity, not relevance. Thus, emphasizing the other side of social discovery.

-_____________- So basically the use of Sonar and Ban.jo together will enhance the efficiency and specialization of Rapists and Serial Killers everywhere. WIN for social media. Thanks.

HIGHLIGHT.
An IPhone specific app that has garnered the most interest for those at SXSW. Highlight tracks your location and notifies you when people are nearby. "Techcrunch believed it's moving toward becoming 'a personal, social CRM system that helps you remember people's names and when you met them." (thank fucking you for taking away all my responsibilities as a human being)

Now now, this can prove to be a useful networking tool for the corporate or business professional. A social CRM system also proves helpful for many businesses and marketers.

ROAMZ.
Here is the reverse of Foursquare. It knows where you are, and curates content from social web, and suggests events, shindigs and general places nearby that are aligned with your personal interests. Roamz analyzes content from all of the major silos that contain location data (FB, Foursquare, Instagram and Twitter), but the duration process shows users interesting and relevant nearby posts from all users rather than only friends or those in your social graph.

Thank you. I love it. This sounds like a great tool to filter out everything around you and provide you with what you want. WE are bombarded with TONS of information everyday and it would be nice to have a filter or a direction of where to go, for instance in a new city or on vacation. If integrated in the right way with the locations that surrounds you this app will be likely to provide you with great finds that would have otherwise gone unnoticed. HIPSTER PARADISE.


All in all, Social and digital media is really taking over our personal lives. Yes, these apps prove to facilitate business operations and marketing but what about your day-to-day living experience. These few apps really show how social discovery is turning from a humanly, person-to-person experience to a mobilize digitized application process much like crunching numbers into a calculator. Are we looking at the onset of a Matrix type world where our technological innovations take control, EEKK? What will our phones be able to do for us next?

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This won't come as a surprise but there has been increasing Buzz around social media and the new attributes of our digital age. These create significant implications for many firms in moving forward. Notably many are left in the dust due to 40+ CMOs and marketing teams that simply do not know how to adapt their company to a new era.

Take for instance the good old accounting firm. Now an organization filled with number crunching, 'mindless,' geeks, how is that suppose to develop into a hip, trendy and up-to-date establishment utilizing all this 'techy' know-how. Can accounting firms truly leverage today's technology? I'm not talking just about social media here, because a strategy most certainly can be developed for that, but most importantly mobile advertising, apps, IPad, flipbooks. How do these firm's transition?

This is the issue I am experiencing. As the sole proprietor and manager of three social media campaigns for the accounting firm I work at, I seek to do more to bring this firm to being more up-to-date. It is a problem, and with technology changing at such a rapid pace how do we keep up? An important issue to note, is the viral nature of the trending media that advertisers are now using. Consumers looking for accounting and financial consulting DO NOT want the information they disclose to be viral or available through an app. So how do we compensate?

So as marketers and advertiser fawn over the new digital word, one must remember that a few firms are left in the dust.
At times not by choice. Could it be that some business environments are not conducive to this change, yet are needed by society?

it is interesting.

I love checking into places on my phone! But, normally I check into places that I know my friends would be jealous of. You know sort of like a joke of sorts. Well some extablishments are taking it to the next level and spreading the benefits it reaps!

A recent article published in AdAge Magazine reveals Walgreens' effort to jump on the bandwagon of mobile advertising. Walgreens is the FIRST retailer to use LocalResponse to publish deals or promotions via mobile, and will be the only drugstore to use this feature for at least one year. As customers check into any of the chain's 8,000 stores through mobile apps such as Foursquare or Yelp and publish "I'm here," Walgreens will message back with either a coupon or a reminder of a sale that is going on at the time on a certain product. Walgreens has also been testing other means of social media use to make customers more aware of their products.  In detail, customer check-ins promted free flu shot donations by the store. Additionally, for Energizer, check-ins served up a mobile coupons, similar to the image above. 

  This endeavor not only benefits the convenience store but also the brands sold. For instance, through the effort Energizer saw better redemption rates than traditional digital coupons. This truly benefits both players at work; Walgreens is getting the sale and so is the brand of whatever they are selling. GOOD TEAMWORK!