SXSW Archives - Page 6 of 6 - Serious Startups

Hotel Tonight Sticks To Their Core For SXSW Promotion Too

Hotel Tonight Founder: Sam Shank (r) with Hotel Tonight Team in front of their first Austin Room. (photo: Sam Shank)

Yesterday we brought you a story about SideTour and how instead of a huge alcohol induced binge party at South by Southwest, they hosted intimate “Side Tour” style gatherings with some successful start up companies like Tumblr and Etsy.

Another great start up, Hotel Tonight, stuck to their core of finding last minute rooms for their South By Southwest promotion. Hotel Tonight Founder Sam Shank, rented an Airstream trailer for the companies on-site headquarters by day. By night, since rooms were scarce Shank and the Hotel Tonight team rented out the Airstream.

While it’s just an Airstream trailer, it was quite cozy. There was a couch when you walk in with a nice breakfast/dinner table, running water, a shower, bathroom, cooking area, king sized bed and a flat screen tv. Just what a South By Southwest go-er would need for the night.

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Berlin Company wahwah.fm Is Turning Music Sharing On It’s Head

Berlin’s wahwah.fm was in Ausitn Texas for SXSW for the second year in a row. Last year, the new iPhone app start up took home an App Circus award. This year they were showing off WahWah in the SXSW Interactive trade show in the Berlin/Germany row.

wahwah.fm is a new kind of music sharing app that is available for download throughout the world. What it does is allows you to broadcast the music you’re listening to on your iPhone to other iPhones in close proximity with the wahwah.fm app installed.

Because the end user or listener to one wahwah.fm station isn’t controlling the music itself they aren’t under the same scrutiny as in-demand listening apps like Pandora or Spotify.

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Side Tour Extends Intimate One Of A Kind Experiences To Their SXSW Events

The founders of Side Tour just posted their re-cap of the company’s South By Southwest experience in Austin Texas this year. Before we dive into that we need to tell you about Side Tour so you understand why their events at SXSW were a great reflection on exactly what they do.

By now many people in the United States are familiar with Richard Petty’s Nascar Experience. Petty’s Nascar Experience lets everyday race fans take a stroll around a Nascar track at nearly 200 mph. It’s a one of a kind experience that has now seen hundreds of thousands of customers. While the Petty Nascar Experience isn’t part of Side Tour, it’s that type of experience that makes this start up so unique.

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Start Up Interview: Patrick Ambron CEO Of The SXSW Award Winning Brandyourself.com

Have you ever looked yourself up on Google to find something less desirable? Maybe Google has you confused with someone else with a similar name? Maybe there was that incident at that frat party 10 years ago that just won’t go away?

Typically with these types of scenarios there are reputation clean up companies out there that are more than happy to take thousands of dollars from you to help clean up your Google results. Now there’s a new game in town and it’s free. Brandyourself.com is a do it yourself utility that allows you to take control of your Google results.

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UK Start Up Spotlight: Dead Soci.al

If you’ve ever watched Shark Tank than you know that one of Shark Kevin O’Leary’s favorite industries is the death industry. He always candidly jokes that everybody dies so it’s a sure market. That’s the market that deadsoci.al is in.

Dead Soci.al was founded by James Norris and unveiled at SXSWi in the UKTI booth at the South By Southwest trade show.

Dead Soci.al is a free tool that allows anyone to create private and scheduled messages. The messages can be distributed through email and across the social web once the user dies. The main purpose for Dead Soci.al is to let users say goodbye the way they want to. Dead Soci.al was prominently featured in the SXSW Startup village as well.

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British Start Up “Culture Label” Offering Swank Sophistication In One Stop Shop

South By Southwest Interactive prominently features start ups from other countries at this years SXSW Interactive Trade Show. One of those start ups, led by Peter Tullin, is Culture Label.

Culture Label is a one stop shopping point, similar in vein to Amazon.com, however with the ante upped in terms of quality of products. As Tullin explained in an interview with nibletz.com, they’ve curated items from around the world, up-scale shops, galleries, boutiques and museum shops to come up with a collection of purchasable wares fit for a king, or queen, at a reasonable rate. Tullin also fancied culturelabel.com to an upscale version of “etsy” as well.

When asked how he came up with the idea, he said that he and his business partner were into art and many people asked them where they could get art without going to Ikea. Tullin explained that Ikea is the single largest vendor of art in the world.

Tullin quickly realized that shopping museum gift shops, artists galleries, trunk shows and even high end craft markets, could take someone months, years and even a lifetime. So they curated some of the best of those categories under one umbrella.

Culturelabel.com has partnered with over 500 of the world’s leading creative brands. Some of the brands you’ll find at culturelabel.com include Tate, Saatchi Gallery, Andy Warhol Foundation and the Chateau de Versailles. They even have work from Abbey Road Studios.

The company is based in London’s budding start up district and was part of the UKTI Interactive Mission to SXSWi 2012.

Breaking: CNN To Buy Mashables Says A Reuters Blogger

While SXSW hasn’t had any break out hits like in the past with Twitter, Foursquare or the now defunct Gowalla, that doesn’t mean there hasn’t been major News coming from it. Reuters Blogger Felix Salmon is reporting that he has been told from a close source that CNN which is at SXSW for the first time, will be buying Mashables for upwards of $200 on Tuesday.

In the past major companies buying a Tech site hasn’t worked out so well, AOL, however, if CNN lets Mashable’s be them selves, this should great help both sides. So while SXSW for new Start-Ups may have been a bust, at lest we got one major News coming out of Austin this year. Its also unclear as of now if the management will stay the same, or movement will have to happen.

Here’s looking at Tuesday kids…

Source: Reuters

RIP Gowalla, Its Been Nice Knowing You

Three months after being acquired by Facebook and almost three years to the day of launching at SXSW GoWalla has finally closed up shop. Fitting that it finally did during SXSW in which it was launched at.

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Naveen Selvadurai Checks Out!

It was three years ago at South By Southwest in Austin Texas when the world started hearing about this neat little app that allowed you to check-in to places. That app of course was FourSquare. In both 2010 and 2011 and again as we go into SXSW 2012, app developers from around the world have flocked to Austin to see if they could become the next FourSquare.

Now, FourSquare co-founder Naveen Selvadurai has announced he is leaving the company. Selvadurai has said he doesn’t know what he is doing next. We are very curious as to why he’d want to leave such a succesful start up.

Last year at SXSW 2011, both co-founders, Naveen Selvadurai and Dennis Crowley gave a key note at SXSW Interactive that was standing room only.

Crowley has often received most of the credit for starting Foursquare. His brother once said in an interview with the Silicon Alley Insider, that life was always a game for the elder Crowley and that FourSquare was an expansion of that.

Perhaps we will see Sevadurai behind another successful start up, but for now, he’s checked out.