Yesterday was a busy day at the Trade Show. After a busy night out with the FriendFeeders, I was looking forward to a relaxed day and to spread the word about Blellow and get us some traffic.
We received a lot of positive responses and around 5pm TechCrunch posted a glowing review of our site:
To paraphrase Cracker, what the world needs now is another web-based Interactive micro-content production community like I need a hole in the head. But strangely enough, I think the world needs Blellow
Since the article was posted we received over 1000 new users joining up to the site and a lot of great feedback and positive comments. Our heads were spinning and we were excited to get featured on such an influential blog.
After the show closed I decided to take a night off from the festivities and give my liver a chance to recover, so I headed back to my cousin’s house in Round Rock and enjoyed the night sitting on my duff and watching TV. I actually managed to stay off the computer for a whole hour before I broke down and borrowed they laptop to check the new user numbers. Around 11pm we broke 2000 users!
Today is the last day of the Trade Show with the Mashable Mash Bash tonight at 9:30pm, where Blellow is a sponsor. It’s going to be a very late night for me, as we also have to tear down the booth and pack everything back up. Tomorrow I’m going to try to sit in some of the seminars before making the trek back to San Antonio.
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- SxSWi Day 2: Attempted Karaoke
Day two in Austin was the first full day of the South by Southwest Interactive Trade Show, and I stood on my feet and talked for 6 hours straight!
We got a really good response to the site and everyone seemed to enjoy what we were trying to do. I’ve never talked to so many strangers (and new friends) in my life, and I enjoyed it quite a bit!
After the Trade Show closed, I went over to the Mexican Cultural Arts Center for the SxSW Opening Ceremony and had a few drinks and mingle a bit. Around 9pm I decided to head over to the Karaoke event on 4th and Navasota to meet up with Erin Koteki Vest, Mark Krynsky, Marco, Aaron Brazell and Derrick for our unofficial FriendFeed meetup.
We watched the Karaoke contest and cheered on Aaron as he performed Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” and rocked the house, then headed over to Ego’s via Bike Rickshaw for more karaoke, but unfortunately we showed up after they had already cut the sign up for singing. I met back up with my friend Henry and Dustin Rowles with the Pajiba crew as well and watched Henry sing Adele’s “Syrup and Honey.”
I big the fine folks from FriendFeed farewell and goodnight, and shared a cab with Henry back to the Convention Center. I barely made my way to the Blellow rent house due to my iPod dying (which had the map to get there and the keycode for the door) but somehow managed to squeeze another 30 seconds out of the battery long enough to memorize the address.
Another fine night in Austin with another two days ahead of me. This has been a great experience so far and I’m looking forward to seeing what the last two days have in store.
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Today was my very first day at South by Southwest in Austin, Texas. Most of the afternoon was spent working with Blellow setting up the booth and trying to get a SxSXi badge, all of which happened within hours of each other.
Unfortunately my boss was feeling under the weather, so they all retired to the rent house leaving me alone to terrorize the streets of Austin. I just happened to run into my friend Henry (or Smokin, as he’s known on this very blog) while he was going up the escalator to pick up his badge, so I was able to hook up with him later on. I got a chance to meet the fine folks at Pajiba, Dustin Rowles, Frank, and Seth, all of who are not only great people, and ended up buying me many drinks later in the night (more on this later).
After hanging out at the convention center, (and meeting Derrick from FriendFeed), I decided to break outside my shell and mingle a bit in the growing number of tech and film enthusiasts in Austin.
I started the night by walking about 10-12 blocks down to the Belmont for the Techset meets the Ratpack party. I arrived a little early, so I killed time at the bar and had a lovely discussion with a representative of uStream.com.
Once the party started it got pretty wild fast. As I was standing in the midst of the crowd talking to two interesting guys from Vancouver, Canada, lo and behold Jeffery Tambor (George Sr. From Arrested Devlepment) makes his way through the crowd.
The conversation I had with him was something like this:
Jeffery: “Wow, this is pretty wild, huh?”
Me: “Yeah no kidding! I’m a huge fan of yours, I’m so happy to meet you!” (shakes hand)
Jeffery: “Thanks! I like your hat.”
Me: (Flabbergasted and speechless)
Erica O’Grady introduced me to Hugh McLoud, aka Gaping Void of “Cartoons on the back of business cards.” He even drew me a special card that said “Fuck You, I’m at SxSW 2009!” I was pleased to get a custom card form him, as I’ve been following his work for several years now and was quite a fan.
After much searching and Twitter DM’ing, I finally tracked down my FriendFeed friend Mark Krynsky, and we decided to head down to Emo’s for the “Pastries and Pasties” Burlesque show, only to turn away at the $15 cover charge at the door. We ended up at the Rio Grande a few blocks away and met back up with my friend Henry. After a few drinks the restaurant was closing, so as Mark left to Chugging Monkey to track down Kevin Rose, I left with Henry and the Pajiba crew for many more beers and some interesting discussion of the movie Bridges of Madison County.
Tomorrow is day two, and if it’s at all like today then I have nothing but good conversation and meeting a lot of wonderful and exciting new people to look forward to. So far this has been the start of the best week of my life.
If you would like to connect with me at SxSW Interactive, I’ll be in the Blellow booth for most of the weekend, and after hours terrorizing the streets of Austin. Link up with me through Twitter!
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