Lijit at SXSW…
The Lijit team spent five days in Austin recently at the South by Southwest Interactive Conference. Most people are familiar with the music and film portions of SXSW, but if you’re a tech geek, then the Interactive portion of the conference is like Disneyland. But better because there’s free booze everywhere. Between Todd, Micah and myself, we were able to cover a lot of ground in Austin. After some reflection, I present my favorite moments from South by (which is what all the cool kids call it):
- Seeing Lijit publishers in action
Everywhere I looked at SXSW, I saw familiar names and URLs. Having the chance to thank users and speak with them firsthand about what they want from Lijit was priceless. I went to a session on building community and one of the speakers, Jake McKee, the Community Guy, was proudly wearing a Lijit t-shirt. Bestill my beating evangelistic heart!
- Blog Network Camp
b5media organized this event and Lijit was proud to be one of the sponsors. There was a great turnout and we enjoyed meeting Darren, Aaron, and Christina, among others. Todd gave an impressive demo of Lijit and the response from the bloggers at the event was positive. We’re looking forward to seeing how we can make network search even better!
- How to piss off a blogger
I attended this discussion on blogger relations and was pleased to find out that I don’t do any of the things we listed as ways to piss off bloggers. I’m self-taught and it’s taken me a year, but I feel that I’m in a position to contribute a lot to these panels. As I’ve always said, if you treat a blogger like you’d like to be treated, you’re probably doing the right thing. To read more about what we came up with, check out the post written by the session moderator.
- Hanging in da Bloghaus
This was the place to be to meet anyone who is anyone in the blogging world. Interviews were going on left and right, blog posts were frantically typed, free beer was consumed…and all with the energy and enthusiasm of a frat house. The Bloghaus is where I made the most connections, met the most Twitter friends and rubbed shoulders with the most A-listers. A very dangerous place for someone who freaks out around (very) minor celebrities!
- Startup Metrics for Pirates
Todd spoke on a panel about different ways of measuring the growth of your startup. While the panel spoke with knowledge and experience, it was also a great panel because they spoke like pirates. There were costumes, interactive pirate crowd comments and lots of “Yarrr”ing. Who knew seeing Todd with an eyepatch and earring would be one of the highlights of SXSW?
- The people
Duh. Everywhere you went, there was potential for inspiration and connection. Something about the mellow Austin mood must have rubbed off, because I had no problem walking up to anyone, regardless of their page views, and starting a conversation. It was such an electric energy, matching avatars to faces and meeting new friends. (Micah went as far as getting a permanent souvenir of the time in Austin.) You hear people say it all the time in the online world, but honestly, it really is all about the people.
You can read more about Todd’s SXSW experience here and here. Micah wrote about some lessons he learned and posted a round-up of how Colorado’s startups were represented at the event.
