Vote for Local at SXSW ’09
Sebastien Provencher points to the small but hopeful collection of local sessions that have been proposed for the 2009 South By Southwest conference taking place in March. One is led by Topix.com CEO Chris Tolles (“Think Globally, Post Locally: The Emerging Power of Local Voice“).
Thirty percent of the show’s content is user-generated, and anyone can vote to solidify these sessions’ place on the conference agenda. But the true opportunity in local, financial and otherwise, isn’t really commensurate with the percentage of local sessions on the voting block. This could have something to do with how “sexy” local is, relative to other tech areas (a bone of contention in the comments thread of a related Praized post).
The point here is to get out and vote if you think local deserves a bigger presence at one of the hottest tech and online media shows of the year. We hope to be there as well.
I went to SXSW this year and i plan to attend next year. It’s a great show and unlike any other tech conference i’ve been to. Local search was missing in large part this year. Hopefully we’ll see more in ’09.
Me too. If nothing else, mobile is hot right now so we’ll likely see lots of sessions devoted to mobile search applications. Local could make an appearance indirectly in those sessions because of its inherent ties to mobile search. I’m looking forward to finding out.