The Software Development Blog | AndPlus

3 Apps Making an Impact at SXSW

Written by Brian Geary | Mar 7, 2012 5:00:00 AM
For those of you that don’t know, SXSWstands for South by Southwest, a music, film and interactive conference that takes place every spring in Austin, Texas. SXSW started as a music festival in 1987 and the Film Conference and Interactive Festival made their debut in 1994.SXSW is a place where the little guy can be seen in a big way. This year there are several new and impressive apps from some small developers that are really going to shine and make a big splash on a mobile phone near you in 2012. 

Highlight

Highlight is the forerunner to take the crown at this years SXSW. Highlight is a mobile app that uses your phones GPS to track the whereabouts of you and other Highlight users. If you cross paths with another Highlight user it will show you their profile, common interests, mutual friends, and photos. The app uses Facebook as its sole login method, which may be a selling point for some, but for others, it may be the reason they don’t use the app.

Sonar

Sonar is an App for iPhone and Android that will allow users to see who is near you and how the two of you are connected. It uses data from Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and Foursquare to show you things like what friends you have in common with the people in the room, and common interests. Because it uses public posts to gather this data, the other people in the room don’t even need to have sonar installed on their phone for you to access these details.

Localmind

Localmind is a location based Q&A platform. Need an example? How’s this? Your at a New Years eve party and its kind of lame, so you log onto Localmind and ask a question to a person at another party “How’s the party there?”. Minutes later your questions could be answered by the person who is actually at the party at that moment. Pretty cool!

What are you looking forward to seeing the most at SXSW this year? Leave a comment below.