The 21st Annual South by South West (SXSW) Interactive Festival was held from March 7-11 in Austin Texas showcasing the latest in cutting edge technology and digital creativity. SXSW was established in 1987 as a music conference and festival and in 1997 the Interactive festival was added.
The SXSW 2014 event featured five days of compelling presentations and panels from the brightest minds in emerging technology and scores of exciting networking events hosted by industry leaders.
SXSW Interactive has become the place to preview the technology of tomorrow today. The top 5 trends that emerged are:
• Wearable Technology – reports of literally hundreds of people walking the streets of Austin wearing Google Glasses appeared like a scene from the not too distant future along with dozens of smart watches and fitness bands, SXSW continued to showcase wearable technology launched at CES in January. Ryan Davidson’s from Discorax pointed out that “Wearable Tech is almost useless at the moment. It almost always replaces something your smartphone already does. When wearables provide data that allows us to drive behavioural change, that’s when it will become transformative.” Read more at “Wearable Technology SXSW 2014”.
• In Store Tracking – Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technology to capitalise on point of purchase marketing in the form or iBeacon and ShelfBucks to track customers and push personalised notifications to enable customers to redeem offers, vouchers or further product information. Read more at “SXSW 2014 IPG Media Lab” and “Personalized deals on smart phones at the shelf by ShelfBucks”.
• Data and privacy – Never before has data collection been so easy or so vast. Millennials often have large chunks of their lives documented on social media and this data is becoming more and more permanent. 67% of American adults dislike seeing their entire history displayed on social networking sites*. Whilst this data represents a huge opportunity for marketers and will allow for greater customisation and personalisation of products, companies must be wary of taking advantage of customers based on this data. Read more at “10 overriding themes by JWT”.
• Bitcoin – With the recent growth, and security issues with this online currency, there was much hype and discussion around the longevity of this product. JWT noted in their SXSW wrap up that “for cryptocurrency to succeed, it needs to be regulated.” And Jared Cohen from Google added “it’s very obvious to all of us that cryptocurrencies are inevitable. There’s a lot of value to it, but there is a danger to it not being regulated”. Read more at “10 overriding themes by JWT”.
• Brand Activations – Many companies sponsored booths and capitalised on listening to consumers to generate idea innovation with companies such as Spotify, Mashable and Samsung offering everything from free food and drinks, live music and yoga classes. Many brands rolled out celebrity guests from Lady Gaga to Justin Bieber to help promote their brands and generate buzz on social media. Oreo offered 3D cookies based on what flavours were trending on Twitter. Read more at “Oreo uses Twitter to make 3D cookies at SXSW”.
Whilst the next Twitter was not uncovered in 2014, the groundswell of technology and connected devices continues to grow and soon will find their way into our homes and hearts.
For more information about SXSW visit http://sxsw.com/interactive/
Image sourced from SXSW Interactive 2014 & ImageThink.
