Is SXSW Getting too Large? Video with Leo Laporte

This Week in Tech by Leo Leporte is one of the top shows featuring tech trends, new gadgets, and business and social trends. In addition to our host Leo Leporte, it featured Jeff Jarvis, Gina Trapani, and myself. The timing was great, I was invited as the only member of this group to give a recap of SXSW, which Leo proclaimed it’s “too much”. Gina and Jeff chimed in, and we discussed the location based apps, celebs, brands, and even how I stopped a fight with an LED flashlight (I often carry this 300+ lumen Fenix) in a dark alley (minute 25) until Leo started to distract me by wiping pie all over his face.

Overall SXSW is getting really large. Too big? Hard to tell. If you’re going there to network, meet others, and experiment with new technologies in an active petri dish, this is a good place. If you’re there to foster intimate discussions, launch products, or host large events where you have mindshare, this is not it. I often say SXSW is the physical manifestation of Twitter fleeting conversations in a rabid manner leave your head spinning. This is also a great time to kill off a product, as Gowalla shuttered their doors, and no one noticed. On the other hand, this is a sign that the industry is maturing, as more brands, large software companies move into this space. If you want to learn about the four observations at SXSW, here’s my wrapup.

We even discussed the internet of things, around Samsung’s Wifi fridges, Nike FuelBand, and data coming from watches and beyond. At Altimeter, we’re researching this disruption and label this trend as the “Sentient World”

Beyond the SXSW coverage, we discussed Google trends, privacy, and new forms of body data, you can see the embedded video below, or view the Twit site. Later, Leo gave me a tour of the most sophisticated podtech studio (they’ve over 6 sets) and a very sophisticated setup, deep programming, and a professional –yet fun– staff of 20+ folks. If you’re a company seeking to reach tech enthusiasts, it’s worth taking a look at their partnerships, this is a sophisticated operation.