The Magazine

Bands aren't the only ones that use the South by Southwest (SXSW) conference to launch their careers or generate attention around a new release.

The annual event, taking place March 12-21 in Austin, is also an effective platform to build buzz for a new company or product.

Recall Twitter, the breakout star of the 2007 confab. Or the popular Facebook game "Foursquare," which used last year's event as a launching pad.

Most of these companies plant their flag during SXSW's interactive portion, which runs March 12-16, before the music begins.

Organizers are holding their second annual BizSpark Accelerator contest, for which companies are selected to present their products to a live panel. The conference also has several exhibit packages designed to generate additional attention. And then, of course, there are the parties and showcases to piggyback upon.

To be sure, SXSW is fertile ground. It's filled with artists that, if recruited as allies, can promote new services to legions of fans. Attendees are at once trendsetters and influencers who can spread needed word-of-mouth to generate momentum as well as key entertainment industry executives able to strike partnerships.

But to have a successful SXSW launch, one must compete for attention amid multiple parties, events and news. And therein lies the greatest opportunity. Services that break through the noise of SXSW are those that best help attendees navigate the signature chaos of the event, thereby illustrating their usefulness. Twitter did so by helping attendees keep abreast of the buzzworthy news; "Foursquare" by helping monitor who was attending what event.

What follows is a selective list of companies that have the potential to "pull a Twitter" at SXSW. Some are launching, while others have been around but are ready to grow their footprint.

This provider of mobile application platforms for the iPhone and Android devices has already come a long way. It launched at last year's SXSW, with the Orchard as its sole music industry partner and a handful of artist-based apps to show off.

It now counts all major labels (except Warner Music Group) as clients, has deals with such management companies as Frontline and Endeavor and boasts more than 400 apps that were built using its platform.

The company's offer is simple. For an upfront setup fee and monthly hosting cost, Mobile Roadie provides tools that let artists create their own iPhone or Android app without need for any programming skills. Clients upload their content and select features like fan chat and news alerts. Artists with apps on both devices need only update their content once, and the platform will automatically make the necessary changes.

The company is looking to expand, targeting hotels, authors, politicians and even conferences—basically anyone interested in developing a smart-phone app on the cheap. It has created an app for a SXSW karaoke party hosted by Mashable, a blog that focuses on Web 2.0 and social media news. It hopes to demonstrate how mobile apps can be used to connect to a shared experience and drive traffic to the Facebook and Twitter pages of those participating. Mobile Roadie also a finalist in the Accelerator contest.

Among the performers using Mobile Roadie to drive their online app presence, according to the company, are Madonna, Ashton Kutcher and Dolly Parton, with Taylor Swift on tap.

There's search, and then there's real-time search. What's the difference? The latter updates results as new data comes in, like a stream of results rather than a static page. Collecta is one of many with its hat in the ring, but has some interesting music-industry bona fides backing it up.

The company launched last June, and the service remains in public beta mode. The search tool aggregates content from more than 10 million sources, including news sites, Twitter, blogs and social media sites for video and photos. Results include news stories from Reuters, blog posts from services like Wordpress, reader comments from either, Twitter updates, photos from Flickr or Twitpic and videos from YouTube and uStream. And all results are filterable by content type.

In December, Collecta launched a search tool just for MySpace content. In January, it unveiled a widget that can reside on any Web site that displays a constant stream of results based on any topic chosen by the site. For example, a band can put the widget on its site that streams real-time results of any news, comments, photos or videos based on the group. It has a mobile app in the works as well.

CEO Gerry Campbell was the former president of search and content technologies for Reuters, senior VP of search for AOL and an early investor in companies like Summize, Tweetdeck and StockTwits. Founder Brian Zisk created the SanFran MusicTechSummit and helped create the Future of Music Coalition.

The company is a finalist in the Accelerator contest and will present at the TechCocktail and Social Media Clubhouse networking events.

The key to a winning mobile strategy may be the same as that for real estate: location, location, location.

NearVerse is a startup banking on that philosophy with a new location-based media-sharing service called Lokast that it plans to premier at SXSW. Once installed, the app will allow users to share content stored on their iPhone with one another using the device's Bluetooth connection. That has several consequences. First, the technology's range allows a user only within 300 feet of another to share content. Second, sharing can be done only on a one-to-one basis rather than one-to-many. And third, the content shared won't eat up the bandwidth of the area's Wi-Fi or cellular network, something for which devices like the iPhone are notorious.

It's not yet clear what content Lokast will support, but early reports indicate the company is working with some SXSW bands to make exclusive content available for sharing by attendees who install the app. While labels are likely to retain control over the distribution of their content, Lokast could emerge as a way to distribute what free promotional material they do allow, as well as offer indie and unsigned acts a way to tap into word-of-mouth activities.

The app initially will be only for the iPhone, but an Android version is in the works.

How familiar does this sound? A group of music technology professors and students team to create an app that helps users make their own songs by reformatting their voice and adding the music background.

No, it's not the hugely popular "I Am T-Pain" app from Smule—it's LaDiDa from newcomer Khush. Created by members of the Georgia Tech Music Intelligence Lab, LaDiDa has users sing their original lyrics into the mic on an iPhone, which it then analyzes and automatically creates original background music to match. It even uses pitch correction to help the vocally challenged.

Users can select the musical style—from piano pop to various versions of rock—but each resulting song is distinctly different from the other.

The "reverse karaoke" app launched last October for $3 and received an update last month. Users can share their songs on Facebook, but the company will introduce new sharing features at SXSW.

CEO Prerna Gupta says Khush hopes to team with artists to eventually sell artist-branded background music to add to the app and promote singing contests among fans. The app is a finalist in the Accelerator contest. ••••

Many other companies are attending SXSW to show off their wares. Here's a brief roundup of other notable contenders.

MOG, which launched its All Access subscription music service last year, will announce updates to the service and give attendees rides in a pimped-out van called the MOGMobile. Recent "artists of the day" highlighted by MOG's Web editors include Kid Cudi, the Morning Benders, the Bar-Kays and Peter Gabriel.

Several digital-music-services companies designed to help emerging and established artists do anything from sell concert tickets to market on social networks will be in attendance, including BandCentral, Kickstarter, Songkick and Next Big Sound.

Building off the success of Twitter will be companies that add new niche capabilities to the "life streaming" practice, including DotSpots, which lets users add comments, video, photos and files to news stories online; and Flavors.me, which aggregates multiple online profiles into one manageable identity.

Heatwave Interactive will promote a new Facebook game called "Platinum Life," a social game in which users pretend to be hip-hop industry moguls. —AB