South by Southwest 2015: All About Beacons, Beacons, Beacons
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Tech types aren’t known for being socially adroit. At this year’s South by Southwest festival, they’ll have a new chance to connect with less social risk — and another excuse to stare into their phones.
Eventbase, a company specializing in large-scale meetups, installed upwards of 1,000 bluetooth-enabled beacons throughout the Austin innovation summit — calling it the biggest installation of the mobile technology to date. Scott Wilcox, chief technology officer with South by Southwest, said the beacons have been depoloyed across some 265 venues in the city. If a visitor downloads the official conference app, they can find a list of other participating attendees in the vicinity.
When I arrived at the main convention center, scrolling through the list turned up execs from Omnicom, Digitas, Reebok, Apple, even the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. Attendees can send each other messages and favorite profiles, which prioritzes those people, displaying them first on the app, as attendees move around the convention center.
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