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Marketplace @ SXSW

Oh, the panels you’ll see!

Ben Johnson and Meg Cramer Mar 10, 2015

Oh, SXSW InteractiveThat springtime gathering of over 30,000 members of the tech community in Austin, Texas to eat tacos and present new technologies.

In an environment that encourages cheekiness and experimentation, you’ll find the seeds of good ideas: Facebook launched Facebook Connect, an early version of its mobile app, at SXSW in 2009. You’ll also find spectacles that make you squirm, like the “Homeless Hotspots” program during the festival in 2012.

This is the technology industry’s hype machine in overdrive. It’s a five day flurry of buzzwords and gamification. 

And this year’s conference does not disappoint on that front. Attendees can look forward to Katie Notopoulos’ panel “Hamburger Helper Is My Bae: Weird Brand Twitter“. Or maybe “2 Girls Are Crying and I’m Not: Improv in Any Career” is more your speed. True to form, SXSW Interactive has its share of great content with even better names.

Remember last year, when attendees sat through panels like “Interactive Avatars & All of the Doxxing“? Do you remember live-streaming “Live Pixels & The Tipping Point of Bikesharing“? Well, you shouldn’t. Because these panels never happened.

Back by popular demand, the Marketplace SXSW panel generator is here to help you make your own very own fake panel which you can use to hack your way to an optimized experience. Let us help you create the Tinder of panels; the Uber of keynote speeches; the Yik Yak of Winklevoss twins. Then click the little blue bird to tweet us your favorites.

And while you’re there, feel free to tweet us any questions you have for the Marketplace Tech team while we’re down south in Austin. Use #SXMP, and we’ll do our best to get you some answers.

There’s a lot happening in the world.  Through it all, Marketplace is here for you. 

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