Jimmy Winter at SXSW Music 2010 with celebrity gossip blogger Perez Hilton. Photo courtesy of Winter.
With South by Southwest Interactive fast approaching, Rockdex co-founder Jimmy Winter gave me insight into what to keep an eye out for when he and his team land in Austin, Texas in the coming week.
For RockDex, a web-based application providing the music industry with social media metrics and insights, nothing sounds like a more winning combination of music and social media than a trip to SXSW. And for Winter, a six-year veteran to the conference, he is no stranger to attending both the Interactive and Music portions of the 10-day festival. After launching at SXSW 2009, this year marks the third year the RockDex crew will pitch its idea to the other thousands of attendees and potential users.
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On the music front of the conference, Shannon Schlappi, co-founder of RockDex, will moderate the panel “Socially Awkward: The Art of Social Media Transparency” on Wednesday, March 16th.
This panel is focused specifically on how music artists can further embrace social media tools to “kick their shyness and begin turning casual listeners into fully-invested lifelong fans,” or at least that’s what the panel description promises. With panelists like Jason Feinberg of Concord Music Group, Greg Patterson of Ground(ctrl), Jon Crawford of Storenvy and Doug Lefrak of Feisty Management, that promise should be one well-kept, Winter assured me.
Aside from his excitement to see the “Socially Awkward” panel come to fruition and his glee to experience the Wu-Tang Clan perform at the festival, Winter clued me in on some exciting news from the development side of RockDex.
Although much is mum’s the word on the latest, I did catch wind that “significant updates” will be released casually at the conference. Winter said that the RockDex team has recently been working with potential partners, like panelist Greg Patterson of Ground(ctrl), and meeting with investors from the East and West Coasts.
What is important to Winter about this new update is that RockDex delivers “more than the numbers” in terms of data collection, but also provides users with a deeper value to interpreting what those numbers mean to their clients. The new update is set to reflect just that, as it has a stronger focus on content-based features that further enhance user experience.
But perhaps the most intriguing description to this new development piqued my interest when Winter said – with great fervor – that RockDex’s next big thing currently blows his own mind.
If you’re just as curious about this “mind-blowing” RockDex update as I am, be sure to stay tuned for our coverage of SXSW on Silicon Prairie News in the weeks to come.
