It is considered a breakout site for new technology launches, and it served that purpose for Twitter and Foursquare. Get Satisfaction founder Thor Muller told me: "The thing about South by Southwest is that first and foremost, it's a music festival. It's where the rock stars, or the budding rock stars, go. So, as an interactive festival, in my opinion, it always had an element of that rock and roll mystique to it. It was a different kind of birthplace for a new kind of ethos around what we were building."

Alice E. Marwick, Status Update, loc. 198