If you want to keep up-to-date on the coolest stuff happening at SXSW, Twitter is an awesome resource – but it can get overwhelming trying to figure out who you should follow to find what all the cool kids are up to.
Have no fear – we’ve corralled the most helpful Twitter handles.
Top tech tweeters
SXSW is one of the most fertile breeding grounds for Next Big Apps and cutting-edge tech services, and it’s always fun to be in the know when it comes to the most up-to-date tech trends.
If you want to stay updated on one of the most anticipated product demos at the festival, follow @LeapMotion. You won’t want to miss the gesture-based device’s big debut.
If you love taking selfies and logging your life, you have to take a look at @Memototeam, the Twitter handle for Memoto. It’s a small Swedish startup that makes tiny cameras you’re meant to wear all the time, and it’s nominated for the SXSW Innovative Accelerator awards.
Do you like the latest and greatest cameras? You’ll love the Lytro camera, which lets you take photos and then focus them later. It uses light field technology, which gathers every ray of light in a scene automatically. You can snap pictures with abandon and then perfect them later, which is basically the greatest party trick ever, and @Lytro is a wise Twitter to watch.
It’s always a good idea to keep an eye on Google, and their @Google account will keep you abreast of the tech giant’s happenings in the Google Village.
If you’re trying to figure out which conferences and events you should go to, look at @Lanyrdsxsw. The whole raison d’etre of the Twitter handle is helping people find the interesting meet-ups and happenings. And if you notice a huge uptick in people you see giving each other piggyback rides, that’s thanks to fledgling ride share company @lyft. Keep updated on their wacky hijinks by following them on Twitter.
Three interesting sessions about #DigitalNatives at this year’s #SXSWi j.mp/15luSwD j.mp/15luSN5 j.mp/15luUVp
— Lanyrd.com @ SXSW (@LanyrdSXSW) March 5, 2013
Music
SXSW isn’t just a tech dream – it’s also a massive, sprawling, city-wide love note to music.
The festival is in Austin, not Montreal, but @PopMontreal will point you in the right direction if you want to hear the hippest bands. The POP MONTREAL IS LEGITIMATE showcase features awesome, rollicking artists, from the art rockers BRAIDS to vivacious hip-hop group A Tribe Called Red. You have a good chance of hearing about a band that everyone will be clamoring over in a year or so if you stick with Pop Montreal’s recommendations.
Music magazine Spin is doing an excellent job keeping fans in the know with its @SPINsxsw account, which tells you about some of the biggest music events — and offers giveaways.
Solange, CHVRCHES, UMO, Parquet Courts join Kendrick Lamar for our 2013 Stubb’s bash. Plus info on SPIN House gigs! go.spin.com/WsTnaO
— SPIN @ SXSW (@SPINsxsw) March 5, 2013
And music blog Brooklyn Vegan is a much smaller enterprise than Spin, but it offers equally excellent festival coverage with its SXSW-only Twitter handle @bvsxsw. Brooklyn Vegan’s team tweets about the shows they’re seeing and the latest news.
Spinner, another music blog, promises the locations to its secret pop-up shows if you follow the site’s tweets, so you might want to click the blue button next to @SpinnerSXSW.
Local
To figure out the raddest stuff going on in Austin, it’s always smart to check with Austin-based Twitter accounts.
Want the most delicious food? Follow some of Austin’s most delicious food trucks on Twitter to find out where they are – for instance, @ChiLantroBBQ will give you updates on the delectable whereabouts of the Chi’lantro truck. It serves Mexican/Korean fusion, which has been scientifically proven to be the most insanely tasty kind of food in the universe.
If you want something sweeter – say, a cupcake – take a look at one of Austin’s more established foodtrucks, Hey Cupcake! You can get tweets at @HeyCupcakeATX. And if you can’t find the food truck, Hey Cupcake! also has a full-fledged bakery in North Austin.
If you’ve come to Austin primarily for the festival but also for the amazing tacos, there’s only one Twitter account you need to unearth the finest: @tacojournalism. This intrepid soul went out of their way to make a map of the best taco joints in town.
RT @austin360: The Quest for the Perfect Taco: We profile Mando Rayo, who has tried 1000s of tacosfor @tacojournalism…
— taco journalism (@tacojournalism) March 6, 2013
We already gave you some good music recommendations, but you should also keep @360sxsw in mind. That’s the account for Austin360, a music blog that covers the scene every day of the year, not just during the festival.
Thrillist Austin goes on a hunt to find Austin’s hidden treasures, and right now all of its tweets are SXSW-themed. You can find it @ThrillistATX.
The Austin Chronicle made a special Twitter handle in honor of the festival, @ChronSXSW. Since it’s popular with local readers, you’ll get a better sense of what people who live there are hearing about the fest.
And if the Chronicle’s not enough, the Austinist also created an account specifically devoted to SXSW. Fittingly, it’s called @sxswist.
Reporting live
To see how the most exciting SXSW tech events pan out, make sure to follow Digital Trend’s own Molly McHugh at @iammollymchugh and Natt Garun at @nattgarun. They’ll be sure to give you the lowdown.
But if, for some reason, following Digital Trend’s brave-hearted journalists isn’t enough, there are plenty of other resources. Checking in on the official account, @sxsw, is always a good idea – everything you’ll get will be spun positively, sure, but it’s frequently updated.
Wired’s take on the coolest start-ups is generally worth a look, and the tech journalism institution has @Wiredsxsw to keep you up to speed on its coverage.
For a lighter take on the festival, check out @SXSWNews. It seems like a buttoned-up Twitter handle at first, but it’s not often you see a news desk described as “sometimes drunk, like you.”
And if even that’s getting too serious, check out @SXSWpartyzzzzz, probably the funniest parody account we’ve seen. Sample tweet:
Big Pete and Little Pete from Pete & Pete are launching an app that’s like BuzzFeed meets Instagram! RSVP by explaining what “hackathon” is
— SXSW Partyzzzzz (@SXSWPartyzzzzz) February 21, 2013
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