I was introduced to a new company that is making a big splash here at this year’s SXSWi.  SpeedMenu is an Austin-based startup that is tackling this problem in an ingenious way.  The moment you order your first drink, the wait staff hands you a receipt with a location, table number and 4 digit PIN.  Pointing your cell phone to www.SpeedMenu.com and entering the location, table and PIN allows you to securely connect to your tab at the bar.  You can also visit the bar’s website and get automatically directed to the bar’s custom-branded SpeedMenu web application.  No need to download or install anything.  It just uses your cell phone browser.

Want to order another beer?  Simply click the reorder button of any item on your tab.  You can also select from a list of specials at the bar or you can enter a SpeedMenu code that orders items off the regular menu.  The ticket is printed at the bar station and the bartender starts preparing your drink within a couple seconds of placing your order.

Want to close your tab?  Simply click the close my tab button and your tab is printed out and ready for the staff to bring you your tab to close out.  You can pay with cash or credit card as usual and unlike other systems that try to replace the staff, you get a friendly “thank you” as you close out from a real human being.  The key is helping the staff during busy times rather than replacing them.

The level of sophistication goes even further.  With a free SpeedMenu account, you can track your tabs, see what you have ordered, what you have spent and can receive future specials at participating bars and restaurants.  SpeedMenu announced this week that they have integrated their system with Dinerware – a bar/restaurant point of sale system that has countless installations around the country.

“We looked at the technology in everyone’s pocket,” said Richard Bagdonas the CTO  “and realized that we could effectively extend the local POS system.”  When asked about security of the information being sent, Bagdonas said “we are not sending any personally identifiable information – period.  We don’t send credit card numbers or even a name.  We simply send a flag that says the person with tab 123 at table 54 wants another Bud Light.  The key is we do it in an encrypted and compressed format that provides two layers of obfuscation.”  What does that techno-jargon mean?  Your information is safe and you get your drinks faster.  The company is demoing the system at this year’s SXSWi and will be launching nationwide in April.

I enjoyed the game dynamic when I *played* Foursquare, and the overhauled interface in version 1.7 is refreshing. But, I don’t see Foursquare solving the problem I’ve been having with Twitter, and I really want to love Twitter again without the location noise. Gowalla 2.0’s tight integration around comments and photos has the potential to significantly reduce it *if* people stop broadcasting location to their public status. Granted, this doesn’t exactly benefit either company when it comes to customer acquisition, but I think it will improve the quality of public streams dramatically.

Twitter’s Pipe Could Benefit From Gatekeeping

For me, Twitter is now borderless and operates at internet scale. Twitter is largely an open protocol, but for a lot of people outside the technology sphere it’s mechanical and lacks relevance — in part to its innovative public API. I originally joined Twitter for it’s uniqueness at helping me connect with friends and locals, and enjoyed the social conversation that came from it. But then it transformed to news and event dissemination, one-way status updates, marketing, et al. and lost touch with the personality of locality. My usage of Twitter fundamentally changed with time, and I’m still using Google Reader regularly so I don’t buy the RSS-for-everybody argument.

While Twitter’s explosive growth has been nothing short of impressive, Gowalla and Foursquare bring new meaning to 140 characters when it’s contained in a more contextual environment that naturally revolves around being social with friends. This is the problem Loopt tried to solve from the beginning, but misunderstood the sensitivity of real-time location tracking and element of “fun” for early-adopters. They’ve tried to band-aid a solution but ultimately increased the complexity of the user interface and clouded the service. Loopt seems over-thought for a mobile experience, and the banner ads cheapen the service compared with Gowalla and Foursquares brand-centric engagement.

Gowalla and Foursquare Become More Public, Ignore Privacy Issues

The issue of privacy has largely been unaddressed by most LBS services, and Gowalla 2.0 expands its service to be even more public. There are positives and negatives to this. It’s certainly fascinating to watch location interaction, but privacy is something many people don’t fully appreciate until they’ve been violated.

PleaseRobMe.com scrapes the service of a more complex problem. Identity theft is an entirely different ballgame played by evil geniuses, it’s a complex form of social engineering and data mining. The cost of identity theft is staggering, up 37% since 2007 at $54 billion, the year social media began to show its face. Identity theft is serious business, in some cases it can impact a victim’s life for years making it difficult to apply for jobs or buy a house. It’s important these and other social services address the privacy issue head on. Depending on a consumer’s level of participation and habits, it’s not difficult to find their home and work address, location they last used their credit card, and the exact amount they spent god forbid they use the hyped Blippy service.

My biggest gripe with Gowalla is the friending process because it incorporates two of the largest social networking services that lack location relevance. I have tons of invites from people following me on Twitter that I know very little about. Facebook’s friends-of-friends is important in who I accept as a friend, and those feelings are even stronger in Gowalla. I hope to see location have more relevance in the filtering process, and an intersection where social ties are strongest across multiple networks. I also want the option to exclude myself from being visible on Gowalla.com and any public API. I don’t mind anonymous usage data but I value my privacy.

Gowalla’s Advantage Is In The Details, It Has Heart

Gowalla’s advantage is the emotion within the product comparable to that of Apple products, and big brands will surely love this attention to detail too. Gowalla has an army of designers. On top of its increasing utility, the sheer number of high quality, hand-crafted design assets they are accumulating will be a significant barrier against competitors.

Offering trips, stamps, pins, and now photos, the passport approach summarizes meaningful memories. Passports are the ear marks of life. When it comes to brand promotion, marketers will drool over the semantic data and opportunity to engage consumers on a unique level. Foursquare was more fun for a period, but the collective dynamic and utility offered in Gowalla 2.0 will be far more lasting. Here’s to a rocking SXSW 2010, go discover Austin!

Don’t forget: Kick off SXSW at Austin Tech Happy Hour tonight at Molotov.

Friday, March 12

2pm – If you’re an out-of-towner, check out Why Austin is the Killer App. Bijoy Goswami gave an abbreviated version of this talk at Ignite Austin and it’s one of the best encapsulations of the Austin tech scene that I’ve heard yet. It’s the perfect way to kick off your SXSW adventure.
3:30pm brings our first where-to-go-now decision (it won’t be the last) with three strong prospects

-Do Cool Kids Leave When the Suits Arrive? – Would love to see revenue/business models re-enter the social media conversation. We’re not earning money with our smiles.

-How Your Brand Can Succeed in the New Web – From a man who knows, Brian Solis

-Is Technology Weakening Interpersonal Relationships? – One of my favorite ATX tech women is on the panel, Jenn Deering Davis; I know she’ll have great insights. And this is a potentially volatile topic.

9pm – If you have a Gold or Platinum pass, join me at the premiere of the Bill Hicks documentary, ‘American.’ And if you don’t know who Bill Hicks is, I can’t help you.

Saturday, March 13

This is likely the least hungover you’ll be during your time in Austin, so take advantage of it with a 9:30am panel, Innovation Overseas: The European Startup Environment. Marten Mickos is sure to provide some interesting perspective

2pm – Opening Keynote: Danah Boyd. Happy to see a woman kicking things off in the keynote presentations. And interested to hear her insights on being publicly private in social networks. Or privately public.

3:30pm – Another good problem to have – Media Armageddon or Ze Frank? The juxtaposition is glaring: old media or web pioneer? I may hop between the two.

5pm – How To Spark a Movement in the 21st Century, from the folks at Meetup. Could be really thought provoking. If it isn’t, you’ll find me at one of the happy hours.

Sunday, March 14

Things look a little uglier this morning. You’re feeling the multiple happy hours from yesterday. And there’s a gauntlet of panels to face today. Rub some dirt on it, as my father used to say, and get back in the game.

9:30am – Get those synapses firing with some heady fodder: Exploiting Chaos or Story.Next with Dr. Sanjay Gupta (he’s famous!). The Adobe Sunday Brunch is also at this time, so you can refuel with breakfast tacos as needed.

Four excellent sessions at 11am:

-2009 Iran Election will hopefully settle an ongoing argument I’m having about social media’s true impact on real-world events

-Monkeys with Internet Access because I’ve been wanting to hear Clay Shirky.

-Online News of Tomorrow because I like Jeff Jarvis

-Yes Mr. Lessig, We Can Change Politics (11:20am) because I’m a political nerd

12:30pm – Though it’s clearly on the film track, A Conversation with Michel Gondry is listed in Interactive events. One of the most innovative and creative minds working today – a don’t miss.

3:30pm – *Cue self-serving segment* Beyond Algorithms: Search and the Semantic Web. Reasons to attend: I’m on the panel and have a history of arguing with Barak Berkowitz. And I’m clearly the least accomplished person in attendance. Check out the bios of my fellow panelists.

6pm – Get your geek on at the Data Cluster Meetup before you head out into the night. Sponsored by Rackspace, Infochimps, Wolfram Alpha, and Factual.

This is the best party night of the bunch, so go forth and enjoy. Mashable, PBS, Guy Kawasaki, Gowalla, Microsoft – hope you trained your liver last night.

Monday, March 15

I won’t lie to you – this morning is going to hurt. I’ll leave a bottle of Excedrin and a bag of breakfast tacos for you by the t-shirt stand downstairs.

If you can manage a 10am, go easy on yourself and check out The Art of Eating In. But if that’s too early, go to Making Content Relevant To Me at 11am.

Gary Vaynerchuk is talking at 12:30pm. I have no idea about what but it’s sure to interesting.

Then Ev Williams has the keynote slot at 2pm. Let’s gang up on him and force him to answer revenue questions.

3:30pm brings our last where-to-go-now conundrum (Thank God – I’m getting weary)

-‘Seed Combinators’, with favorite local Josh Baer

-AI 2010 because I’m a sucker for robots

-My Three-Year Old is My Usability Expert, because this seems a fascinating topic.

Did I say Sunday was the best party night? It might actually be Monday. Wired, Rackspace, TechKaraoke, GeekyBeach, Gowalla – even New Orleans is throwing a party tonight.

Tuesday, March 16

Last day! It’s a short one too so hang in there.

11am – The Chaos Scenario. Because I’ll listen to pretty much any NPR contributor. And because we’ll all be intimately familiar with the concept of chaos by this point.

2pm – Daniel Ek of Spotify gives the last Interactive keynote, in an interview with Eliot Van Buskirk.

There’s a closing party at 8pm. And then we all meander back into the real world, hopefully sharper, wiser, and only slight worn down at the edges.

Pre-register here for $7.50 and you’ll get two drink tickets and some snacks. Or pay $10 cash at the door.

We’ve also posted the details on Do512, Plancast, and Facebook.

We’d like to thank our generous sponsor for this event, Microsoft Bizspark. If you’re an early stage technology startup, the Bizspark program provides entrepreneurs fast and easy access to current full-featured Microsoft development tools and productions licenses of server products, with no upfront costs and minimal requirements. Each BizSpark Startup will have the opportunity to profile their organization in the BizSparkDB, an online Startup directory, and will get exposure to potential investors, partners and customers around the world.

AustinStartup is a Bizspark Network Partner. Send an email to editor@austinstartup.com and we can get you enrolled in the program.

Tool #1: SXSW N00bies, start here.

Take time to dig the SXSW website — I often start here with clients. There’s a ton of valuable prepackaged content on the SXSW website. First-timers have a tendency to get overwhelmed at first glance and avoid spending the necessary time exploring the website fully.

To be honest, the SXSW website runs very deep, and requires some quality time to find all the gems that you might not even know you’re looking for. But SXSW is all about serendipity, so allow yourself room to be surprised, even in your initial planning.

Here’s the SXSW first-timers guide and general 101 – start here and take an hour or so for a deeper dive. http://www.sxsw.com/first_time

http://www.sxsw.com/home/news/sxsw_101_posts

True expectation: there’s entirely way too much for any one person to do at SXSW — exploring the website helps you see a better lay of the land and make better decisions.

Solid solution: plan to attend everything that sounds interesting and make the game-time decision when it comes down to it – you can’t choose wrong; it’s all good.

Tip #2: Use apps that are optimized for SXSW

It’s all about location this year.

It seems that every year at SXSW, the biggest problems are trying to figure out where to go next, and what the hell everyone else is doing and why. When I’m glued to phone at SXSW this year, these are the apps I’m going to be using to solve these problems:

SXSW (official app) – The official SXSW app called, my.SXSW, is a valuable tool for those who live the structured life. My.SXSW has some nice sorting and filtering functions that literally can show any and all of official SXSW activities.

If you have the time (and desire), log-in to my.SXSW.com, create an account, and add interesting films, shows, and panels to your schedule. This process forces you to explore the ungodly amount of content that SXSW has prepared over the past year.

The app also has a great map function. For those who have never walked the fine city of Austin, Texas, SXSW is practically a city-wide event – sometimes it’s helpful to actually gauge what’s actually “walking distance.”

Foursquare – Foursquare is a veteran of SXSW from last year. This service/app incentives you to “check-in” and awards you “badges” for personal exploration. Each check-in alerts all of your friends on Foursquare of your location (by venue). The virtual currency talk is an interesting one for another day, but the real value at SXSW is knowing where all your friends are without having to text, email, or call. Plus, they have some cool promotions running this year, like this one in conjunction with Spin.

Superglued – Superglued is real-time coordination/information app developed specifically for the live music experience. It delivers gig-specific tweets, meaning by location and band, to your phone and streams everything being talked about at the show you’re attending without the hassle of hash-tags.

This app also has a complete list of the showlistings (both official and unofficial) and can alert you when hot shows are trending. These features are especially helpful when you’re standing still and not really sure what you’re supposed to be doing. Superglued is also integrated with Foursquare’s API.

Sit.by.us – Sit.by.us takes the idea of a “check-in” to the next level. When you check-in to Sity.by.us, your friends are alerted of your exact seat or area within specific panels at SXSW. This seems like the thing that Scoble is definitely going to pick up on.

Gowalla – Much like Fourquare above, Gowalla is a fun, location-based game that alerts friends of your presence when you check-in. Gowalla is throwing a fun SXSW party and is distributing virtual VIP badges around the city that can be discovered via the app. They are also extending their virtual items to redeemable, real-world counterparts.

Bump – Networking mavens: perk your ears up! This app is a new comer this year and is actually a finalist in the SXSW Accelerator, SXSW’s start-up innovation competition. The Bump app trades contact info and/or attachments from iphone to iphone simply by lightly bumping the two phones together.

Most assuredly, if you do SXSW right, your pockets will be overflowing with business cards by the end of the conference. Bump simplifies the input process by auto-magically dumping a cohort’s info directly into your virtual Rolodex, and it’s pretty fun to do, too.

Siri – Also a SXSW newcomer and finalist in the SXSW Accelerator, Siri is a virtual personal assistant. Much like a real assistant, you can literally ask Siri to do things like, “Siri, get me a cab. I’m way too drunk” or “Siri, remind me to call my mother tomorrow and let her know how fun SXSW is.”

Siri’s smarts can help you locate a restaurant; find movies for downtime, and can try to answer knowledge-based questions. Siri goes beyond voice search and actually takes action on your behalf; meaning, actually booking a cab vs. finding you the number – pretty cool stuff.

There’s a plethora of tools/apps that are applicable for SXSW; these are the ones that I’ll be playing with the most this year. For more SXSW suggested tools, look here.

Tip #3: Trust in your friends when your phone dies

Conference goers, testify – you might as well count on your phone dying once (I know I keep my charger on me and have an battery-powered emergency charger just in case).
With crap-tactular AT&T going down every 10 minutes, your beloved iPhone constantly searches for signal which eats tons of battery. If/when your phone dies, or even before then, look to social media for information when you can’t talk.

Facebook – “friends” tend to share real(er) details about their actual SXSW plans via FB. There are also some fantastic groups and fan pages that track and regularly update SXSW-related info targeted for attendees that intend to experience SXSW badgeless.

Here are the best SXSW pages I’ve found, thus far:

SXSW – This is the official SXSW Facebook page. This fan page hosts the official updates of SXSW and also doubles as a forum for folks looking to meet up and/or discover new aspects festival.

Unofficial SXSW 2010 Events & Parties – This guide updates regularly, features performers, and is geared towards the music audience. For those who look to get the most of the day parties, subscribe to the email list to receive a spreadsheet with all RSVPs. Proceed at your own risk – I’m building my own.

SXSW Badgeless – a Facebook fan page dedicated to the badgeless activities to participate in during the Film, Interactive, and Music festivals.

SXSW Baby! – Activity-based fan page that highlights SXSW’s activities as well as focusing on the logistical side of the festivals — i.e, food, lodging, navigating, etc.

Other Great Websites:

Do512 provides a complete guide to SXSW’s official/unofficial parties in addition to all the other fun stuff happening in Austin at the same time. Pretty much a daily unique in my book.

Plancast is another great tool. Plancast allows users to plan out their SXSW experience and share that plan with friends who are interested in checking out the itinerary. They recently announced one of the more complete SXSW guides I’ve seen recently and I’d highly recommend checking it out here:

Mashable’s Austin Realtime is an online directory that recently launched. It’s a place to connect with other social media fans. You can tag your interests, connect it with Foursquare, Twiiter, Gowalla, Youtube, etc. to share your social networking sites.

Twitter – a great way to digest a quick overview of SXSW chatter.

Tweeples (un)intentionally “leak” A LOT of sensitive information via twitter during the course of SXSW. Following the right people, i.e., the party organizers, the event organizers, influentials, bands, bloggers, etc., can help you beat everyone to the secret shows and hot parties before they close their doors due to capacity.

Don’t just use hashtags, discover them. Everyone is going to use #SXSW, #SXSWi, etc. but you never know what new conversations you can find with some quick searching.

[See my list of favorite ATX twitter peps below.]

Tip #4: SXSW Parties? RSVP! RSVP! RSVP!

What to expect? Nothing. What to get out of it (other than the free beer)? Everything.
There are film parties, music parties, interactive parties, happy hours, day shows, night shows, secret shows, unofficial shows, official shows, afterparties, etc. – point being, there’s plenty to do. The true challenge of SXSW is making sure you have an idea of what’s going on, and are prepared enough to get into the shows you want to attend.

Going back to my original point above, plan to attend everything that sounds interesting and make the game-time decision when it comes down to it – you can’t choose wrong; it’s all good. Here’s how you plan:

Do512’s SXSW-related Calendar

Austin Showlist

SXSW 2010: Austinist’s List of Day Shows, Afterparties, and more

How to find parties in the SXSW website – click on the conference that you want to attend (either Music, Film, or Interactive), select the “Parties and Lounges” sub-tab on the right of the tool bar, scroll to the bottom of page and select the day you are looking to party. From there, each party should have the respective click-through links to RSVP.

Once you identify everything you want to see, you can either add it to your my.SXSW calendar or create calendar invites for yourself and your friends – share the wealth, everyone needs help – it’s SXSW.

Great people follow for SXSW Rumors:

Music Twitter Handles:

@covertcuriosity

@happn_in_austin

@do512

@C3Austin

@Andylanger

@paramountAustin

@socialTNT

@mohawkaustin

@waterloorecords

@rare_caitlin

@pushermania

@superglued

@endofanear

@coolinaustin

@austinsound

@AustinChronicle

@atxhipsters

http://twitter.com/abusedgrymatter/sxsw

Film/Interactive Twitter Handles:

@sxsw

@joshdilworth

@BryanPerson

@austinist

@Rebfef

@Scottland

@PN_ATX

@dtotheryver

@johnrobertreed

@whurley

@rwwmike

@austinstartup

@joshuabaer

@omarg

@bjheinley

@laniar

@prhacker

@bmenell

@chelseabot

Some good blogs to look to for SXSW-related info:

http://republicofaustin.com/sxsw-party-rsvps/

http://do512.com/

http://ultra8201.blogspot.com/

http://austinist.com/

http://www.sonicitchmusic.com/

http://sideonetrackone.com/

http://ticktickbang.tumblr.com/

http://covertcuriosity.blogspot.com/

Parting thoughts:

Drink water. Don’t forget to eat. Wear comfortable shoes. Bring earplugs. Don’t drink and drive.

Have fun at South By Southwest this year! I’ll be running around like a mad man but would be happy to chat at any of the parties above!

[Disclaimer: The SXSW Accelerator, Superglued and Siri are all current or former clients of John Robert's]

Far from being just another “girl social hour”, this group of ATX Tech Women has more than a few goals geared toward their gender. Introducing women to some of the more testosterone-heavy activities in the tech industry is a major focus. These include anything from venture capital procurement to coding.

Being a woman in technology myself, I am excited to see this kind of action and let’s-do-this attitude from my tech female compatriots, who at times run from the technical aspects of the field.

If you’re like me and want to see more women carrying the tech torch, contact group organizer Carla Thompson, a fellow Austin Startup contributor and semantic web phenom, for more information on location/time and getting involved. She’s reachable at carla@guidewiregroup.com.

• David Gill, Director of Mobile at Nielson Company
• Michael Weaver, VP of Phluant Mobile, Inc.
• Traci Shoenberg, Director of Mobile Products, The Weather Channel
• Michael Baylee, VP, Amobee
• Tom Limongello, Business Development Director, Crisp Wireless
• Zaw Thet, CEO, 4INFO
• Brent Gaskamp, President, Collider Media

BidModo is live nationally in 80 cities with active connections in over 100 business service categories, with the company planning to roll out in each focus city when once they reach a critical mass of vendors. Austin is the first city to receive an official launch.

Founder Troy Schwartz, who ran a video company in Austin prior to starting BidModo, explained the company’s rational in a statement today: “I would regularly hear of companies in town turning to New York or San Francisco to hire for their video needs. And I can’t tell you how many times I’d meet people in Austin who would comment that they wished they knew I was here. It was time for a simple technology, an online market place, to connect businesses in a better way. That’s why we started BidModo.”

BidModo allows for business owners to post a service request and review a short list of suppliers that meet specific cost, need, scope and services requirements that are vetted by the online marketplace database. This allows for easy comparison of cost, vendor profiles and ratings from previous clients of the vendors. The value is saved time and money and the ability to link with the best possible vendor.

Vendors, on the other hand, have the opportunity to scan over 100 different business service functions and are able to complete an online profile for free. Vendors can then view real time requests posted in their local area, ideally saving them time and dependence on traditional advertising or cold calling leads. In addition, a vendor is able to use their dashboard to track sales conversion rates. Finally, the cost to a vendor only occurs when they are chosen to perform work.

There are several important components to BidModo’s online marketplace. The product clearly allows for an opportunity to capitalize outside one’s trusted word of mouth network, and it’s a great supplement to expand that network. Leveraging new technology to expand relationships allows for better working arrangements leading to reduced costs, better products and greater revenue for all involved.

Furthermore, the aspect of local is fantastic. Not only is there an immediate benefit between vendor and business owner, but a sense of community grows. With constant concern in Austin about expansion and its effect on our sense of community, BidModo may well be able to promote and assist in both aspects, but at the expense of neither.

I started BTTV about two years ago as something to do after moving to Austin from Minneapolis. I’d been touring about 8 years and running a record label for about 5. Having stayed with a lot of great people on tour I was always amazed by the hospitality and connections I made. I thought I could open that idea up and see where it went online. I knew there would be a big need for it. People now seem more comfortable getting acquainted online and meeting offline. About a year ago I asked Scott Miller if he wanted to help out. He’s a drummer and had done time touring as well. He decided to come along for the ride and since we’ve grown quite a bit. We are also working on a complete overhaul of the site while looking for a small bit of funding.

SXSWi legitimizes your company in some respects. Even if you have little to no money you can still buy a badge and make great contacts. I’ve been going for the past 5 years and still stay connected to people I met my first year. Being present at SXSWi signals that a young company wants to be taken seriously and wants to grow. Music and technology are at such an interesting intersection right now. There are so many great tools available to bands, fans and the industry as a whole. Startups like Bandize, TopSpin or Superglued each serve huge needs. It’s an exciting time both for tech and music.

As a small company SXSW is an extremely tough marketing environment. With out a blue chip budget it’s tough to make a dent . You have to get creative. So we came up with van and gear giveaway. We reached out to Gibson, Zildjian, Ernie Ball, Pro-Mark, Taye Drums and many others who gave us enough free gear to outfit an entire band. We’ll be cruising around all of SXSW, dropping in on day parties/showcases and Tweeting our location along the way. We’ll announce the winner on Saturday, the 20th and hand the keys over. People can go to http://betterthanthevan.com to register and follow us at @bettrthanthevan or hashtag #winavan.

The company is also on a hiring spree, seeking to add 100 new people to the company this quarter, with 75 of those positions being in Austin.

“Literally translated, Bazaarvoice means ‘voice of the marketplace.’ For the first time in human history, word of mouth is a digital medium, representing a shift that is more transformational and powerful than we could have imagined just a few years ago,” said Brett Hurt, founder and CEO of Bazaarvoice. “The ‘hidden’ impact of 100 billion impressions of user-generated content is the way that Bazaarvoice clients are using this content to transform the way they do business – rewriting the textbook on marketing and merchandising, improving products, increasing customer satisfaction and loyalty, reengineering channel relationships, and adopting entirely new processes based on digital word of mouth. I’m very thankful for our partnership with our clients, as well as our passionate culture of employees who innovate constantly and serve them at every opportunity. And while we’ve rapidly grown, we have also scaled the Bazaarvoice Foundation to give back to the communities in which we operate.”

Companies using Bazaarvoice gain a proven and innovative way to market with their customers in the channels where they shop, creating authentic conversations that deliver tremendous consumer value, drive real business results, and power organizational transformation. Bazaarvoice has published more than 40 case studies and numerous blog posts that prove the ROI of the company’s innovative solution suite and chronicle the most dramatic changes the company has seen on the path to 100 billion impressions.