Netizen

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Music: Some Soraya Darabi Choices (7)

I am most definitely going to Austin next year. It's a done deal. A startup I have been rooting for - FoodSpotting - looks like had a field day Sunday. 4,000 showing up for one event: it is called the street smart way of becoming the number one event at the Kumbh Mela of tech. Were they the number one event? I don't know. But 4,000 is a large number, no matter how you measure it.

There were so many launches and relaunches this year at SXSW, this magic number - 4,000 people - alone gives FoodSpotting an edge. They get to go home and claim this year - SXSW 2011 - was FoodSpotting's year. If those 4,000 people downloaded the app as they munched, this is going to be the year the service crosses the 2-3 million download mark. Three million would be half way to FourSquare. Two million would be on par with Instagram.

Offline Mode

I have been offline several days in a row now. Glad to be back online. Thank God for scheduled posting, I have still managed to blog daily.

I stayed away from Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Quora, AVC, Hacker News, TechMeme, Gmail, Google News, the whole nine yards. It was an experience. I missed the internet bad. But I also learned it is really important to be with people when you are with them, like really be with them. I used to be really good with it, and I am still not someone who is permanently glued to the smartphone when out and about - I take the time to smell the roses - but I still was not doing as well as I wanted to do.

I have some work cut out for me.

Time spent offline made me want to try out a phase of staying away from the usual suspect sites for a while to focus on only blogging about my startup idea. Time spent offline made me want to churn out a 100 page autobiography to feed to Amazon Kindle self publishing. Do you think people will buy? I am tempted to give it a try. I think I have a story to tell.

I am glad to be online. But staying offline several days in a row was a necessary exercise.

(Blogging live from the Apple store on 59th Street)