Web developers, content creators, entrepreneurs and aspiring cyberlebrities have packed Austin, Texas for this week's South by Southwest conference. The ten-day event, which runs from Friday through March 22, mashes up three different topics: Music, film, and "interactive," a euphemism for Internet and digital media.
SXSW's young, alternative-lifestyle demographic doesn't get excited by standard trade show booths and PowerPoint presentations. To get their attention, Intel has turned to young (or at least young-sounding) bloggers and gimmicks that include a taxicab in which attendees are interviewed while being driven around.
Intel is marketing its Mobile Internet Device product category. MIDs, as the company calls them, are handheld devices such as the Asus R2H or Samsug Q1 that are built around Intel's Atom processor, the same chip found in hot-selling, low-priced netbook computers.
As makerting efforts go, Intel's slang-talking blog isn't a surprise. Nor are the handful of Twittering Intel employes. More interesting is "Techcab Confessions," a video series in which San Francisco video blogger Irina Slutsky (it's pronounced "sloot-ski") drives a Chrysler 300C Intel-branded cab around the conference area, asking them flirty questions about their work and lives. "How big is your stack?" Slutsky prods one attendee.
The embedded video feed below mixes Techcab interviews with other clips featuring Slutsky and others. In one scene, sex writer and Internet pinup girl Violet Blue examines a vibrating, Tweeting couch.
What's the point of all this? It seems to be that Intel, which recently jumped on the "25 Random Things about Me" bandwagon about a month late, wants to convince self-styled geeks that the company and the gadgets its chips power are hip. They're cool. They're edgy!
Suggestion for Intel: Next year, offer to guest-edit Valleywag for SXSW week.
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