We missed a year of SXSW and the thing grew ten times in size. We hit town Sunday, March 11 to participate in NYTech Meetup’s Made in New York Event—and the few hours we spent outside of it was like visiting a tech Mardi Gras in the middle of Texas. Google and Blackberry houses had colonized the south of downtown, ringed by specialty food carts like chuckwagons. VCs and CFOs were giving presentations on budgets in dive bars a block from Marc Maron’s live broadcast, while FedEx employees wearing jackets that functioned as USB docks encouraged you to power your phone off their arms (I kind of thought this should get more attention than the homeless wi-fi stations, just from an “invasion of the machines” Matrix perspective).

The NYTech Meetup event was smashed with attendees and lines so long one of our team members was turned away. It’s the kind of thing that helps establish a start up. Along with companies such as Tatly, Sonar, and Etsy, we got to pitch Vook for six hours straight to a constant stream of SXSW attendees. The event was held at the Cedar Door on 3^rd street with a free flowing bar—which meant the questions became progressively more abstract as the evening progressed. But what more could a young company want than the opportunity  to explain our product to as many smart people as possible? We can’t thank the NYTech team enough for launching this event and including us. Jessica Lawrence spearheaded our involvement and much of the activity that we witnessed. She and the NYTech Meetup have built something powerful. And personally, it was as much fun as reading the constant NYTech listserv emails, which is saying something.