The South By Southwest Music and Film Festival also has a tech side. Two Blacksburg companies are on the way to Austin Texas. They’ll compete for awards in what’s become the festival’s fastest growing program: talks on emerging technologies.
The allure of the South by Southwest festival is not only the new music and art. A company called Twitter introduced it self to the world there in 2007. Now, hundreds of startups compete for slots at the annual gathering. Nathan Latka is CEO of “Heyo.” His Blacksburg company is an invited guest at the week long conference.
"What Heyo helps businesses do, is that some people just have an idea so it helps them start their idea, it helps them grow their idea into industry leader through our marketing software, which helps them build fan pages, mobile applications and websites," says Latka.
Latka says Heyo cuts the time and cost to create special tabs on a Facebook page geared for a specific task. Companies might use these to run real time promotions. Celebrities could use them to better communicate with fans
Nathan Latka was an architecture student who dropped out after the business he created in the proverbial late night dorm room caught fire. But at first, all he had was a vague idea finding ways to improve what he identifies as the experience of social media.
