SXSW Interactive 2017 — Day 5

IBM Watson, Chewbacca at YouTube Corner, and airbnb on the Future of Travel

Published in

Red Spark Digital

2 min readMar 15, 2017

Day 5 seems a bit more of a wind down day as the last day of SXSW Interactive. I only went to one talk today. So I spent some time going to a couple of company lounges at IBM and YouTube.

I am a dynamo, apparently

IBM were showcasing various experiments at their venue. Like this one:

One other experiment in particular was IBM Watson guessing your personality based on several questions entered on an app. Watson decided that I am a dynamo:

“The Dynamo is an energetic individual who naturally captivates audiences. They are adept at bringing people together to work through problems, and are a seemingly endless source of ideas.”

Thanks Watson.

Chewbacca…Dad at YouTube Corner?

YouTube Corner arrived late in the week so popped in to see what it was all about. They had some VR set up showing off some of the YouTube VR content available. The one I watched was a short La La Land VR experience. Was I impressed?

YouTube also had a photo booth where you could create a gif selfie using a selection of props. I opted for the chewbacca mask. I like how it turned out even if my eyes look shocked.

Future of Travel with airbnb and Nomadic Matt

You might be aware of our product InspireFlyer.com — a flight search and travel inspiration website. I wanted to attend and find out what lies ahead in the travel/tech industry for travel. There were speakers there from airbnb, Hitlist and also Matt Kepnes otherwise known as Nomadic Matt who runs nomadicmatt.com. I managed to grab a chat with Matt to talk about InspireFlyer.com and he provided some good advice to move it forward.

Time to go home

I’ve reached the end of my trip to SXSW Interactive 2017, it’s been fun, hectic and I’ve learned a lot. Thanks to Bristol Media for co-ordinating the trip. It was good to have a group of Bristol and Bath types over there together. Time to go home.

Remember you can read all 5 days of my experience at SXSW Interactive 2017 here. You can follow me @digitaltob or Red Spark Digital @redsparkdigital on twitter.