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AUSTIN, Texas--When Chris Connolly sat down in his seat on the "Nerd Bird," the nonstop flight here from Oakland, Calif., to get to the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival, he had no idea that a new social discovery app was about to play a role in boosting his business prospects.

Connolly, the head of design at Foodspotting, had recently signed up for Highlight, a tool that helps identify potential new social matches by virtue of proximity and shared Facebook friends and interests. And now, as he settled in for the four-hour flight, his seatmate leaned over and said, &… Read more

AUSTIN, Texas--Walking around the halls at the South by Southwest (SXSW) festival here this week, it seems that almost everyone is looking at their phones. But while plenty are reading the latest tweets, checking in on Foursquare, or updating their friends through GroupMe, there's a whole new category of services that has captured people's attention.

Known as people discovery apps, these tools are helping SXSW attendees make new connections. Tied to users' locations, the apps identify where they are and look for matches with others nearby, mainly by identifying common friends or interests on Facebook.

Leading the pack … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--Path, which found itself as the target of outrage last month after it was discovered that its app was absorbing users' address books without notifying them, is promising to "hash" personal data it uses in the next release of its app.

The issue came up at a gathering at Path's headquarters in which it rolled out version 2.1 of its popular app.

Dave Morin, the CEO and founder, said that he handled the controversy as best he could. He said Path is working with Truste, a third-party certification company.

"We did what we thought … Read more

SAN FRANCISCO--Path is launching a partnership with Nike so that users can share their runs with all their friends on the social-networking app. It's also adding Schazam-like music features and enhancing its camera as part of version 2.1 of its iPhone app, which rolls out today.

"When you step out for a run, Path will...update and say you're running through San Francisco and perhaps even tell you it's a certain kind of weather," said CEO and founder Dave Morin, who hosted a group of reporters at its headquarters here in downtown San Francisco. … Read more

Three companies have combined forces to take a look at the state of angel round investing.

The Angel Resource Institute, Silicon Valley Bank, and CB Insights have revealed in their first Halo Report, a study on the current state of early-stage investment across the U.S., that California is, as many might expect, the top destination for entrepreneurs looking to raise cash.

According to the study, 21 percent of all investments were secured last year in California. The Great Lakes region, including Ohio and Wisconsin, among other states, accounted for 15.9 percent of all angel investing in 2011. New … Read more

Editor's note: This a guest post by Igor Faletski, whose bio is below.

Since the Apple App store opened on July 10, 2008, it has paid out more than $4 billion to iOS developers--70 percent of the $5.71 billion it has booked in revenue.

Pretty big numbers, right?

Well, yes and no. Yes, those are big numbers that make my head spin and dwarf my personal tax return. At the same time, the real answer has to be no.

In the mobile commerce world, $4 billion is significant, but it's not a headline. It's more … Read more

First things first. Take a deep breath. And now repeat the process.

OK, you're off to Austin, Texas, for South by Southwest Interactive, a five-day bacchanalia of panels, keynotes, parties, barbeque feasts, beer-soaked networking, and maybe even a little sleep. Just remember, if you want to be taken seriously there, don't call it South by Southwest. It's "South-by," or, in written form, "SXSW."

If you've never been before, it's OK to be stressed about what you've gotten yourself into. I've been six times, and I'm totally overwhelmed. And … Read more

There's a lot of ways to visualize your Twitter and Facebook feeds, but no one's ever gone down to the cellular level to do so.

Until now, that is. This morning, San Francisco startup Bloom released its latest iPad app, Biologic, which aims to bring an all-new metaphor to looking at the flow of information coming in from leading social networks.

Last year, Bloom--which was funded by Betaworks, SV Angel, and Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield, and which was founded by veterans of Stamen Design and frogdesign--released its first app, Planetary. That app brought a galactic approach to users' … Read more

More than 20,000 people will roll into Austin, Texas, this week for the annual South by Southwest Interactive festival. The question is, besides copious amounts of free beer and barbecue, why are all those people--a broad mix of marketers, entrepreneurs, journalists, and social media junkies--showing up?

Over the years, SXSW has gotten bigger and has morphed from being an insular technology conference with a tight community of regular attendees to a mainstream event that appeals to everyone from those SXSW veterans to thousands of first-timers who want to get in on the action.

With that many people on hand … Read more