At SXSW, Small Business Web Applications Work Together, Party Together

Over the past few years, the interactive part of South by Southwest, the giant music, film and technology festival held each spring in Austin, Texas, has grown into a 15,000+ attendee “spring break for geeks,” as some wags have started calling it.

As I’ve been one of those “geeks” who just wrapped up my sixth SXSWi, I’ll admit that such a label is well deserved. Over the years, the conference (the Interactive part of the festival is more conference, trade-show and party than “festival”) has grown from a small gathering of developers and designers of technology, into a giant “meetup” of users of technology who desire to connect with one-another and with those who develop the tools and toys they use to connect, work and play.

One of the highlights for me this year was to visit with several developers of small business oriented web applications. I was especially impressed with the way in which many of them, even those who compete with one-another, used SXSWi as a place to let people know how they’re working together to add a variety of ways their different software products can share information to make it easier for small business users to integrate numerous applications into the ways they organize, run and market their companies.

Many of these web application companies have joined together in “a loose coalition” called “The Small Business Web.” Despite their competitive spirit, they’ve chosen to have a big “group hug” when it comes to making their products easy to work with one-another when used by small businesses. (They were even handing out “Hug” buttons at a party in Austin).

And to underscore the evolution of the “integration” of these applications, right before SXSWi began, Google announced that many of them are available as part of their new Google Apps Marketplace, an approach that allows small businesses that use the premium service Google Apps the ability to purchase third-party web applications and integrate them into the Google Apps platform.

I enjoyed meeting several of the people who started and run these web application companies and was happy to inform them that SmallBusiness.com users have created many entries about their services. (Check out The Small Business Web Hub.)

Because of their low-cost and productivity-enhancing nature, I’m sure web applications are something small business owners are going to be learning more and more about in the coming months and years — and using them more and more, as well.

See also on SmallBusiness.com

•The Small Business Web Hub
•Web Applications Hub
•Google Apps
•Google Apps Marketplace