Silicon Prairie News

1879_2c8d36aec3_small March 4, 2011 by Danny Schreiber

Austin We couldn't be more excited to announce the final details of our party at South by Southwest Interactive: the Silicon Prairie Party Presented by Hollrback on Sunday, March 13th. With the addition of Hollrback as our title sponsor, we have some fun things in the works. Launched out of Omaha this past January, Hollrback is an event-based contact management system. Their involvement in this party will bring a new level of interaction with a portion of our other sponsors – in addition… read more

1872_f1dcec87f9_small March 3, 2011 by Brittany Mascio

Omaha (Left, Jimmy Winter at SXSW Music 2010 with celebrity gossip blogger Perez Hilton. Photo courtesy of Winter.) With South by Southwest Interactive fast approaching, Rockdex co-founder Jimmy Winter gave me insight into what to keep an eye out for when he and his team land in Austin, Texas in the coming week. For RockDex, a web-based application providing the music industry with social… read more

1875_3499708008_small March 3, 2011 by Jeff Slobotski

Omaha A few weeks ago we debuted the phenomenal video (above) that the team at Malone & Co. put together to help us share the experience of our Big Omaha event. Since then, the video has been viewed nearly 1,000 times and shared by many on Twitter and Facebook. For those who haven't had the opportunity to attend Big Omaha yet, the video does an amazing job at capturing the energy and spirit of those in attendance, both from a speaker… read more

1874_18ace07a0d_small March 2, 2011 by Danny Schreiber

Des Moines Interested to learn more about Dwolla Spots? You've come to the right place, we'll be live-streaming the announcement. Here's a quick overview of the meetup tonight: Opening remarks by Ben Milne, Startup Presentation: Startup Weekend by Ben Reiser, Startup Presentation: Uppward by Nathan T. Wright, Startup Presentation: Scoreyard… read more

1871_3b80257a38_small March 2, 2011 by Danny Schreiber

Des Moines The new platform Dwolla CEO Ben Milne hinted as revolutionary last week in our preview post was announced today as "Dwolla Spots" and will be rolled out in the the next version of their iPhone app later this month. As the screenshot shows on the left (courtesy of Dwolla), Spots will implement geolocation services to let users find locations around them accepting Dwolla, and then once the transaction has been made users will be able to share it on Twitter, Facebook and elsewhere, bringing a more social experience to the way in which consumers spend money. One way to think about it is through a comparison with foursquare – while you check-in to venues after arriving there, you'd now "check-in" to a location after you've… read more

1870_10f631e336_small March 2, 2011 by Danny Schreiber

Kansas City Many thanks to the more than 130 individuals who made it out to McFadden's last night to help us kick off our expansion to Kansas City. We thought we'd wrap up the night by 8:30 p.m., but conversation about the growing community in and around KC kept us there until 10 p.m., and I know some of us wanted to stay for another hour. The individuals, stories and ideas we heard last night will be energizing… read more

1866_7005ad25e0_small March 1, 2011 by Royce Haynes

Kansas City (Chris Routh and Ben Tyson of Five and Fifty presenting at LAUNCH Conference on February 23rd. Photo by Ken Yeung via Flickr.) There’s a new deal in town and it’s called Five and Fifty, a Kansas City startup that provides businesses a quick and easy way to create a minimum 50% off deal that last for five hours. People in the local area receive the deal through text message, making it different from Groupon. “Five and Fifty is the first real-time…  read more

1856_b34da94db0_small February 28, 2011 by Danny Schreiber

Kansas City (Left, Bo Fishback presents Zaarly at Startup Weekend Los Angeles. Photo by Jim Alden via flickr.com/techfrog.) Over the course of three weeks, Zaarly will go from building a prototype and pitching Hollywood celebrity and startup investor Ashton Kutcher to aggresively launching at the tech industry's largest conference, South by Southwest Interactive. If their quick turnaround isn't turning heads by itself, the team is confident it's product will do… read more

The polls are open!

Through August 22, help us decide the winners of our inaugural Silicon Prairie Awards, which will recognize 12 companies and individuals. You can vote once per day per category.
Winners will be announced live on stage at
our August 30 event.

Vote!