Reading up on this year’s SXSW festival in Austin, Texas it seems the show was dominated by the emergence of location aware social networking apps. In the past SXSW has been famous for launching apps that have gone on to change the world. Twitter was launched at the festival in 2007. In 2009 it was the turn of Foursquare. This year it seems to be the app ‘Highlight’ that’s grabbing all the attention. Glancee and Sonar are two other location aware social apps that are attracting some buzz, but the highlight of the event and the one generating all the chatter is Highlight. I cant see myself ever using it as the logo gives me a headache and makes me feel like I’m going to pass out, true story.

Highlight is a location aware people discovery app. It lets users find people around them with similar tastes and interests. It will also notify its users when such people are nearby. As CEO Paul Davison describes it, “[Highlight] gives you a sixth sense about the world around you”.  At a convention/festival like SXSW, I can imagine it’s proving to be a very popular app as people try and connect with others in their fields of interest and expertise but  the real power will be in building up your network in your local area.  Stalking potential aside I think this app looks great.  Now where is that Android version?