Right before the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas a couple weeks ago, some of you may have read about SimpleGeo’s awesome location data visualization tool called Vicarious.ly. The site showed location information coming in to SimpleGeo from Austin in realtime, and included elements such as Foursquare check-ins, Gowalla check-ins, geotagged pictures from Flickr, and geotagged tweets from Twitter. It was really interesting to watch in realtime, but it may be even more interesting in hindsight. Luckily, SimpleGeo has released a video to show the data over the span of just about a week (March 11 to March 17).

As you can see, Foursquare and Gowalla clearly dominate the data. This is in line with what we heard in the midst of the so-called “location war” between the two. It’s also kind of fun to watch the early hours of the morning when everyone is clearly asleep, and then watch as the data comes roaring back to life around 8 AM as festival-goers undoubtedly nursed hangovers to head to the convention center.

Today, during his keynote address at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, Spotify CEO Daniel Ek had a big revelation: “On certain days, we’re consuming more Internet capacity than Sweden has as a country.”

Ek made the statement when asked why Spotify chose to use a P2P model, rather than centrally store all of its music in one place and stream it from there. Ek noted that if they were to stream from one UK datacenter, they’d consume all the bandwidth. So instead, they leverage the power of the Internet to get their users to help them stream to other users.

Ek also said this was primarily the reason that Spotify is a native application, rather than a web app. P2P streaming is a bit more complicated than streaming from one source on the backend of things, obviously.

When asked why Apple (which of course, runs the largest music store in the world, iTunes) doesn’t use the P2P method, Ek said that was the “million dollar question.” He then speculated that they will move more towards Spotify in terms of being in the cloud (something we’ve written about a few times), and having a subscription model.

Ek noted that Spotify is now in six countries and has over 320,000 paid subscribers. That’s up from 260,000 the last time they mentioned it. Overall, they have some 7 million users now. And yes, that’s largely without the U.S. where the service only exists in a very limited closed beta as the company negotiates with the labels for music rights.

We’re here at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas where Twitter co-founder Evan Williams doing a keynote Q&A with Umair Haque. Williams may use the time to talk a bit about Twitter’s upcoming ad platform. Update: It’s actually an “At Platform” called At Anywhere — more here.

Interestingly enough, Twitter saw its first burst of popularity three years ago at this very conference.

Below find my live notes (paraphrased):

UH: Ev you have something pretty interesting you want to say today?

EW: Yeah, we want to announce something. We wanted to announce our new “At Platform” (undoubtedly to be spelled an @ Platform) – a way to integrate Twitter into any website. “At Anywhere” – basically this allows you to place the Twitter hovercards on any site. We have 13 sites we’re launching with including Amazon, ebay, Yahoo, Digg, Bing, Meebo, Salesforce.

UH: So what can you do with this?

EW: You can easily tweet from any page that is using this. Also, maybe you want talk to authors of posts without going to Twitter itself, you can just hover over their name and tweet them. Twitter is a very easy way to keep in touch.

UH: So this helps you contextualize information. But why would sites use this?

EW: A connection to users you didn’t have before – and it keeps people coming back. And it will result in more followers for a site. Also, hopefully more people who are your fans using twitter to talk about you or your content. And you can bring in users’ tweets talking about your site.

UH: So it’s a platform to juice up site’s networks and virility. But it’s an “At Platform” not an “Ad Platform”.

EW: Yeah, it’s about lowering the barrier for information.

UH: What makes 21st century businesses different? Like Twitter? The first principle to me is experimentation. Why are you willing to explore different possibilities?

EW: Experimentation lets you create value. “Whatever you assume when you start out, you’re wrong.” Most of the great businesses of our time have experimented. Like Google.

UH: So it’s about creating value, then figuring it out?

EW: Yes, it’s about creating experience for users and businesses. There is a ton of business use on Twitter today — it’s one of the biggest uses. We want to make that better, easier, faster.

UH: What is Twitter evolving to?

EW: What is Twitter has always been a tough question to answer. We think of it as an information network — different from a social network. It’s about getting info and also sharing. You can take advantage of Twitter without sharing anything about your life. We need to increase the signal-to-noise ratio.

UH: So better information, better connections, better choices.

EW: Yes.

UH: Experimentation is about iteration. So how does that happen at Twitter?

EW: We have a bunch of awesome people in the company now. We’ve grown very quickly over the past year. Our employee growth curve is almost like our user growth curve now. We have people on focused teams, like mobile, or internationalization. We’re worried about central thinking and slow processes. So we tell our teams to “go for it.”

UH: So what’s your role?

EW: I don’t get into the nuts and bolts of code, cause things would be a big mess. I spend most of my time thinking about the high level issues. And I think a lot about the company – how do we scale the company, about our culture, etc. How do we define the characteristics we want. I think there is a parallel between the service and the company — openness is huge, transparency.

UH: So openness is very important. Help us trace the arc of openness at Twitter.

EW: Yeah, it means a lot of things. We debated if openness or transparency. “A window is transparent, but a door is open.” The users have taken Twitter and morphed it into what they want it to be. Now developers are doing the same thing. Openness is really a survival technique.

I sit down with new employees when they start and go over 9 assumptions you should have about working at Twitter. One key one is assume there are more smart people outside the company than insides.

UH: What about giving the golden goose away? Why be so open?

EW: That was a big question for us – the deals with Bing and Google. These were the first guys we shared our full stream with. There’s a lot of debate about that. Because we don’t have a business model yet, so why give it away? But we went back to the principle of giving users the most value.

There are 50 million tweets a day, how do we show you the best ones for you? Right now, we don’t do a good enough job of that. But with these partnerships, we have more chances to do that.

UH: Was there a lot of internal debate about this?

EW: Yeah, there was a ton. But we decided it was good. And now we’ve expanded the deals – like with Yahoo. And a few weeks ago we talked about giving this data to thousands of others.

Now third party developers are building a lot of value. Like adding pictures to Twitter.

CoTweet and HootSuite are really interesting too. Twitter.com isn’t a good interface for doing customer support, but those guys are. CoTweet just got acquired by a company that wants to focus on that more.

We’d love to see much more focus on creating these deep experiences that create value.

UH: So experimentation and openness. Other companies want control, like Apple. How open are you guys?

EW: We’re pretty open – there is some control we need to employ because if we were infinitely open we’d be doing a disservice to users. Openness can work against you still. It has to be managed a lot. Having an open API makes it easier to make apps that will spam users. We send cease and desists everyday to companies making spam tools. We have to exert some control.

UH: I think shepherding is a good way to put it. So you had some interesting use recently – such as the earthquake in Chile.

EW: I got an email recently about the earthquake, thanking us for helping with the situation. This is very gratifying for us because we’ve always held it important for Twitter to reach the weakest signals in the world. We started out with a big focus on SMS – and it’s still really important to us. Because it reaches so many people. We have deals with 65 carriers around the world to send these SMS tweets.

We’re at the beginning. We’re seeing really strong growth in India where SMS is huge. And in the Middle East.

UH: I think this changing the world stuff is the future for entrepreneurs. It gets to the heart of the point about inclusiveness. So – what is an “active user”?

EW: To me it comes back to – is someone getting value out of Twitter? If they don’t have an account it’s hard to know, like people who search Google for tweets. In the beginning we put a lot of focus on telling the world or your friends and family what you’re doing. But now there is something interesting on Twitter for everyone – like the Flaming Lips being on Twitter, you can get updates on the band.

And as more people start getting information on Twitter, they’re more likely to get involved.

UH: Someone has started using Twitter inside the White House, right?

EW: Yeah, it’s really interesting that it’s from in the White House. It’s an official channel, but they’re using it a different type of way. It’s about reducing the walls between people with a lot of influence, and those who they influence. And that’s the most profound promise of the Internet. This is the wave I started on 10 years ago with blogging. It’s about the democracy of information. Anyone can put information on the web — that’s huge.

UH: Tweet Minister in the UK aggregates the tweets from members of parliament. This is re-wiring society in some ways. But we also have a counter-force – like state control of information.

EW: In some regions, yes, this is bad and hurting the web. But the Internet is a tidal wave that you will not be able to keep out. Like in China, who knows how long those firewalls will hold up – but not forever.

UH: Yes, there are many ways to get through the firewalls already. There’s a lot of pressure on them.

Let’s talk about “betterness.” I booked a trip to his five star resort in an exotic land. When I got there, it was a shack. The manager couldn’t do anything — so I put it on Twitter. Within 15 minutes the booking company called me, and in 20 minutes I got a new hotel. In a half an hour my vacation was fixed.

EW: That’s great. Our hope is that this is the norm, not a fluke. We have a bit of a dichotomy, because there is more everyday you want to search for. We don’t just want to maximize that, we hope to make Twitter more useful to you. We want to decrease time you spend on Twitter, not increase it.

Recently we went through a process to define our operating principles. The number one principle is “be a force for good.” Another principle is “pay attention.”

UH: David Pogue did a campaign against hidden charges from the carriers. It’s the same thing with the hotel operator and me. I know you’re a big fan of Warren Buffet – he also believes in creating real value.

EW: Yes, from a business perspective, Twitter needs to fundamentally be about helping people make better decisions. Or the help something happen that normally wouldn’t. Like the donations to Haiti through text message — we weren’t taking the money, but it spread virally through Twitter. People want to help each other out, we need to reduce the friction.

UH: Is that what you want to do with the new At Platform?

EW: Yes, totally. We’ll see what happens, the obvious stuff is more tweeting, but I think it’s a lowering of the friction as well.

UH: You ask yourself, how would i make Walmart better? Why ask yourself that?

EW: Because as we look at how businesses are using Twitter – we want our tool to help businesses get better.

The world is so often a black box where there is no communication. There’s a lack of dialogue and a lack of transparency. The promise of all these technologies is that this goes away. You close the loop.

UH: Outline for us your big picture goals.

EW: Fostering the open exchange of information. To be a force for good. The ease of exchange of information is important. Help out other people with something as small as a retweet. That’s our ambition.

UH: Google is all about archiving the world’s information. Yours is different — creating new information.

It’s all about advantage though – what’s your advantage.

EW: Our advantage will only come if everyone wins. We only do win-win deals. Because any deal where someone is losing is unsustainable. That’s why we haven’t turned on the revenue yet — there’s a lot of low-hanging fruit, but none of it is sustainable.

Creating an advantage for other people and not giving them a reason to work around you – that’s key.

UH: Is the Internet making a better media industry?

EW: I think there’s a huge shift going on – but it’s an ecosystem where everything is involved. This user-generated content just makes things richer. Blogging and traditional media work together. Twitter compliments traditional media. I was talking last night to some guys from CNN – it’s helped them change what they do. It’s a win-win.

UH: How will the At Platform speak to that?

EW: Hopefully these guys will us it to get the new out there.

UH: What makes you tick?

EW: There are two types of entrepreneurs. What drives me is creating things that didn’t exist before. Your product or service should be at the end of the sentence: “wouldn’t it be awesome if…”

It’s creating new stuff versus extracting from old stuff. There are people who look at money as the goal versus the teams. I create businesses to make new things. It’s a fuel for creating more things in the world. I’ve been lucky to stumble upon things that have helped change the world.

UH: Why focus on these things though?

EW: Largely luck. But maybe it’s what interests me. Twitter was a side project of Odeo – my cofounders came up with it. Blogging was a side project too at one point.

UH: If something is awesome, people will use it.

EW: Yes.

Also, helping others succeed is a sub principle of ours.

UH: Tell us one or two more of them.

EW: Be a force for good, pay attention — make things happen is another one. There’s also building a culture of trust.

UH: What are your big lessons to other entrepreneurs?

EW: Create something you want to exist in the world. Another is focus. Many people are trying to do a lot of things when they should be doing one thing. You may be wrong with whatever you’re trying out, but you’ll try other things.

A lot of the great companies are now coming from outside Silicon Valley. You don’t have to be there.

That’s a wrap.

While a lot of the smaller startups like Foursquare and Gowalla are getting much of the buzz at SXSW, Twitter isn’t sitting idly on the location sidelines. Sure, they launched location integration on their site a few days ago, but they’ve also apparently set up a sub-site totally around location for SXSW. But here’s the weird thing: It’s only for stalking their employees.

As co-founder Evan Williams tweeted out earlier, sxsw.twitter.com shows you a Google map of Austin, Texas (where SXSW is held) with tiny Twitter logos overlaid on it, showing Twitter employees at the conference tweeting.

The site, which is clearly tailored for mobile usage (it looks great on the iPhone, for example), has two areas: “Twitter People” and “To Meet.” The Twitter People area is the one that shows the map and the tweets overlaid on it. The To Meet area is interesting because it asks, “Which of these sound like awesome things to work on?” and gives you a few different options to click on.

For example, if you click on, “Making fast and sexy applications” it takes you to a list of various Twitter employees at SXSW that you should meet. If you click on “Partnering with Twitter,” you get a different list. Clearly, Twitter is using this site for both new employee recruitment, platform expansion, and partnership opportunities.

Twitter, while now fairly commonplace in the mainstream (especially the media), first rose to fame among early tech adopters during SXSW three years ago.

Brightkite is tricky. Tricky and smart.

While larger than most of their location-based rivals with over 2 million users, they know that in the past year they’ve lost some momentum to the newer check-in services like Foursquare and Gowalla. So they’re trying to do something unique to swing momentum back in their favor.

Today, at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, Brightkite is unveiling its new Group Text service. It’s both a feature on the website and a standalone application in the App Store (it should be available shortly). With it, Brightkite is latching onto one of the most popular and fast growing categories in mobile applications: group texting. Unlike regular text messaging, this type of app allows you to message many people all at once (and go back and forth). And better, in a world where cell providers are still managing to rip-off users with their text message bundles or $0.15 rate per-text, group texting is absolutely free.

Services such as textPlus have already made the functionality very popular on the iPhone, and now Brightkite hopes that will translate into converting different types of users over to its core location-based service. The reason is that built-in to the Brightkite Group Text app is the core Brightkite functionality itself. While it’s a bit buried to the left hand side of the menu, you can both check-in at venues, and get check-in updates from other users in the app.

It’s a smart play. As other location services such as MyTown have proven, there’s a market to get users outside of the traditional early-adopter crowd into location by doing something novel (in their case, a straight-up Monopoly-type game). Group texting users seem to be rabid about the software, so why not give them a little location-based bonus to play around with if they desire?

At the same time, this app provides a nice compliment to the Brightkite service itself. With it, users get another social outlet to communicate with, sending messages or pictures, and having them threaded both in the app and online. And yes, it still works with traditional SMS messaging, as Brightkite was lucky enough to be granted a texting shortcode (41414) and it can work with these threaded conversations. For example:

By adding three digits to the end of the code, each person can now have 100 simultaneous threaded text conversations running on their phone.
41414-001 = conversation 1
41414-002 = conversation 2

And thanks to the SMS support, you can contact anyone in your address book, not just those using the app.

The service is now live on Brightkite’s site, and look for it later today in the App Store.

Last night, we wrote about a CauseWorld teaming up with TechCrunch to provide double karma points during the SXSW festival starting today in Austin, Texas. These points, obtained through checking-in at various locations, can be used to donate to charities through big brands that support the app. It’s a great feature, and we hope you’ll use it in Austin. What we didn’t talk too much about is the app itself that enables it, CauseWorld, which just released a new version of its iPhone app in the App Store.

We first covered the app back in December, but now it has been significantly upgraded. One of the core ideas behind the app has always been the intersection of the mobile and physical world (something I’ve thought a lot about as well). A new feature bridges the gap a bit more as you can now scan barcodes on individual items with your iPhone to earn extra karma points. Proctor & Gamble are the ones sponsoring these points on different products they make. It’s a good idea, because even if you choose not to buy the item, it forces you to pick it up and look at it a bit.

This feature points to the bigger idea that CauseWorld parent Shopkick is thinking about when it is ready to launch its flagship product (CauseWorld was born as just a trial site of an idea, but quickly ballooned into an app with over 300,000 downloads). It’s the idea that the cellphone is the only interactive tool you carry in a non interactive setting at all times. So why not use it to make the physical retail space more interactive, Shopkick CEO Cyriac Roeding reasons.

Another huge addition to the CauseWorld app is a social layer. Previously, the app was all about what you did. But now you can hook it up to Facebook (which will earn you bonus karma points) and share the progress and donations you’re making with your friends. On top of this there are new features such as gifting which will help the app virally spread through social networks.

This social layer also allows for a leaderboard to be created showing which of your friend have donated the most karma points. Sometimes social pressure is the best way to get people motivated.

Again, CauseWorld stems from trying out an idea to see what would work with the larger Shopkick plan when that eventually launches. But the response to it has shown Roeding enough that he believes ”the next big thing after the check-in is the check-out.” Given the big brands they’re signing up to support CauseWorld, he just might be right.

You can find the new CauseWorld 1.5 in the App Store here. It’s a free download.

We’ve talked a lot this week about the so-called “Location War” brewing at the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas starting tomorrow. That war will happen, but actually, there are likely to be a lot of winners because a few of the location-based services should be able to leverage the exposure to gain usage after the conference. Those with real bloodlust should probably be watching another war: AT&T versus everyone in Austin on their network.

AT&T’s struggles to stay up last year are well-documented. CNN recently ran a piece about how AT&T hopes to avoid a similar fate this year. But actually, “struggles” is way too kind of a word. If you were at SXSW last year and happened to be on AT&T’s network — like, say, if you had an iPhone, like many festival-goers did — it was an absolute nightmare. You couldn’t make a call. You couldn’t send a text. Data? Ha. At a few points early on I seriously wondered if I had forgotten to pay my bill and AT&T had simply shut my phone off — except that it was happening to everyone.

AT&T has a funny word for the failure, they like to say “unprecedented.” As in, the usage of its network was at level previously unseen as a strong percentage of the over 10,000 festival goers (just the interactive part) were using iPhones. Well guess what? Word is that is year, there will be some 15,000 people there for the interactive part. As Samual L. Jackson’s character, Mr. Arnold, says in Jurassic Park, “Hold on to your butts.”

I’m leaving for Austin tomorrow and I’m terrified of what the AT&T situation will be when I get there. So much so, that I have a back-up plan (which Sprint sent me just in time to test out during SXSW after reading some of my rants against AT&T). With attendance up as much as 50% from the previous year, the number of iPhones in use is sure to be through the roof as well. Did I mention that just about every location-based service known to man is launching an app at the event and hoping every single one of those 15,000 people use it all the time? And based on the early signs, they intend to.

You’ll remember that after Mr. Arnold says the above line in the movie, he’s savagely ripped limb from limb by a velociraptor.

But there may be hope for AT&T. They’re clearly well aware of the failure last year, and did try to solve the issue to minimal effect towards the end of the conference. I asked a company representative what they’re planning to do this year, and they have a plan of attack.

Much of what they sent me is fairly technical, but basically, they now have a system around the Austin Convention Center (where SXSW takes place) that’s the equivalent of 8 cell sites, with 50 antenna nodes to cover the whole venue. Also, they’ve greatly expanded network capacity, moving from one radio network carrier to three, boosting the spectrum available for phones to use. They also say they’ve expanded the capacity of the so-called “high quality” 850 MHz spectrum, which works better indoors because those signals can go through walls more easily. They also have the new HSPA 7.2 software installed at all of the 3G cell towers now. But don’t be confused: that doesn’t mean their network has been upgraded to 7.2 Mbit/s speeds (sadly, at the peak, it’s still half that in almost all of the country), it just means that the upgraded software is in place and should be more reliable and efficient.

But there’s more. AT&T has brought in two Cells on Wheels (the so-called COWS that they brought in to help last year), and also a third rooftop temporary cell site. Each of these are equipped with both 3G and WiFi networks to help alleviate overall network strain. AT&T says these three cells are placed in optimal positions around the city of Austin where they expect the most strain.

All of that sounds great, but I’m still terrified. Why? Because I live in San Francisco. AT&T has known for months that the network is awful here, and while there have been baby steps taken to improve it in some areas, more often than not, it’s still awful. Take tonight, for example. So if AT&T knows it’s bad here, but still can’t seem to fix it, why should I believe Austin will be any different? I don’t. I’ll just have to hope I’m wrong.

Or I’ll have to kick back, relax, and take joy in the bloodbath as iPhones are magically turned into glistening bricks being hurled in anger left and right. As I boot up the Sprint Hotspot, of course.

[photo: universal pictures]

There are no shortage of location-based services launching this week at SXSW in Austin, Texas. Many of them allow you to “check-in” places to let others know you are there. So how do you differentiate between then and decide which to use? Well, here’s one good way.

CauseWorld, is a free iPhone and Android app that lets you check-in places, but it has an added real-world bonus: big brands give money to charity when you do so. And this week at SXSW, CauseWorld is teaming up with TechCrunch to offer double point (which they aptly call “karma”) when you check in to one of over 50 venues around Austin (I’ll paste the full list at the bottom of the post), including the Austin Convention Center (where SXSW is held).

We’ve covered CauseWorld, which is the first offering from the soon-to-launch ShopKick, a few times now. It’s a great product because it takes an area that is red hot right now, location-based check-ins, and converts it into good deeds in the real world. For example, if you check-in at a store, you may earn 20 karma points. As you continue to accumulate these, you can turn them into real dollar donations for causes such as water in Sudan or trees in the Amazon. Brands such as Kraft Foods and Citi are currently giving the donations based on what users choose to trade their karma points for. The best part is, you don’t even have to buy anything — you simply check-in at various venues and earn the points. And again, this week at SXSW, checking-in with the app at a bunch of venues will earn you double karma points.

And like any good service with a gaming element, there’s a leaderboard to show who has donated the most karma points. And yes, checking-in can earn you badges, such as the TechCrunch one show in this post.

So if you’re going to be in Austin for SXSW this week. Or really, if you just want to do some good with your mobile device, check out CauseWorld. Find it in the App Store here, or in the Android Market (on your Android device).

Below find the 54 participating double karma Austin check-in spots:

1. Aces Lounge
2. Alamo Drafthouse
3. Amsterdam Café
4. Austin Convention Center
5. Austin Music Hall
6. B D Riley’s Irish Pub
7. Barbarella
8. Beso Cantina
9. Bob Bullock Theater
10. Buffalo Billiard
11. Café Mozart
12. Carver Museum and Cultural Center
13. Cedar Door
14. Chupacabra Cantina
15. Chuy’s
16. Clay Pit
17. Club Deville
18. Cuba Libre
19. Dirty Dog Bar
20. Elysium
21. Emo’s
22. Emo’s Annex
23. Flamingo Cantina
24. Hyde Park Bar & Grill
25. Iron Cactus
26. Karma Lounge
27. Kenichi
28. Kerbey Lane
29. La Zona Rosa
30. Lambert’s Downtown
31. Lustre Pearl, Lustre Pearl Bar
32. Malaga, Malaga Tapas & Bar
33. Malverde
34. Mellow Johnny’s
35. Molotov Lounge
36. Moonshine Bar and Grill
37. Opal Divines
38. Palm Door
39. Red 7
40. Red Eye Fly
41. Rudy’s Country Store and BBQ
42. Rusty Spurs
43. Salt Lick BBQ
44. Spider House Café
45. Stubb’s BBQ
46. Stubbs
47. The Belmont
48. The Best Wurst I
49. The Highball
50. The Scoot Inn
51. Uncorked Tasting Room
52. Velveeta Room
53. Victory Grill
54. Vortex Repertory

The official Foursquare account just sent out a tweet letting everyone know that today is already the service’s biggest day ever. This is interesting since it’s actually the day before the SXSW conference kicks off in Austin, Texas.

According to the tweet, Foursquare broke 275,000 check-ins (the previous record, set last Friday) for the day “hours ago.” This means they’re very likely well past 300,000 now and perhaps even higher. To put that in some perspective, just a month ago, Foursquare set a record with 1.2 million check-ins for the entire week. And that was double was it was the month prior. At today’s rate, Foursquare would be doing well over 2 million check-ins a week.

Today happens to be the first birthday of Foursquare, so they shared some numbers earlier. The service now has over 500,000 users, they’ve given out over 1 million badges, there are over 1.4 million venues in the system, with over 1,200 specials available. And in total, there have been some 15.5 million check-ins. But that was before today’s record numbers.

While there are well over a dozen location-based services launching something at SXSW, the main two competitors vying for users’ time are expected to be Foursquare and Austin-native Gowalla. For its part, Gowalla noted that it was “Amazing to watch the Gowalla action on the eve of SXSW. AMAAAAAAZING!,” earlier today. Both recently revamped their websites, and both yesterday launched their new iPhone apps. And judging from the Vicarious.ly data provided by SimpleGeo, both are absolutely on fire right now and could go nuclear this weekend.

Update: Gowalla has a range of just about every possible venue you can imagine for SXSW and so far (again, the day before the conference), they’ve seen 352 check-ins at the SXSW Badge Pick-Up alone.

Back in November of last year, the location-based social event service Hot Potato launched at our Realtime CrunchUp. Today, they’ve taken what was a solid service, and made it a lot better with a number of upgrades.

First and foremost, there is a new iPhone application that just went live in the App Store. With a completely revamped user interface, the app makes it easier than ever to find and participate in events. Perhaps more importantly, it makes it really easy to create new events — and notably, the service has the nicest third-party Foursquare integration I’ve ever seen. When you click on the button to create an event, you can still manually enter a location, but if you happen to be around the venue, you can simply pick it from Foursquare’s list of venues with the click of a button. This drastically simplifies the event creation process since the venue metadata is already there.

This new app will be crucial for the SXSW festival in Austin, Texas, which starts tomorrow. If you’ve been reading TechCrunch over the past week, you’ve undoubtedly seen that just about every location-based service has an app they’re unveiling. And another service based around planning events, Plancast, just launched their app this evening. But Hot Potato offers the best of both worlds as it allows you to both plan future events, and interact with ones currently taking place. The new app makes it very easy to chat about the event, and upload photos and videos.

And they’ve cleaned up the stream of information around these events. There is now a filter to show everyone commenting, or just your friends. There are also now number indicators to show unread items. And the check-in process has been simplified thanks to big green buttons that make it obvious.

Also new for SXSW is Twitter integration. On a case-by-case basis, Hot Potato will be pulling in tweets about certain events at SXSW, using a filter to make sure only relevant ones show up. You’ll be able to do things such as filter those tweets to show only those by people you actually follow, which will make them potentially much more meaningful to you. You can also reply to tweets thanks to integration of Twitter’s API. And you can share tweets from within the app that will show up as retweets on Twitter.

Another new features is Calendars — something which each Hot Potato user now has. Obviously, you can add the events you wish to be a part of to your calendar, but people you are friends with on the service can also add you to other events as well. The app also now features Push Notifications now (on top of revamped email notifications).

On top of the new app, Hot Potato has rolled out a completely revamped website with just about all of the same functionality of the new app (as well as the new look and feel). And at the highest level, Hot Potato finally has its own social graph, which can pull in friends from the usual suspects: Facebook, Twitter, your address book, etc.

And here’s something that should really help Hot Potato this week: each time someone checks-in to a SXSW event with Foursquare, that service will recommend they also join the event on Hot Potato. Clicking on the accompanying link provided in the Foursquare app with open the Hot Potato app and let them join the event with a click (if they have an account). As you might expect, you can also check-in to a venue on Foursquare within Hot Potato. With Foursquare likely to be one of the key apps used by conference goers, this cross promotion is simply huge.

On top of all of this, the service now has its own full API, so others can use and interact with their data.

Simply put, all these updates are full of win, and make a good app even better. And remarkably, they’ve managed to cram in all these new features while at the same time simplifying the overall experience.

Fine the new iPhone app here in the App Store. It’s a free download.