Megan V: If it worked for you, great. But for me and many others, it was so problematic that it was worse than not having an app at all.

Ross Hill: It's not exactly our problem space, but I'd certainly take an hour or two to test out next year's app, and provide a useful critique ahead of time.

Chris Hopkinson: Glad to hear from you! I'll be interested to see next year's app, as there's certainly the potential for this to be very useful. This year, however, the app just didn't cut it for many folks.

Florian Albrecht: Ouch. There are lots of "edge cases" (time zones, international users) which I'd bet are hitting hundreds of people, large percentages of attendees. It's certainly not an easy problem, but many potential improvements are both obvious and needed.

bud: Well, I used it for Film as well, and didn't get any more out of it.

As far as features, what I'd like is the schedule, useful maps (of each venue), and actually, what SitBy.Us had - info on where my friends are. It doesn't seem to have any way to share contact info (which would be smart), no messaging, no truly current news that I saw.

You said "It isn’t unusual for an app meant for a specific use to not necessarily fit as well as a more general app might." I find that interesting. I think a specifically tailored app, for SXSW, would be the best possibility. It could be fully tailored to SXSW. From that, you might also be able to extract a general app, to be used elsewhere.

cm: Not exactly. There's a companion app, to go with a conference which costs a good deal of money to attend. It's an official part of SXSW, and thus, paid for, indirectly.

As far as using it every day for months? No. But I've used SitBy.us every day for this week, quite a bit. It's not a minor thing, for attendees.

slimjim: You nailed it - it was intended to make things easier, but wound up being problematic enough that using it was harmful. Hopefully, SXSW 2011 will be better.