#1: GroupMe: I don’t normally use group texting in my everyday life, and the reason I know I’ll end up using GroupMe at SXSW is because I’ve already been added to 4 different SXSW related groups. One of the reasons I like GroupMe is because it’s more than just group text messaging. You can also share your location with your group (which is nice if you want to tell your friends where you are but don’t want everyone you know at SXSW showing up). GroupMe also allows you to share photos. Another app to note is Beluga (which was just acquired by facebook). Beluga has very similar features to GroupMe, but GroupMe seems to be more popular with my group of friends so it’s what I will be using at SXSW. Since GroupMe is a NYC based startup, I foresee a little east coast/west coast group messaging battle playing out at SXSW. Very similar to the Foursquare/Gowalla preferences last year.

#2 Plancast: While it is impossible to keep any kind of a schedule at SXSW, using Plancast helps me to at least know what I wanted to attend that day. The only way to plan anything for SXSW is to make “plans” is to make them before you go down to Austin. Plancast makes it easy for me to get a preliminary list of things I’d like to attend. I am using Plancast over the official SXSW schedule, or sched.org because I like the design better and I find it easier to use.

#3 Hashable: I have a love hate relationship with Hashable, but I will be using it at SXSW to keep track of people that I meet.

What made me decide to start using it again was the realization that I can keep all of my Hashable connections private if I want to.

#4 Foursquare/Gowalla: In my personal life I use Foursquare but I will be using both at this year’s SXSW for two reasons. Reason #1: I have friends on both platforms. If I really want to get a good idea of where everyone is, I need to look in both apps. Reason #2: There are more companies that have partnered with Gowalla this year, so I suspect you will need to check in on Gowalla to get access to different official events.

In general it’s just a great way to see where everyone is when you are in Austin. Things change pretty fast down there.

#5 picplz: Officially my photo sharing app of choice for SXSW. I like it because it doesn’t force me to make all my photos square, it will upload to facebook, twitter, tumblr, foursquare, posterous and even Dropbox! I want to make an effort to take more photos this year at SXSW, but I don’t want to be carrying around my DSLR. So my iPhone will have to do.

With SXSW quickly approaching I have more an more things on my to-do list. Hopefully these apps will help me keep it all together in Austin. And if you are going to SXSW, please say hi!

Vegan Yum Yum (Free): From the popular vegan blog comes a beautifully designed iPhone app full of great recipes to try out. What I love about the app is that each recipe has beautiful photos and very helpful step by step instructions. There are still a ton of things I want to make from this app.

VeganXpress ($1.99): This app is great for when you find your self looking for something to eat, but you aren’t exactly sure what’s vegan. I use this a lot on road trips when I end up having to eat a chain restaurants. It also has a list of food items (chips, cookies, candies, etc) that are vegan as well as a list of beer and wine.

Smoothies ($0.99): This is another recipe app, but only smoothie recipes. The recipes come from blogger Kathy Patalsky of Healthy Happy Life (one of my favorite vegan blogs). All the recipes are vegan and very creative! I usually take a very simple approach to smoothies, but this has taken my smoothies to a whole new level.

If you haven’t had a chance to take a look, here are the listed features. I have marked in bold the features that are unique to Tweetdeck:

• Tweet directly from your iPhone or iPod Touch.
• Manage multiple Twitter accounts.
• View notifications for new tweets received.
• Use columns to create your personal dashboard.
• Simply sync to set-up
• Continuously updates between your desktop and iPhone.
• Create Groups to easily follow all your friends.
• Follow topics in real-time with saved searches.
• Reply to tweets and send direct messages.
• Easily re-tweet messages.
• Share photos with Twitpic and YFrog.
• Shorten links with your favourite URL shortener.
• Follow and un-follow people.
• Shake your iPhone to refresh columns.

So of course I did what everyone else did and downloaded the app (it was free) but within the first few seconds of using it I noticed a huge missing feature. Go to User! I wanted the ability to type in someones username and see their tweets, followers, and be able to DM them. Within Tweetie this was a snap. You simply click the ‘more’ tab, and click ‘go to user’, then just type in the persons twitter handle and you are good to go.

This feature is especially helpful when you want to DM or @reply someone who you had not recently had a conversation with. In tweetdeck the only way to get to a userscreen is to click on that person’s tweet. So they would have had to have recently tweeted in order for you to find them. Well what if they haven’t tweeted in days, then what are you supposed to do?

Here is an example of what a user’s profile page will look like in Tweetdeck and then Tweetie.

I understand the usefulness of having columns, of having it sync with your desktop app, and putting people into groups. But without the basic feature so search through users, I cannot use Tweetdeck. So until that changes, it’s Tweetie all the way.