The anticipation in the tech world is palpable, as SXSW Interactive kicks off at the end of the week. We expect to see lots of startups launch over the course of the event, and LaunchRock, the creator of viral launch pages for startups is putting the pieces in place to make its own, newly launched service even more useful.
We covered LaunchRock here last month, following the startup’s creation over Philly Startup Weekend. LaunchRock makes it incredibly simple to get interested users signed up for your startup service or product, pre-launch. LaunchRock has added more features, including an embeddable widget and an API so that you can integrate the service into your current sign-up process.
In order to incentivize startups using LaunchRock in conjunction with SXSW, LaunchRock is running a contest, with the support of CloudSponge, HootSuite, Posterous and Rapleaf to highlight the hottest startups in Austin. For the startup that gets the most signups using LaunchRock during SXSW Interactive, LaunchRock will give that company $1 per signup, up to $5,000.
In addition to the viral tools offered by LaunchRock, startups using the service will also get access to some new features that have been integrated into LaunchRock: the ability to easily import email addresses with CloudSponge, add a blog with Posterous, get insights on who’s signed up with Rapleaf, and track the buzz via HootSuite.
Even if you’re not using LaunchRock, you can go here and register to make sure you’re on the leaderboard. And while in Austin, you can discover new startups via that leaderboard.
