Charlotte, NC- Social media and social networking isn't the wave of the future, it is arguably a virtual necessity to compete in today’s global community. At a lunch date with the “Charlotte Hackers and Founders” meet up group, you'll find members of Charlotte's very active social networking community. They're people like Desiree Kane who is working to coordinate social media accessibility during September's Democratic National Convention. She says, “Charlotte is getting a lot of attention because of the DNC coming and right now, Charlotte wants the next big thing to come out of Charlotte."
Kane says, when it comes to social media there are lots of big ideas floating around the Queen City. The folks on OtherScreen are among them. OtherScreen Vice President Andrew Gertig says, "It is definitely my dream for people to start using the word or the phrase other screening, like they did googling." In case you didn't know, OtherScreen is like a bar trivia game, except you play it from the comfort of your laptop. What's on Fox News Edge, for instance, is the material for the questions.
OtherScreen is based in Charlotte. The company's co-founder, Garth Moulton moved here from Silicon Valley a couple of years ago. He met Andrew, and as they say the rest is history. But when it comes to Charlotte as a social networking and technology hub they agree, Charlotte is "an upstart that's really coming on strong. The infrastructure isn't quite here yet, but it is getting much better." They attribute that to more and more in person networking opportunities. Gertig says, “In the past there was somebody who could fix your problem, but you didn't even know he existed. Now we have this symbiotic relationship where we can help each other out."
But Moulton says, growing Charlotte to be mentioned in the same conversation as Silicon Valley will take some successful companies coming out of Charlotte. He says, that in turn could spawn jobs, which could reboot the Queen City's Economy. Desiree Kane says, "We'll see the rise of content strategists, content curators, web strategists, digital media story tellers." Jobs that are all rooted in social media. Jobs that could become another major industry in Charlotte, in addition to banking and manufacturing.
