HOUSTON--The Planet, the global leader in IT hosting, today announced that it will join three social media powerhouses in sponsoring a Saturday night meetup during Austin’s South by Southwest SXSW Interactive Conference. The March 13 event will be at Emo’s Austin, one of the city’s premier music venues, beginning at 6:30 p.m.

“SXSW offers us the opportunity to meet up with our customers, and to showcase new products and capabilities”

SXSW is one of the largest launchpads for Web- and tech-savvy entrepreneurs who are bringing new creative content to market.

“SXSW offers us the opportunity to meet up with our customers, and to showcase new products and capabilities,” said Tom Blair, vice president of Global Sales with The Planet. “We appreciate the opportunity to partner with Tumblr, one of our largest customers, and to work side-by-side with Kickstarter and SoundCloud, who embody precisely what SXSW is all about – innovation, entrepreneurship and emerging social media technologies.”

“With so many Tumblr users in Austin for SXSW, this group event is a great opportunity to get together to hear feedback and bounce around new ideas,” said Tumblr President John Maloney www.tumblr.com. “We’re coming off a milestone month with more than 1 billion pageviews, so it’s a terrific opportunity to celebrate with our users and The Planet, which provides the infrastructure for our service.”

SXSW participants will find The Planet team at the Interactive show in booth 303.

For more information and to RSVP, visit www.theplanet.com/events.

About the Participating Companies

Tumblr – Tumblr provides users with a foundation for effortlessly sharing anything, from posting text, photos, quotes, links, music and videos via browser, phone, desktop, email and from virtually any location.

Kickstarter – As a funding platform for artists, designers, filmmakers, musicians, journalists, inventors and explorers, Kickstarter offers a creative outlet that inspires people to open their wallets by offering products, benefits and fun experiences.

SoundCloud – The SoundCloud platform lets users move music fast and easy. It takes the daily hassle out of receiving, sending and distributing music for artists, record labels and other music professionals.

About The Planet

The Planet is the leading provider of On Demand IT Infrastructure solutions, hosting more than 20,000 small- and medium-size businesses and 18.5 million Web sites worldwide. Customers have the power to choose from the broadest range of hosting solutions in the industry, from dedicated servers, Managed Dedicated Servers, Managed Hosting and data center colocation, all backed by 24x7x365 support. With the best choice of servers, software tools and world-class service, backed by state-of-the-art data centers and an enterprise-class network, The Planet turns IT into a powerful competitive advantage that enables customers to grow their businesses. For additional information, visit http://www.theplanet.com.