Technology companies once again flocked to South by Southwest to take the stage to try to win attention as well as a few prizes for their innovations.

At Accelerator, part of SXSW’s Interactive programs, software start-up companies presented new and creative ideas in front of a panel of judges and sponsors to see if their ideas had what it takes to be the next Twitter, which hit it big at the festival a few years earlier.

The competition began with 32 start-ups in four categories: Entertainment, News Related Technologies, Innovative Web Technologies and Social Networking. On March 14 the contestants were whittled down to 12 finalists, and the next day the four winners were announced.

Among the winners was a company called Hipmunk, a travel website that sorts airline flights not only by price, but by the amount of “agony” it takes to get to that destination. Tango, a free mobile phone video calling application, was another winner.

Each winner also took home $4,000, a new iPad 2 and an Accelerator trophy. Sponsored by Microsoft and judged by the some of the top people at Google, IBM, Facebook and Craigslist, this year’s Accelerator might be the start of the Internet’s next big thing.