Brian Watson

"What happened over the weekend? At 8:34 on Friday night, Kanye West tweeted. He said he’d be..."

Thu, 23 May 2013 11:42:00 -0400

“What happened over the weekend? At 8:34 on Friday night, Kanye West tweeted. He said he’d be premiering a song in a half hour and we’d have to do what he said to hear it – we’d have to go to a particular address and stand outside with other people and watch a video projected onto the side of a building. Of course, the first video of the video was up within minutes, so most people didn’t have to do any such thing. “New Slaves” spread, the texting and Vineing and opining ran rampant. A few hours later even Michael Moore was Rap Genius-ing the song. The next night Kanye was the musical guest on the season finale of ‘Saturday Night Live,’ where he premiered another new song, “Black Skinhead,” performed “New Slaves” for the first time and stood alone while the cast hugged around him and the credits rolled. He came for us on wavelengths old-fashioned and new, inserting into our conversations two songs that are stacks of questions without answers. Received as part of Kanye’s 15-year career, they make sense – from the composition that is both heavy-handed and deft to the singsong retort of his flow and the lyrics that combine insecurity with callous certainty, that decry consumerism while refusing to give it up, that drag internal conversations in front of a mass-market, hair-trigger, blinkered audience. “New Slaves” is the “c’mon, c’mon” in the “All Falls Down” hook 10 years and millions of dollars later. He’s got more on the line now — a decade of living has made him less inclined to sugarcoat.”

- Kanye’s Marketing Plan

via, Kanye West Stands Alone: The Record

(not to be confused with his workout plan)

Kanye, aka “The College Dropout,” takes us to school on how to effectively market in today’s hyper-connected world.

1. Manufacture scarcity with bottoms-up techniques. Be the surprise guest, pop-up somewhere, debut your video in physical locations.

2. Allow that scarcity to percolate through social networks, along with other content worth sharing.

3. Finally, use top-down, broadcast mediums (i.e SNL) to push the message out to the rest of the world.

As a concluding example, Daft Punk executed this plan really well with a teaser at Coachella (scarcity), a Collaborator series (content worth sharing), and a full-album stream on iTunes (broadcast).

kenyatta: With all of the Yahoo-Tumblr reporting still going on...

Wed, 22 May 2013 17:53:57 -0400

kenyatta:

With all of the Yahoo-Tumblr reporting still going on right now it surprises me how many writers still mistake Tumblr for a “blogging platform.”

Anyone who has spent significant time on Tumblr knows that this whole “blog” thing is a front.

Literally.

70% of a given blog’s post traffic actually happens in the Dashboard. For some blogs, that percentage is even higher.

This makes things like ranking a Tumblr blog’s popularity through site traffic fairly dubious.

It also means that the value of Tumblr isn’t just in the original posts but the amplification of ideas through reblogs and the like.

This becomes apparent when you dive into Union Metrics for Tumblr and break down any given post’s reblog tree:

The network is larger than the utility.

Obama and the House It was inspiring to see the President...

Wed, 22 May 2013 17:50:32 -0400

Obama and the House

It was inspiring to see the President address Morehouse College’s 2013 Commencement. He discusses the importance of giving back, helping out, and (my favorite) realizing empathy.

I don’t particularly agree with the “convenient race-talk” commentary that has been used to describe this speech. It’s the first time I’ve seen the President give a speech by, about, and between African-American men.

And I will tell you, Class of 2013, whatever success I have achieved, whatever positions of leadership I have held have depended less on Ivy League degrees or SAT scores or GPAs, and have instead been due to that sense of connection and empathy — the special obligation I felt, as a black man like you, to help those who need it most, people who didn’t have the opportunities that I had — because there but for the grace of God, go I — I might have been in their shoes. I might have been in prison. I might have been unemployed. I might not have been able to support a family. And that motivates me.

So it’s up to you to widen your circle of concern — to care about justice for everybody, white, black and brown. Everybody. Not just in your own community, but also across this country and around the world. To make sure everyone has a voice, and everybody gets a seat at the table; that everybody, no matter what you look like or where you come from, what your last name is — it doesn’t matter, everybody gets a chance to walk through those doors of opportunity if they are willing to work hard enough.

Education isn’t just about academics - it’s about learning to think, to empathize with the world around you. It’s only been a year since I’ve graduated college, and this message couldn’t have come at a better time. In this Morehouse address, Obama reminds us that he understands what we’re going through, and it’s comforting to know that we’re not alone.

A friend put me on Mount Kimbie this week. This one’s...

Wed, 15 May 2013 19:10:38 -0400

A friend put me on Mount Kimbie this week. This one’s great.

nevver: Fred Wilson That moment when someone I work with is...

Wed, 15 May 2013 18:13:10 -0400

nevver:

Fred Wilson

That moment when someone I work with is reblogged by Nevver and StreetEtiquette.

drooodles: Geordi La Forge

Wed, 15 May 2013 13:53:47 -0400

drooodles:

Geordi La Forge

jeffreyalanlove: New work for today’s Wall Street Journal. ...

Tue, 14 May 2013 12:03:36 -0400

jeffreyalanlove:

New work for today’s Wall Street Journal. “Credit Cards Ruin Everything”

Thanks to AD’s Dan Smith and John Nichols for the call!

"Many people, especially economists, would argue that specialization is the best way to maximize..."

Mon, 13 May 2013 11:55:06 -0400

“Many people, especially economists, would argue that specialization is the best way to maximize productivity. While this may be true in the strict sense of economic output, offloading every chore and decision outside of our narrow area of expertise threatens to leave us so limited that we may end up handicapping ourselves in the real world, incapable of functioning without a vast array of people and services to deliver our most basic needs. Taken to an extreme, an extreme many now appear to be approaching, this total reliance on others serves to limit our knowledge and skills.”

- Do nothing nation | PandoDaily

Can’t get this article out of my head. The techie in me wants to automate everything, but I’m starting to cherish inefficiency as a means of creativity and exploration.

Alicia loses the Kanye production, changes the vibe, and he...

Mon, 13 May 2013 11:41:06 -0400

Alicia loses the Kanye production, changes the vibe, and he still doesn’t know her name.

Kanye West, “Hey Mama” Live on the Oprah Winfrey...

Sun, 12 May 2013 11:08:29 -0400

Kanye West, “Hey Mama”

Live on the Oprah Winfrey Show.

“Tell your job you gotta fake ‘em out.
Since you brought me in this world, let me take you out.”

I post this song every year. Happy Mother’s Day to all the moms out there.

"The problem with the way to make music today, these are turnkey systems; they come with preset banks..."

Fri, 10 May 2013 15:05:00 -0400

“The problem with the way to make music today, these are turnkey systems; they come with preset banks and sounds. They’re not inviting you to challenge the systems themselves, or giving you the ability to showcase your personality, individuality. They’re making it as if it’s somehow easier to make the same music you hear on the radio. Then it creates a very vicious cycle: How can you challenge that when the system and the media are not challenging it in the first place?”

- - Daft Punk’s Thomas Bangalter in an interview with Billboard, 5/10/13

This hits on an interesting topic that crosses over between music and tech. In technology, the phenomenon of abstraction(through services like Twilio and Stripe) are making it easier for entrepreneurs to create interesting applications while bypassing difficult technology infrastructure. In music, software (including Traktor and Serato) are allowing artists to quickly remix music by abstracting concepts like “beatmatching” to algorithms.

With every level of abstraction in music and technology, we become more powerful in the ability to push the boundaries of the technology’s application. This has led to startups like GroupMe, which make group messaging simple, and musicians like the Hood Internet, who mash-up existing songs into new ones. We’ve entered a world in which the user experience is the value-added layer of the application or track.

However, we need more innovators like Daft Punk and solutions like Bitcoin to continue to push the boundaries of the low-level infrastructure that define our system.

"There is a power law in the app rankings chart. In other words, there is not a clean linear..."

Wed, 24 Apr 2013 11:49:25 -0400

“There is a power law in the app rankings chart. In other words, there is not a clean linear relationship between rankings and app growth; instead it’s closer to a geometric shaped curve. […] If Kik is typically ranked twice as well as WhatsApp, I conclude we’re acquiring new iOS US-based subscribers are a rate that’s more than 2X faster than WhatsApp.”

- Kik vs. WhatsApp, via The Gong Show.

Daft Punk x Pharrell.

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 19:36:21 -0400

Daft Punk x Pharrell.

The Future of Commerce

Sun, 14 Apr 2013 20:10:42 -0400

Two models, depending on the type of good:

Products: online checkout with offline showrooming. Warby Parker has it right.
Commodities: storefronts act as local warehouses. You can visit the store, or a product delivery network will bring you what you need, when you need it.

Just a working theory.

I saw Jamie Lidell perform at Glasslands in Brooklyn the other...

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 07:52:25 -0400

I saw Jamie Lidell perform at Glasslands in Brooklyn the other night (via Will Call). This live remix really got me. Lidell channels a bit of Frank Ocean, Mint Condition, and Prince for the live remix of “She Needs Me.”

The hottest song on the web.

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 19:55:52 -0400

The hottest song on the web.

Per dm

Mon, 08 Apr 2013 10:51:07 -0400

The Twitter dm is my preferred mode of communication.

There are three things that make it so special:

It’s short and to the point. (Like this post.)
It’s available on every device.
There’s an explicit graph of connections.

Number three is the most interesting. As opposed to SMS or email, the sender can only contact you if you find them interesting (by following them). It’s a great filter for getting to know people while keeping your information in public.

I can only hope that Twitter shows the dm some love.

The Music Startup Continuum In addition to working at USV, I...

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 12:48:00 -0400

The Music Startup Continuum

In addition to working at USV, I spend some time as a co-organizer of a Music Startup Meetup here in NYC. The goal of the group is to bring together people building music startups and to provide them with access to entrepreneurs and music executives who can help them in that process. To date, we’ve hosted 6 meetups over the last 18 months with 305 members. Despite its infrequence, each of the meetups have been rated 4.5 or 5 stars, and I’m proud of that.

Since I’m trying to get back into this blogging thing (and in response to the music startup meetup on Thursday), I thought it would be worthwhile to explain my framework on how I think about music startups from a VC perspective. This framework explains the organization of music startups on the audience-side, in which consumers listen and engage with music.

On the far left of the continuum, you have blogs. On the right side, you have “catalog” services. And in the middle, there is a “radio” section.

The blogosphere is pretty straightforward, but many are surprised that it even exists within this framework. Music blogs are where most of us spend time discovering and listening to new music. However, they are decentralized and almost impossible to monetize. (The caveat being that we’re seeing more and more blogs aggregate along media networks. These are good businesses, if advertising is your thing, but they are rarely venture-backable.)

On the other side of the spectrum are the catalog services we all know and love (kinda): iTunes, Spotify, Rdio, etc. As you can tell, there aren’t many of these. The important thing here is that catalog services require large deals with labels to operate, and as a result, the value in these services are centralized. I expect there to be a “winner-takes-all” effect here, and thus investing early (when valuations are reasonable) can provide tremendous returns. All signs seem to point to iTunes and Spotify taking the crown here with Rdio as a niche alternative. However, you can’t dismiss the possibility of Amazon and Microsoft entering the mix. The larger players have the ability to subsidize the music catalog service as a strategic function of their other business activities.

The middle of the spectrum is where things get interesting. First, you have a slew of internet radio services, including Pandora, Songza, and iheartradio. Unlike catalog services, these don’t necessarily need label support to operate as long as you have a content wholesaler like MediaNet. These businesses are pretty straightforward. There is a cost per stream (as defined by your wholesaler), and to be profitable, you monetize the listener with advertisements. I expect online radio services to play out like terrestrial radio services. There will be big services (the online equivalent of Hot97 and Power 105) with a ton of niche ones. Rather than differentiate on genre, online services will be distinguished on their curation (algorithmic or people-powered), the user experience, and the context in which you listen to it.

Just to the left of radio, I have space for what I call social music services. These are the people-powered discovery services, like ex.fm, HypeMachine, and Turntable, that are predicated on the notion that a music taste graph exists that’s different than just your friends. They are more decentralized than radio and more centralized than blogs. Generally, these services are hard to monetize but the upside can be quite large (with network effects). I can imagine a world in which these social music services are more centralized, perhaps more capitalized, and at that point, this could slide along the continuum towards the right.

Given this framework, I believe there are a limited opportunities to invest in the music startup landscape on the audience-side, but it’s not a lost-cause. A few investment opportunities that come to mind are tools that play into the decentralized nature of blogs (i.e. SoundCloud’s embeddable player), networks that lower the cost of radio streaming, and more centralized social music services.

wandrlust: Polish Miles Davis Poster (1989) Designed by Roslaw...

Sat, 23 Feb 2013 13:14:43 -0500

wandrlust:

Polish Miles Davis Poster (1989)

Designed by Roslaw Szaybo

modelsofcolor: Kiko photographed for Vogue Japan February 2013...

Sat, 23 Feb 2013 13:14:31 -0500

modelsofcolor:

Kiko photographed for Vogue Japan February 2013 magazine.