Brian Watson

I'm an analyst at Union Square Ventures. I like indie hip-hop.
I split my time between Brooklyn and the internet.
Posts tagged Kanye West

It’s so weird watching rappers becoming elder statesmen. I’m out for presidents to represent me. Well, now they do — and not only on dollar bills. Heavy responsibility lands on the shoulders of these unacknowledged legislators whose poetry is only, after all, four decades young. Jay-Z’s ready for it.

The House That Hova Built | NYTimes Magazine

It’s so weird watching rappers becoming elder statesmen. I’m out for presidents to represent me. Well, now they do — and not only on dollar bills. Heavy responsibility lands on the shoulders of these unacknowledged legislators whose poetry is only, after all, four decades young. Jay-Z’s ready for it.

The House That Hova Built | NYTimes Magazine

The Twitter RSVP System

Today, Nike announced a new way to reserve and purchase exclusive shoes. My intuition believes that this system is intended to relieve the mayhem around big shoe releases

All you have to do is wait for your local Nike Twitter account to “open” RSVP’s with a Tweet at a random time on the shoe’s launch date. You then send a DM with some information: the shoe’s hashtag, an ID number, and your shoe size. It’s that simple.

I expect Nike to soft-launch this system ASAP, and, hopefully, use it for a high-profile release (probably the Air Yeezy II’s) this Summer.

This is an innovative use of Twitter and a great example of using networks to solve real problems for new cultural groups. I’m excited.

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