Editor’s Note: Having been in Seattle for a wedding I was unable to make TechCrunch Disrupt conference. However, SoundCtrl co-founder Jesse Kirshbaum stepped up to the plate to cover this amazing conference. This is what he had to say…and feel free check out what I wrote last year.
I had the opportunity to attend TechCrunch Disrupt in NYC this Monday.
First of all I want to say Arrington and his TechCrunch posse know how to throw a good party. That was always the rumor and TechCrunch I believe launched throwing parties in Silicon Valley to build awareness… Similar to the way we launched SoundCtrl in the Alley.
Anyway, the conference was first rate: Production wise, the venue was this warehouse, there was slick branding, well oiled staff, free food, amenities, top notch speakers and the attendees were diverse.
I didn’t spend much time in the Startup Battlefield but I did get a chance to stop by and get my mind blown by my man Alan’s new company Bre.Ad. and heard that Gobbler was going to be there tomorrow (read SoundCtrl interview).
I was really focused on seeing the only music component of the conference – the conversation with Alex from SoundCloud and Steve Jang, from SoundTracking.
However, leading up to that talk, I was lucky enough to catch the NY Tech Icon Fred Wilson from Union Square Ventures do a fireside chat with the NY based editor of TechCrunch.
I thought for VCs it was very interesting how he made the announcement it’s better to be an anthropologist than a technologist. He dug into that analogy with the thinking through great eras of innovation, things moved in three stages. First decade or two infrastructure is built. Second phase applications and in the third is where the cultural revolution happens. He was early on the applications or the brands of this web generation. Now he’s looking to support the business of the Internet Age’s cultural revolution. I’m interested in hearing more about that Fred on that awesome blog of yours.
He also addressed the 4 big trends in tech right now are: Moving to the cloud, mobile, social and global.
When our man Frank Denbow asked about the music industry, Fred responded he doesn’t really invest in the music industry right now because its balance of power is really concentrated making it really hard for entrepreneurs. The one company he invested in within his portfolio in the music industry is SoundCloud.
Dennis Crowely hopped on stage next rocking a ‘Cuse hoodie but laid the groundwork to Arrington way in advance of him speaking. He wouldn’t allow questions on raising capital, valuation and partnerships. Although it really kept some juicy things off the table and left Michael talking about some stupid shit like his modeling career and some partnership for a phone they are launching with Facebook, I liked how he views FourSquare as social utility and never as a game.
Then a few more all-stars hit the stage like Arianna Huffington, Charles Dixon and Dave Morin from Path and then they brought up to the sage Steve Jang from SoundTracking and Alex from SoundCloud. (Starting to see a pattern here with companies winning in the music space and the word Sound connected to the front part of their name?!)
The moderator, due to lack of time decided to skip the conversation on barriers to innovation in the industry and dove right into social and how it’s playing into these two applications.
Alex answered that with SoundCloud in modern times, creation is easy to do. So where social comes into play is that once the art is created, unless you share it, it will not be discussed. The interesting part of social that he noticed is not so much the consumption, but that the more content that is shared, the more feedback there is which leads to excitement and more creation.
Steve who founded SoundTracking, on the other hand, noticed three key uses for social with his app.
- Search and discovery and finding music
- Social validation
- Social expression – SoundTracking is great with this.
They then they dove into trends they see happening:
- Massing engagement through collaboration. Imogen Heap used songs in the head.
- Major artist sharing music before its done like 50 Cents been doing and asking folks to collaborate on his unfinished songs.
- Ways to explore “Geo-Tagging” and the “Music Interest Graph”.Where folks are listening and what they are listening to that information, that new data will be useful to his company as well as to the music industry as a whole.
Alex ended the panel by announcing “the music industry is better than it has ever been.” Sure there is a decline in recorded music but the way he sees it, there is more opportunity to create and share music then ever before. Now we just need to convince the VCs, to understand that as well!
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TechCrunch Disrupt 2011
0Editor’s Note: Having been in Seattle for a wedding I was unable to make TechCrunch Disrupt conference. However, SoundCtrl co-founder Jesse Kirshbaum stepped up to the plate to cover this amazing conference. This is what he had to say…and feel free check out what I wrote last year.
I had the opportunity to attend TechCrunch Disrupt in NYC this Monday.
First of all I want to say Arrington and his TechCrunch posse know how to throw a good party. That was always the rumor and TechCrunch I believe launched throwing parties in Silicon Valley to build awareness… Similar to the way we launched SoundCtrl in the Alley.
Anyway, the conference was first rate: Production wise, the venue was this warehouse, there was slick branding, well oiled staff, free food, amenities, top notch speakers and the attendees were diverse.
I didn’t spend much time in the Startup Battlefield but I did get a chance to stop by and get my mind blown by my man Alan’s new company Bre.Ad. and heard that Gobbler was going to be there tomorrow (read SoundCtrl interview).
I was really focused on seeing the only music component of the conference – the conversation with Alex from SoundCloud and Steve Jang, from SoundTracking.
However, leading up to that talk, I was lucky enough to catch the NY Tech Icon Fred Wilson from Union Square Ventures do a fireside chat with the NY based editor of TechCrunch.
I thought for VCs it was very interesting how he made the announcement it’s better to be an anthropologist than a technologist. He dug into that analogy with the thinking through great eras of innovation, things moved in three stages. First decade or two infrastructure is built. Second phase applications and in the third is where the cultural revolution happens. He was early on the applications or the brands of this web generation. Now he’s looking to support the business of the Internet Age’s cultural revolution. I’m interested in hearing more about that Fred on that awesome blog of yours.
He also addressed the 4 big trends in tech right now are: Moving to the cloud, mobile, social and global.
When our man Frank Denbow asked about the music industry, Fred responded he doesn’t really invest in the music industry right now because its balance of power is really concentrated making it really hard for entrepreneurs. The one company he invested in within his portfolio in the music industry is SoundCloud.
Dennis Crowely hopped on stage next rocking a ‘Cuse hoodie but laid the groundwork to Arrington way in advance of him speaking. He wouldn’t allow questions on raising capital, valuation and partnerships. Although it really kept some juicy things off the table and left Michael talking about some stupid shit like his modeling career and some partnership for a phone they are launching with Facebook, I liked how he views FourSquare as social utility and never as a game.
Then a few more all-stars hit the stage like Arianna Huffington, Charles Dixon and Dave Morin from Path and then they brought up to the sage Steve Jang from SoundTracking and Alex from SoundCloud. (Starting to see a pattern here with companies winning in the music space and the word Sound connected to the front part of their name?!)
The moderator, due to lack of time decided to skip the conversation on barriers to innovation in the industry and dove right into social and how it’s playing into these two applications.
Alex answered that with SoundCloud in modern times, creation is easy to do. So where social comes into play is that once the art is created, unless you share it, it will not be discussed. The interesting part of social that he noticed is not so much the consumption, but that the more content that is shared, the more feedback there is which leads to excitement and more creation.
Steve who founded SoundTracking, on the other hand, noticed three key uses for social with his app.
They then they dove into trends they see happening:
Alex ended the panel by announcing “the music industry is better than it has ever been.” Sure there is a decline in recorded music but the way he sees it, there is more opportunity to create and share music then ever before. Now we just need to convince the VCs, to understand that as well!
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