‘Stock Market For Music...

Almost all currency is virtual — In that it relies on the people who are trading it to define its value. Thus we are an economy of taste by default, so it’s about time some startup owned the taste graph.  TastemakerX  has the potential to be that startup, with its ”stock market for bands” app allowing music snobs to build cred based on their early on talent-spotting. Like an Empire Avenue for the rock star-obsessed, TastemakerX lets you buy and sell shares in burgeoning musicians, earning ”Notes,” or virtual currency which in turn let you buy more shares. TastemakerX attempts to quantify and add an interface to the immense social reward we experience when we spot something first. I mean it’s almost Darwinian in a sense; the humans who could spot the ripest berries early on would be more likely to spread their genes to the next generation. Anyways this “good taste,” whether it be in berries, or startups or fashion is merely the ability to pick a winner so to speak, and has concrete evolutionary rewards. TastemakerX attempts to glean your musical taste by asking you questions in onboarding flow like “What’s the best music show you’ve attended?” and  ”What’s your favorite artist?” It can also pull from the music in your phone and algorithmically suggest options for investment (Pro tip: Don’t do this). If you don’t like any of the suggested artists you can search for them manually or follow artists your friends are following. Sort of how taste spreads in real life. This and next weekend, lovers of music will descend up on Indio, Calif to attend the three-day Coachella Valley music festival . I am here right now and my objective opinion is you have to come at least once before you die, it is amazing. Because it is the music hipster Olympics, one byproduct of Coachella is unsung bands like “Foster the People” become cloyingly mainstream because it exposes them to lot of people who have the power to influence other people who want to know about cool bands. Picture Y Combinator, but instead of startups it was a cohort of bands like Girls, Dawes or Felica. Or here’s the closest real life analogy I’ve got: A long time ago my friend Facebook messaged me that Gotye “Somebody I Used to Know” song, and was like “This song is going to be huge!” If only he were able to trade on that skill. TastemakerX has three core components a) the band stock exchange b) the data play on the test graph c) a social part of the app — like Soundtracking except for bands. In its barebones form it isn’t that impressive from a UI perspective, but what excites me the most about the idea is that CEO Marc Ruxin hopes to expand it to other verticals soon. I think it would be amazing and extremely helpful to investors if there were a TastemakerX for startups. Funny enough, Ruxin tells me when he was pitching the platform down on Sandhill, VCs would often ask him to make one for wine. Perhaps all you really need to know is that the startup is funded by Baseline’s Steve Andersen (among others), who just had an early stage double-header with OMGPOP’s ’Draw Something’ and Instagram, and that it plans on monetizing by holding sponsored Notes and racking up partnerships with brands and events. On Sunday it will post on its own webpage which bands are currently “trading high” on Coachella. Also, oddly enough there are a lot of tech people here in Indio; Because they’re (we’re?) the new rock stars. 3,000 TechCrunch readers who want to download the app can do so at  this link , by using the promo code: “GIRLS.”

Yahoo’s New Catch-All U...

One week after Yahoo announced it would lay off 2,000 employees , the company has now confirmed the second part of its restructuring: a reorganization that puts the company’s assets into three new business units — consumer, regions and technology, with at least one operation put to the side for a potential sale. The announcement, revealed to the company in an all-hands meeting as well as an internal memo earlier today (first published by AllThingsD ), was not released in a public statement, but TechCrunch understands that Scott Thompson, Yahoo’s new CEO, has put three different functions within the consumer division: media, “connections” (interactive and social businesses) and commerce. Regions meanwhile will oversee all of Yahoo’s ad business. And technology will provide the “science” and infrastructure that will underpin how the first two work. All three underscore just how much work Yahoo has ahead: Ross Levinsohn will be in charge of the media division . This will not only be the place where Yahoo’s own content operations will sit — that includes portals like Homepage, News, Finance, Sports, and Entertainment — but also the company’s newer forays into delivering content on behalf of other companies through the Yahoo Publishing Platform, which covers text- but also video-based content. (This might have been where, incidentally, it would have put Float , if that deal with Scribd had gone ahead.) It looks like the streaming video content is where Yahoo hopes to be banking the most activity, around upcoming events like the Olympics and the U.S. Elections. It’s also where so many others are moving, too, so the big question is whether Yahoo will be able to offer something in the quality or experience stakes above what we might see elsewhere. “ Connections “, or Yahoo’s different interactive and social properties, are going to be led by Shashi Seth, and cover services like Mail, Messenger, Flickr and Answers. To be sure, this is a challenging area for Yahoo, because it encompasses services where Yahoo has been relatively successful — Mail, Flickr and Answers — but has also failed to capitalize — social, where one of its most controversial recent acts has been not to launch a new product but a patent suit against Facebook. There are some interesting things underway with what Yahoo is trying to do — for example, with some new technology in its IntoNow social TV app (more on that later) — but again this is about whether Yahoo is doing something better that others are working on, too. It helps that Yahoo already has a big audience in other consumer divisions. One intriguing new territory for Yahoo is its new commerce division . This does not yet have a named head (although AllThingsD has pegged Sam Shraugher from PayPal to lead it), and it will put all of the company’s existing divisions where commerce already happens. That includes Autos, Shopping, Travel, Jobs, Personals and Real Estate. While while there may be new e-commerce ventures in the cards for Yahoo — it seems natural, given Thompson’s own background from PayPal and the fact that this is a $224.2 billion market this year — this is not something that the company is focusing on today. “We must focus all we do on the users who trust us to give them personalized content and communications, and the advertisers who want to connect with our users,” said Thompson in a memo to employees. “To be very clear, our highest priority is winning in our core business and that will earn us the right to pursue new growth opportunities.” Advertising , which will now be in the regions division, is equally challenging: As the market for online advertising continues to grow, Yahoo has seen a big decline in its share of it. Last year, according to eMarketer, Yahoo’s share stood at only 9.5 percent for all online ad revenues, down from a 15.7 percent share in 2009. And 2012 is a case (at best) of “it’s going to get worse before it gets better”: Yahoo’s share will only be 7.4 percent this year. The U.S. online ad market is expected to be worth $39.5 billion this year, up 23.3 percent over 2011. Display ads, where Yahoo has been strongest traditionally, is where it’s getting hardest hit: Yahoo’s share in U.S. display was only 10.8 percent in 2011, down from its peak of 18.4 percent in 2008. Facebook has overtaken it and now has a 14 percent share of display ad revenues in the U.S., says eMarketer. It’s telling that Rich Riley has been brought back to the U.S. to lead up the Americas team: he oversaw some very strong growth in Europe. Rose Tsou continues to lead Asia Pacific, and Europe/EMEA is now looking for a new head, with Christophe Parcot leading in the interim. Lastly, technology . This is a touchy area, with Yahoo having let go a number of people who were at the center of its R&D efforts, with some speculating talent migrations to Facebook and others to Detroit … Wherever it is, it ain’t Sunnyvale. You have assume for now that Thompson and his advisers have a bigger plan here, and are focusing on teams and products that haven’t been decimated by the restructuring announced last week. Areas that will continue to remain a focus for the tech team are the areas of user analytics, content optimization, personalization and monetization.

Travis Kalanick Says Ub...

Uber has built a business out of being, in the words of its founder and head Travis Kalanick, everyone’s private driver. But while the company is continuing to expand the number of cities where it operates, it is also building out a network to extend beyond vehicles and taxing people around, Kalanick said today. In a conversation with Alexia on stage at the London Web Summit today, he also laid out the first hints of when Uber plans to launch in London: it will be before this summer, when London is due to host the next Olympics. “We are definitely going to be here before the Olympics,” he said but also pointed to how important it will be a challenge and not necessarily one that it has faced before. “That will be a cluster for transportation, so we will have to have our game faces on.” In the world of cars for hire, London, for starters, has a tortuous tangle of streets and an extensive mini-cab network, encompassing not only small operations localized on different neighborhoods but also massive, London-wide fleets of cars that are ordered by phone, text message and often apps. That’s on top of the more famous (and expensive) black cab network. Taken together, that essentially means that Uber will be needing to disrupt not just one but two different, existing car services. (That’s to say nothing about public transport here, which is huge.) Kalanick notes that while Uber was originally about giving the experiences normally reserved for the “ultra wealthy” to the middle class masses, that paradigm has had to change with subsequent expansions. “When we roll out in a new city we are mindful of that city…we try to ingratiate ourselves in that city,” he said. “In New York it’s all about class and about being pretty classy, but in Seattle it’s more about grungy. So you do things differently because of that.” Apart from this, Uber has been pushing, bit by bit, the boundaries of what it is that it offers through its service. In Austin during SXSW last year it introduced pedicabs. This year, it added barbecue delivery to the ordering list (Kalanick today said of the BBQ service: “It’s creative and fun and people loved it. We delivered thousands of sandwiches.”) At the time, I pondered about how this might be a precursor to a time when Uber used its logistics network for more than just transporting you home from a bar late on a Saturday night — following the model of Amazon rather than Addison Lee . And so I was a little relieved to hear that Kalanick seems to agree. “I’d like to say that FedEx delivers packages tomorrow, and Uber delivers in five minutes,” he said, but once you are delivering a town car, why not something else? “Some of the things you will see we are building an urban and logistics framework. “What we like to say is that the vision for Uber is the cross between lifestyle and logistics. We are all used to seeing that on the internet. With the click of a mouse we are bringing that experience to the real world. I can now push a button to get what I want and it is delivered to me.”

Cadbury: Olympic’s 2012...

Cadbury have launched the ‘Cadbury Keep Team GB Pumped Parade’ to rally support for the British Olympic athletes in the lead up to London 2012. The virtual parade can be viewed from within a Facebook app on the Cadbury UK page which let’s users create an avatar to join the parade. Users can select their Related Digital Buzz Posts: Kung Fu Panda 2 Facebook Parade Google Street View Snowmobile For Olympics! Cadbury: 1 Million Facebook Fans Celebration

2012: The Year For Chan...

Editor’s Note: This guest post is written by Ruslan Kogan , the founder and CEO of Kogan.com , a manufacturer and direct retailer of consumer electronics. He is a serial entrepreneur, a controversial figure, one of the pioneers of online retail in Australia, and has become Australia’s wealthiest self-made person under the age of 30. 2012 needs to be the year sports teams around the world wake up and start realizing that their multi-billion dollar licensing deals with networks are about to become worthless. My company designs and manufactures TVs, and we see a gigantic spike in sales any time there is a big sporting event — the Soccer World Cup, the Olympics, etc. It’s clear that loving sport is an almost universal trait, which helps bring us together (or sometimes cause a bit of animosity). Let me explain: One of my favourite sports is tennis. A couple of years ago there was nothing better than a Federer versus Nadal encounter. I flew myself all over the world to watch this. I was in London for the 2008 Wimbledon 5-setter Final. I was also sitting front row for the epic 5 set battle that went on until the early hours at the 2009 Australian Open Final. This was some of the best entertainment I had ever seen, and it got me thinking about how we could better showcase more of what I just witnessed to the world. Most people were beginning to accept that the future of TV and content was heading online, and at the time, I was chatting with Google about YouTube Live, and their ability to broadcast live events to the world. And then it clicked: The ultimate showcase of sporting talent. I wanted Roger Federer to play Rafael Nadal in a best of three encounter. One match in New York. One match in Paris. One match in London. I put up US$20 million prize money to the winner. $0 to the loser. The event would be broadcast purely online. Passionate sports followers from all around the world would be able to tune in live or would also be able to watch the game at whatever time suits them. I thought $20 million would be enough to convince Federer and Nadal to create Internet history, while also showcasing the true business potential of the format. My talks with Roger Federer’s management broke down and the deal didn’t go ahead. I don’t blame him — at the time he was trying to become the first player since Rod Laver in 1969 to win the Grand Slam. Fast forward a few years and we’re slowly starting to see certain sports slowly realize what is about to happen to their industry (see the 2012 Super Bowl for an example ). What’s it going to take for sports broadcasting over the Internet to become ubiquitous? Rip is right: We shouldn’t be saying “wow” when top-level sports is shown live on the Internet in 2012. Hyper-targeted advertising My Federer-Nadal proposal would’ve allowed for the $20 million prize money to be recouped through the targeted advertising that online enables, rather than the shouting-at-the-masses approach that current broadcast advertising offers. By broadcasting a major sporting event live online, franchises could gain a huge worldwide audience. Using remarketing technologies available to today’s online marketers, they can also know a lot more about your viewers than one would with the current TV broadcast scatter gun approach. Plus, there would be a more accurate sense of the viewers location, their gender, their age, their interests and what other websites they like (both the Google and Yahoo advertising network can let you target based on these characteristics) – you would then be able to very accurately market with extreme precision to your worldwide audience of millions. One would be able to advertise the tennis training, for example, at the local tennis center that’s just down the road, or the racquet that Federer just used to hit an amazing cross-court winner, or the energy drink Nadal just sipped on to give him a huge boost in the fifth set. The possibilities are endless. The move towards precision targeting with this sort of marketing approach would mean that conversion rates on the advertising would be tremendous. And higher conversion rates, in turn, means a higher return on investment to marketers, which could result in marketers being willing to spend more. And when marketers are willing to spend more, you can sell the same advertising space you previously had for more money. In this instance, not only would you sell existing advertising space for more money, you would also be creating billions of impressions of advertising space that never existed. What the sporting bodies can learn from record labels The sports broadcast industry has been one of the slowest to move in this regard. For instance, the music industry was forced to come to terms with the fact that their major asset is not only the intellectual property rights they hold over the music, but the cult following that the artists have. Knowing this, they started to do product placement more and more successfully. It’s nearly impossible these days to listen to a song without hearing about a few Vodka and Tequila brands followed by a few upmarket watch brands. Almost every popular artist also has a clothing label or cologne or headphones named after them. The music industry should be applauded for accepting reality and working out how to turn the cult following that their artists have into a sustainable business during the peer-to-peer file sharing revolution. Why online sports broadcasting isn’t quite there yet The governing body of tennis, the ATP, simply provided too big an obstacle to my proposal. Many sports are run by bodies that are only looking to the next couple of year’s revenue figures. One of their most important functions (in their eyes) is to squeeze as many dollars out of the networks as possible for exclusive broadcasting rights. The bottom line is that “what is not sustainable cannot be sustained” and the way tennis and other sports are broadcast and commercialized will need to keep up with innovations in the media space. Hardware needs to play catch-up It’s clear that watching a fast-paced, professional level sporting encounter on a 13″ screen in a browser window isn’t ideal, particularly when big screen TVs continue to become cheaper and cheaper. The hardware industry needs to pull its weight here as well. There are a few solutions floating around in the Smart/Internet/IPTV space, but nothing that “just works.” There is no one piece of technology that you can show to your grandparents and say: “This is how you’re going to watch the Olympics. Enjoy!” There’s Apple TV, Google/Android TV, Boxee, Linux-based options, add-on boxes, and more. But as an industry we haven’t quite nailed it yet. We need to make some moves, and fast, to help enable this next era in live entertainment delivered through the Internet. Industry inertia The world of media and advertising is changing at a rapid pace, but the people up top who run the show are almost always scared of change. Nobody wants to be the one implementing the change, because that’s risky. Nobody gets fired for doing things the same way that everyone has done them in the past — but you could lose your job if you implement drastic changes that don’t produce immediate results. All of this could explain the battle that Steve Jobs had with all the recording studios over a number of years trying to convince them that they should be selling their music online — nobody wanted to be the one pulling the trigger on the innovation in case it didn’t work. You can’t fight it The world of sport has a similar challenge but they are not willing to accept reality and make appropriate changes – at least not when I approached them with a solution to the situation. You can always hear the rights owners of major sports around the world whining that their pay-per-view broadcasts are always ripped and re-broadcast online through free video sharing websites. The UFC even commented that they are dedicating millions of dollars to shutting it all down, but the moment they shut down 5 streams, 20 new ones pop up. You can’t fight the change the Internet is making to entertainment broadcasting, so it’s time to get on board. What the short-term future looks like As you know, YouTube recently announced the introduction of dedicated channels and premium content. I believe this is the precursor to YouTube disrupting every single existing broadcast network around the world, including the live sports industry. The hardware industry needs to make some profession — fast. Watching live entertainment needs to be simple and seamless. Governing bodies of sporting codes need to look beyond their multi-billion exclusivity deals and start accepting the reality of change. In doing so, they’ll quickly discover the technical precision this new format allows them, and soon start making more money than ever before, while giving consumers and sports lovers around the world an even better viewing experience. … What do you think? Should have Federer accepted my offer and made Internet history? How long before we stop being surprised that a big sporting event is broadcast live online?