Earlier this week, I took part in Infinity Ventures Summit (IVS) Spring 2011 in Sapporo [this and many of the following links are in Japanese], a two-day, invitation-only event that takes place twice a year in Japan. IVS attracted over 400 people from the domestic and international web industry this time and is organized by VC firm Infinity Venture Partners (which just raised US$41 million for their IVP Fund II). Apart from panel discussions and presentations, some hours of the program gave a total of 14 Japanese start-ups the chance to present their services onstage. Here's a rundown of all companies that participated at the IVS launchpad this time.
For several blog entries we have been discussing the theory and more “meta” aspects of brainstorming and ideation. We are going to attempt to raise the level of discussion around certain topics. Instead of explaining this every time I post, here is an FAQ if you would like to know more
Music has been at the heart of the Internet for, well, since the beginning. I even tried my hand at creating a startup around it years ago. Think of all the drama that revolved around music; napster, mp3.com, iTunes, myspace, Amazon cloud drive, and lots and lots more. Finding music, sharing music, and helping musicians make money. This domain has been all over the place.
It pointed out how much of this domain is unsolved. So I started a conversation on the Seattle Think Tank mailing list about music. The question is, "what are the problems and possible solutions that revolve around music as we know it?"
The following snippets of discussion came out of that email thread.
Problems
“The big problem with this area is the most value is in the work done in the physical world, dealing with physical issues and that's a nontrivial and messy problem”
“a good tour manager/booking agent is super important.”
“Lack of time to discover musicians”
“There doesn't seem to be a site yet that lays out a visionary road-map for the future of the Internet and music”
“The side of the music distribution and storage seems a bit scary right now with the giant, cash heavy, big guys like Google, Apple, and Amazon getting into it.”
Tracking down the club promoter after a gig and making sure you got what you were promised is "must have".
“Getting the right T-shirts shipped to the right address at the right time”
“Answering the email from the pissed off fan that ordered something but didn't get it”
“I'm just sick of having to use 2-3 players depending on what I want to listen to.”
"it's really really hard to make money now as a musician"
“Finding someone to run your merch table”
“lacking a great stable (even boring) open source cross-platform music manager similar to iTunes.”
“Probably another case of bad pricing models keeping people from using/buying the legitimate product.”
“there must always be professional musicians. So. How do they get paid?”
“People need an easier way to pay for music.”
Ideas
“What's needed is effectively a Redfin for artists”
“music needs to be considered a marketing expense.“
“tying perks to concerts. Tape trees never hurt the Dead but don't know if it would be as much fun run by the organizers.”
“What if you released an album for free. But you charged a small fee to join that album's Fan Club? The artist could engage that group much more deeply. For instance, release material specifically related to that album. This could be a making-of video, more tracks that "sound like they should have been on that album". The user would get some sort of badge to show they are part of that community”
“When looking for a coffee shop - I could check the Band Fan group and see which coffee shop near me liked to play Amanda Palmer songs? I would choose to go there, rather than the Emo cafe around the corner.”
“It would be cool if I had unlimited personal use of the materials on my devices and a limited number of DRM'ed streams I could share with friends (with a redirect to a pay for one stream).”
“I would love to hear the music streaming from the coffee shop downstairs. I don't want to manage my stream of music and they do a good job. If they had a device that they could plug some music widget into and stream it on the internet, I could listen to the "ETG Coffee" music stream. They would have my ambient attention and I would get music.”
“I think a site to help musicians plan a tour would be super handy. Think tripit for a band”
When I listen to any of the free radio on the web, it should keep my statistics and help me understand what I liked and make suggestions. Based on those stats, a website should offer me (nag me, beg me, ask me) to donate artists money once in a while.
Every time I click "like" on a video or music file on Facebook, Youtube or whatever, it should add it to my stats.
Every time I listen to that artist in my local player on PC, it should add it to my stats. Phone, iPad, MP3 player - same thing. Upload stats during sync.
"We need a provider, like Amazon Payments or Paypal, but for a virtual currency (jambool.com?) which can be embedded to any website. Buttons like "2 cents", "5 cents" on each video, blog post, facebook page etc”
Whats next?
The topic I kicked this off with is very broad. But, it is one of those domains that will always be evolving. I think that at the heart of it, the world is wrestling with a compromise of what the trade is between a musician and a listener. I plan on coming back to this subject occasionally. But, in the future refining the question to focus on particular aspect or technologies that affect the music industry.
If you are thinking about building a start-up in the world of music, perhaps these ideas or problems will give you a good starting point for where to begin.
With a proven track record of coming across smartphones before they are launched, Vietnamese website tinhte.vn latest delivery is the yet to be officially announced BlackBerry Curve (Apollo).
Seems the phone’s broken out of a manufacturing plant and into their hands for a photo and video session.
Although the voice over explaining what is going on is in Vietnamese rather than English, that doesn’t mean we can ogle as the thin smartphone that still sports a QWERTY keyboard, but as expected, adds a touchscreen display like the new announced Bold 9900.
As with the company’s Bold handset, the new look Curve, or Apollo as it is going by, looks to be worth an upgrade for current Curve owners and comes with a 480x360 pixel resolution touchscreen and an 800Mhz Marvell Tavor CPU MG-1 processor. There’s also a 5 megapixel camera around back, although judging by the pictures the phone is still running BlackBerry OS 6 rather than BB7.
RIM has yet to officially announce the launch of the Apollo or Curve as it is likely to be know as, however rumours have been circling, as well as snapped pictures of the Apollo, for the last couple of months.
Following the launch of an update for the Bold at BlackBerry World in Florida earlier in the month, we would expect RIM to announce the launch of this phone in the next couple of months if not sooner.?
Motorola Droiders rejoice, for you are about to welcomed into the hallowed house of Gingerbread.
That's right, Android 2.3 is coming the way of numerous Motorola Droid devices. Well, three actually; the Motorola Droid 2 (including Global version), the Motorola Droid X, and the Motorola Droid Pro.
Confirmation comes from Motorola itself via the official support forum, with a Motorola staffer going by the name of Moto_Calvin saying:
"The Gingerbread (GB) software update will include improved Exchange Activesync functionality.?
The following Motorola Droid devices will be updated to GB:
Droid X,?Droid Pro,?Droid 2,?Droid 2 Global"
Calvin goes on to say the Droid X should be out during Q2 2011, with the others coming in Q3.
No news on the original Droid though, aka the Milestone. Boo.
In this episode of Founder Stories with host Chris Dixon, Reddit Founder, Alexis Ohanian takes Dixon back to his college days at the University of Virginia where he and co-founder Steve Huffman bonded over video games and began plotting ways to avoid taking a real job after graduation. Not wanting to be holed-up in a cubicle for 50 years, they submitted an idea to Y Combinator, the idea got rejected, they got accepted, and together began building around the concept of "people deliberately trying to find and share new and interesting stuff online" says Ohanian.
Earlier this week, I took part in Infinity Ventures Summit (IVS) Spring 2011 in Sapporo [this and many of the following links are in Japanese], a two-day, invitation-only event that takes place twice a year in Japan. IVS attracted over 400 people from the domestic and international web industry this time and is organized by VC firm Infinity Venture Partners (which just raised US$41 million for their IVP Fund II). Apart from panel discussions and presentations, some hours of the program gave a total of 14 Japanese start-ups the chance to present their services onstage. Here's a rundown of all companies that participated at the IVS launchpad this time.
In this episode of Founder Stories with host 