Forget You-Cee Lo Green (Glee Cover) by Arden Cho and Megan Lee

HatTip to Teddy Zee.

Far East Movement Kicks Ass! Props!

Props to Far East Movement for being the first Asian-American artists to make the top 10 of the Billboard charts, and for sitting at the #1 spot for a few weeks now. Very cool. Some press about them...

"The Far East Movement go platinum, discuss alternative pop and G6's" LA Times

"'Far East Movement' blazes trail for Asians" ABC News




FM's TV debut

David Choi, Singer and YouTube Sensation

It's Friday. Chill links and lighter fair today. David is simply excellent. Huge YouTube sensation with over 260,000 subscribers and over 55 million views.

Record Labels, Old Media Don't Get New Media, Online Videos and Embedding

I came across this op-ed by Damian Kulash ("WhoseTube?", NYTimes), lead singer and guitarist of the band OK Go. And then this morning I received this article from Fast Company:

"OK Go Ditches Label Over YouTube Embedding Rights" by Dan Nosowitz

The article basically covers Damian's prior piece and tells about the conclusion of their conflict with EMI, who wouldn't allow them to have the embed code active for their YouTube videos. Once EMI blocked embedding their video views went from 10,000 per day to 1,000 per day. After OK Go left EMI and turned back on embeddable videos "digital album sales tripled and digital tracks sales have jumped more than sevenfold."



This brings me back to my days at GoingOn Networks when we were working with Forbes.com on various projects. In early 2007, our first project was to help them with an online video contest. It was going to be an "office pranks" contest where people could upload their videos and get rated by the Forbes' readership and a panel of judges.

Since I was leading this project and the product development, one of the first issues I had with Forbes.com was that they didn't want to allow video embedding. I remember strongly warning them that they would limit the viral effect if they didn't offer this. As typical old media people, they stated that they didn't want eyeballs off their main page and lose ad dollars. Our team explained that ads could be inserted into the videos and it would be a greater loss in terms of the video views. We didn't have hard numbers, such as OK Go's 90% drop-off rate, but it was clear anecdotally it would be a major hindrance to their viewership and audience growth.

Working hard to please our client and make this is a successful contest, I introduced Forbes.com to our contact at CAA, who was extremely helpful. One of their talent agents introduced them to a couple film producers and they seeded the Forbes.com Office Pranks site with some great content. We launched and their numbers weren't great. In my eyes, it was a flop and as a startup we were hoping for a home run. There were a couple other issues we warned them about, but the driver was that they weren't willing to allow the blogosphere to run with their content. They thought people would run away with their content and their ad dollars. This was 2007, but today is 2010 and it's amazing to me that many old media companies still don't get it.

Wanna Fund Public Enemy's Next Album? Check Out Sellaband

Springwise has a post on Sellaband, which is a cool service that has already raised over $2.5 million for over 2,800 artists. The big boost and news is that Public Enemy is using the service to fund their next album. Check it out here.

I don't think the music labels are threatened but definitely a movement to watch. More from Springwise:

"Amsterdam-based Sellaband is expanding its 'fan funded' model to include musicians who have already made a name for themselves. Artists can set their own budgets, asking for more than the former limit of USD 50,000. The first group to take advantage of the new opportunities is Public Enemy, which aims to amass USD 250,000 to record its 13th album. Fans of the iconic rap group can buy into the project—shares are USD 25 each—in return for a signed copy of the release and a share of its proceeds.

Public Enemy hopes to complete fundraising by the end of 2009."

Second Annual Silicon Valley Rocks! Dec 9th in SF!

Alison Murdock, Co-founder and former President of DealMaker Media, is hosting her 2nd annual Silicon Valley Rocks! More from Alison...

Silicon Valley Rocks! is a music showcase featuring performances from Silicon Valley’s tech community - from VCs and entrepreneurs to bloggers and software developers - to raise money for Music in Schools Today (MuST), a Bay Area non-profit that seeks to rescue school music programs from budget cuts.

Right now, our Call for Bands is open! If you're in a band (or know someone who is), please submit your/their information here. We have several contenders already... For details on participation, please check the FAQs.

Also our registration and donation center is open. Event tickets include entry to the showcase and the after-party featuring the best networking, drinks, and dancing north of San Jose. Ticket purchases are tax deductible. Tickets are $25 or $75 for VIP tickets which include free drinks and food. Tickets can be purchased here.

Rock Band Rocks!

This should have been written months ago when it was released, but our household avoids video games like the plague due to Christine's belief that they degrade the mind. Since we're expecting, we've been limited in our activities so she finally gave in and agreed to test out Rock Band. I never got into Guitar Hero, but I gave series a try with Rock Band and was pleasantly surprised this past week. I can see why it's a billion dollar franchise now. It even hooked Christine who is anti-video games, but loves her music.

Small world too since I worked with Doug Glen, who was an early advisor to Harmonix before they were acquired by MTV Networks, on a past project.

Next week we're going to start playing online with some friends that were already Rock Band addicts.

Qbox Relaunches

I posted about Qbox before here (Yes, I advise them). They just relaunched their beta after going back to the vault and streamlining their online music service. Also they have a new CEO, Peter Keum, who was recently Director of Business Development at Quigo until AOL bought for $340 million. Peter is an old friend that I've known since he was a senior at Harvard. I'm glad that he's on board helping Ian and the rest of the team.

Anyway, here is some press about their new beta launch:

"Qbox could be the ultimate music player...if it worked" CNET's Matt Rosoff
Mixed review. He liked the concept but ran into some bugs. Qbox will win him over.

"Qbox, maker of desktop music player, seeks first VC round" The Deal

New York Philharmonic from Pyongyang... Free Video Streaming February 29th!

Today the New York Philharmonic Orchestra is playing in Pyongyang, North Korea. This is the largest-ever delegation from the U.S. to North Korea and the U.S.'s first major cultural group to visit the extremely isolated nation.

If you're interested in seeing this event, Medici Arts has the rights to the live stream, but U.S. IP addresses will be embargoed for 3 days due to PBS distribution and the live TV broadcast. If you miss these live events, just visit their site on February 29th or later for no charge.

Qbox Facebook App Launches!

Qbox is a cool startup that I advise. It's a social music play that allows users to access and play free music through their player/application. You can either download it for your desktop, embed a player on your blog (e.g. Xanga, Blogger:), or as they just launched several hours ago on your Facebook profile. What's cool is that typically a video from YouTube or another social network plays in the embedded player, so your blog or site becomes more active and lively.

Here are some screenshots from my Facebook profile:




I didn't post this before, but VentureBeat referred to them in a longer piece on online music sites, "38 free/cheap music sites — Welcome to the fray, Qbox!"