TechCrunch – October 11, 2017
Mark Zuckerberg recently announced the launch of a virtual reality app “Venues,” which allows people to “watch live concerts, and live sports, and premieres of movies and TV shows, all around the world with friends.” Facebook plans to launch the app next year, along with the Oculus Go VR headset which has speakers built into the headset. Zuckerberg said that it is Facebook’s goal to get 1 billion people into VR.
New York Times – October 14, 2017
Many artists such as Taylor Swift and Bruce Springsteen have partnered with ticket selling agencies, like Ticketmaster, to prevent ticket scalpers from buying tickets and selling them for a profit. Recently, Springsteen had been allocating tickets through a lottery, which included identify recognition, however those tickets made it onto StubHub for prices up to $4,000 when they were originally meant to never go above $850. There is a long list of issues that could be named here, but one of the main issues is trying to create a way to sell tickets at their market price, which is typically much higher than what they were intended to be sold for.
Music x Tech x Future – October 16, 2017
As Spotify has started to become more mainstream and the pressure to compete with Apple, Amazon, and Google has increased, the user interface has declined. In the early ages of Spotify a heavy emphasis was placed on user created playlists, but now that has declined in favor of Spotify heavily promoting their own content. Spotify is still trying to get their footing and raise money, so it doesn’t have the ability, right now, to stray from their “editorial guidelines.”
Music Business Worldwide – October 16, 2017
Universal Music Group has launched an “Accelerator Network” which is aimed at helping the development of music-based startups. UMG wants to work closely with these start-ups and “assist in the evaluation and development of music-based start-ups.” According to the Vice President of Digital Strategy, Michael Nash, UMG wants to expand on their ability to support entrepreneurs worldwide.
Wired – October 19, 2017
Ultimate Ears decided to completely rebrand and rebuild their Boom speakers. The portable speaker, now called Blast, now has wifi capability, charging docks and Amazon Alexa. With the addition of Alexa users can tell the speaker exactly what they want to listen to with zero to no effort. The size and price make it a sensible choice for most people and allows it to stay similar to the Boom but with a few technological upgrades.
