Jeremy Welt: Jblogg New Ratios

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I was “Head of New Media” at Maverick Records during the .com crash. We never slowed down, leadership never wavered, and it was the start of a movement that changed music forever. 

“Can the internet deliver a ready-made audience for new priority acts, prior to support at MTV and Radio, and before an Album’s release?”

This was the question Billboard posed in their Nov 17 2001 edition. Does their skepticism sound familiar?

This is a great time to get into blockchain/NFT/Web3. Were a few years out, drop in now!

Wave, the leading Virtual Concert and Music Metaverse platform, is launching is first non-fungible token (NFT) collection with the all Avatar artist Teflon Sega.

There is a lot of talk about “Utility” in NFT’s, and I believe that Virtual Concerts + NFT’s are one way NFT’s can live up to the Hype. It’s been exciting to help Wave make the leap into this space, but it’s just the start, I wish I could share all the amazing things the team is planning.!

I am also excited to partner Joshua James, Co-Founder of OneOf and a colleague from the Warner Bros days!

Here is an expert from the Venture Beat article:

“NFTs are a new way for artists to experiment with their fans and open new revenue streams, he said. To mint the NFTs, Wave worked OneOf, the Quincy Jones’-backed, NFT platform built specifically for the music community. OneOf has worked with the Grammy Awards, Doja Cat, The Game, The Breakfast Club, and more.”

“This is our first drop that we’re doing with an artist that we’ve actually been working with to do multiple shows, andwe thought it was a really fitting way to begin in this space,” said Arrigo. “Teflon Sega is actually an avatar-based artist. And he makes a lot of his living actually just from selling NFTs like virtual goods. We really see Teflon Sega is kind of like the future of artists and how they might monetize in a new way.”

See Excerpts from the show here”

Read DJ Porter Robinsons take on the future of live music!

https://www.gamesradar.com/dj-porter-robinson-on-the…/

FN Meka was created by Factory New, a new company that describes itself as a “first of its kind, next-generation music company, specializing in virtual beings”. They only sign virtual artists!

The firm’s first ‘signing’ was AI-powered robot rapper FN Meka, who has 9 million followers (and over a billion views) on TikTok. Watch the video below!

Read more from Music Business Worldwide

Virtual Concerts are gaining traction and the Post Malone / P25 collab is a big one! TV and online ads have been popping up for me, giving his virtual concert this highest-profile yet. It’s a cool spot, showing the real Post Malone heading stage and turning into his Avatar as he hits the stage. Cool effect! But I was expecting and hoping for something much more original with the Avatar!

In my experience with artists and digital avatars, many artists look to make slightly cooler, thinner, and better “looking” versions of themselves. This is normal because the tech is new, and in the beginning artists often use new mediums in a way that matches what they are sued to, what already exists! exists. Hopefully, the unlimited creativity that comes with creating your own avatar becomes an area where music artists feel more comfortable exploring identity and tying their avatar to the music and the fans in entirely original ways. Companies like Spirit Bomb are emerging as cross-functional creative shops that specialize in creating original virtual beings from scratch, with insane originality, complete backstories, and bodies not possible in the real world! So I know we will get there!

The concert (linked below) was wildly original, unexpected joyful moments and lots of creativity, the digital being in me wanted more from the Artist avatar!

If you haven’t experienced the difference between a live stream concert and a Wave virtual concert, tonight’s the night to enter the Wonderverse and see for yourself. Head to Wave.watch to get your ticket!

Replacing business lunches and zoom with more outdoor meetups. Finding a positive where I can – thanks to Alex Kruglov and USA Today for the great picture and insightful article about staying connected through the great outdoors! 

This project was the Summer of Covid. Working away in my home office, no physical contact with a massive team spanning across Wave, TikTok and the Artists. Pulling to together all the ingredients for seomtheinf special, basically wiling this to life. The date was moved three times, the art evolved in new ways, The Weeknd pushed out creative an interactivity to new heights, and we we faced the looming threat of a U.S. ban of TikTok just das before we were finishing the show!

But it all went down and withou ny technical issues with Wave’s platform. The Weeknd’s live, interactive virtual concert that premiered Aug. 7, and included several rebroadcasts on local TikTok handles pulled in more than 2 million total unique viewers. The event recorded 275,000 concurrent viewers at its peak, setting a new TikTok record!

Debuting new music, along with a surprise avata guest appearance from Doja Cat, “The Weeknd Experience” concert raised $350,000 for the Equal Justice Initiative through the sale of a new Weeknd x TikTok capsule collection of merchandise, which was available for a limited time.

Global music rights were one of the Many curveballs we dealt with leading up to the show. At the eleventh hour, TikTolK couldn’t clear the music around the world, so Wave created an entirely second streaming window, handled all marketing and promotion of final worldwide premier of the Director’s cut, after the 6 tiktok rebroadcasts, and We added another million live unique viewers on YT/FB/Twitter!

This one went faster then I could had imagined. While I stayed behind at home office last year, cranking out shows in our Pivot from VR, Adam and Gary went out to raise. Even before Covid, it was fast, and we essentially had it all buttoned up. Once Covid hit, things got even crazier. Adding Scooter Braun was a huge get for a scrappy startup like Wave. Before I have even settled in as CMO, the company is changing so quickly I think my job here is almost complete! Wave Assemble!

Working from home due to Covid, with only the footage we had before lockdown, using remote teams….Finally, a version of the trailer I feel good about. Proud of how this turned out, sometimes it takes 100 tries!

Wave

The Show Must Go Beyond!

Fixing education in this country is a must. If we could only fix one thing, I feel like giving the next generation the best education in the world (without life crushing loans), is the place to focus. To this day, I think attending Woodland Montessori school as a child set me up for success, and was one of the best things my Mom ever did for me!

I recently came across two articles in the NY times covering education initiatives from Lebron James and Mark Zuckerberg. Love the effort and the money from anyone willing to step up, however the headlines on their own really caught my attention!

LeBron James Opened a School That Was Considered an Experiment. It’s Showing Promise

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/12/education/lebron-james-school-ohio.html

Silicon Valley Came to Kansas Schools. That Started a Rebellion

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/21/technology/silicon-valley-kansas-schools.html

I haven’t seen anyone put them together yet? A few quotes about Lebron’s efforts:

“The students paraded through hugs and high-fives from staff, who danced as Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family” blared through the hallways…..Every day, they are celebrated for walking through the door.”

And Zuckerbergs

“….students spend much of the day on their laptops and go online for lesson plans and quizzes, which they complete at their own pace”

Ok, I am picking intentially provocative quotes, but which one sounds right to you? Is Lebron schooling Zuck on the future of education?

I am not an expert at any of this, I don’t have tons of data and studies. I haven’t seen anyone more qualified than me connecting these articles and doing a deep dive on the different approaches. It could be these are two totally different “turn around” stories, and it’s not fair to compare. However when you read these, it feels like one leader really knows the community and people, and the other doesn’t!

After reading both articles, and just based on my own experience, its hard for me to believe that improving education is based on more technology and free chrome-books.

Please take a quick read at both, and see what conclusions you come to!

LeBron James Opened a School That Was Considered an Experiment. It’s Showing Promise

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/12/education/lebron-james-school-ohio.html

Silicon Valley Came to Kansas Schools. That Started a Rebellion

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/21/technology/silicon-valley-kansas-schools.html

https://www.redbull.com/se-en/virtual-concerts-the-future

More than 10 million people watched the virtual performance! This is it! The scale all of us VR heads have been looking for. It’s made me realize, you dont need VR to get many of the benefits we’ve been pushing on consumers.

If you look through the comments you will see a theme

“I was There”

Fortnite is a place.

There was a concert there

10 million people went there!

A sense of presence, without the headset sounds like the future of VR!

Music and Virtual Reality have the potential to be part of a must have reason to get VR.  If the video looks cool, then imagine being there! Music helps make up for some of the resolution issues with early VR headsets, and we’re at the dawn of a new music format. You are not really at a concert but part of an intimate connection with the music in a new way, that is part concert, but something more as well.