Rushmore.fm, a new London-based startup founded by Fictive Kin and Betaworks, is de-cloaking somewhat today with what sounds like the rather lofty but noble mission to fix the music industry. Described as a “music ecosystem”, the (currently) invite-only site initially consists of a Wikipedia-like music resource where you’re encouraged to contribute and follow content, although the site’s broader aim is to connect music fans “directly and effortlessly with the artists and labels they love”, and in doing so make it easier to make a living from music.

In fact, it’s what Rushmore sees as a disconnect between fans and artists that it’s trying to solve. Bring these two groups closer together and the company thinks there’s money to be made, which in turn can be reinvested in music. Of course, if it’s successful, that’s also how the startup plans to generate revenue via related services. “We need to get these folks connected with the fans that love them, and subsequently enable some sweet, sweet commerce,” reads the site’s mission statement.

With that in mind, along with its public (partial) unveiling, Rushmore is announcing the appointment of Alex Hunter, the former Global Head of Online for Richard Branson’s Virgin Group, as its CEO. While it may seem odd to hire an “outside” CEO so early, it’s a reflection of the incubation model that New York-based Betaworks, Rushmore’s backer, is employing. It’s teamed up with neighbouring design collective Fictive Kin who are charged with researching and coming up with a startup’s concept, before handing it over to take forward and scale — a methodology we’ve compared to the studio model employed by Hollywood.

Once Rushmore.fm was green-lighted at the end of 2012, Hunter was approached and after agreeing to come onboard it was decided the company should operate out of London, which has a decent track record for music-oriented startups. Last.fm, for example, famously exited to CBS, while more recently the likes of Songkick are making decent headway.

(As aside, for those familiar with the London tech scene, Alex Hunter is the brother of Andrew Hunter, co-founder and CEO of jobs search engine Adzuna.)

As Rushmore stands today, the site uses a “follow” model to provide a way for music fans to stay up to date with news, live events, and new releases from their favourite artists. The clincher is that, collectively, they’re also the ones doing most of the work in the sense that content is at least partially based on user contributions (pages have a Wiki-esque “edit” button, though I’m told that contributors will always be invite-only), while Rushmore is rewarding fans who add content via virtual and unspecified real world rewards. There’s a sprinkling of gamification, too. Each week fans compete for the top spots on “The 300″, described as a “highly competitive chart of Rushmore’s top users”.

To that end, Rushmore says that its private beta users have made 200,000 music news, live event, and discography contributions already, which isn’t bad going, though we won’t deem the music industry fixed just yet.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Taxi e-hail startup Hailo is looking to expand the number of cities that it serves, and could soon add San Francisco and Washington, D.C. to that list. Based on a couple of job postings on the company’s website, the company is looking to hire city general managers for those two cities, signaling its plans to launch its app in even more new markets.

The listings were posted as the company looks to take advantage of new funding and introduce its service in new cities. A few months ago, Hailo raised $30 million from Union Square Ventures, KDDI, Richard Branson, and other investors. With that cash, the company is looking to expand across a number of new cities. As CEO Jay Bregman wrote to me when I asked about the San Francisco job posting, Hailo want’s to be wherever there are licensed cab drivers:

“Hailo wants to be in New York. Hailo wants to be in San Francisco. Hailo wants to be in Breckinridge, CO. Hailo uses existing infrastructure and works anywhere there are licensed cabs.

Setting up a local infrastructure and recruiting driver-partners and local drivers are key pieces of our operating philosophy. We understand that more medallions are slated to be on the streets of SF and drivers are worried about making ends meet. Help is on the way.”

Hailo’s app is currently available in London, Dublin, Toronto, Boston and Chicago. The company is also working to bring its e-hail app to New York, Tokyo, Madrid, and Barcelona soon.

In New York City, Hailo — and all the other taxi apps, for that matter — are still in a holding pattern while waiting for litigation to clear up between the Taxi & Limousine Commission and a bunch of livery car drivers. (That’s something we’ll be talking about at Disrupt NY 2013 in a few weeks, by the way.) The Tokyo launch comes in part thanks to that investment from Japanese telco KDDI.

The San Francisco market is already pretty well acquainted with on-demand ride services. Local residents have been using their mobile phones to hail rides from services like Uber for a while. There’s also Lyft and SideCar for those who don’t mind riding in some regular dude’s car. Flywheel, another taxi hail app, has been in the Bay Area for a while, also. (You might have known it as Cabulous.) Oh, and then there’s InstantCab, which offers some kind of a hybrid cab and community driver ride-share thing. So there’s plenty of Hailo competitors already there.

In Washington, D.C., the competition isn’t quite as fierce, but Hailo won’t be alone in the e-hail market. Uber has been operating in the capital for a while, and has even launched its UberTAXI service there, thanks to a deal it struck with the local city council. SideCar is also in D.C. now, thanks to a big national rollout that it’s been embarking on after raising $10 million of its own.

But hey, competition is good, right? It makes everyone better, gives consumers choice, gives me something to write about.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

This is a guest post by Simon Montford, a serial entrepreneur who also runs Inspire-For-Tech, a monthly event that aims to both motivate and inspire tech entrepreneurs in London.

I bet you’ve seen that movie about a certain social network and now you want to create the next big thing. Maybe you shouldn’t give up the day job as being a tech entrepreneur is a really tough gig. Movies, as I learned at an early age, are not real life. At six I wanted to be James Bond. A few years later I realized that being a badly paid civil servant who kills people for a living is not a good career choice. Becoming a Hollywood actor who plays James Bond would be way better, or so I thought.

On my fourteenth birthday a friend invited me to a film set. He loved the movie making process. To me, it was one of the most boring experiences of my life! Repeating the same line to camera seemed a dull way to make a living. What I didn’t get then was that whether you are a trained assassin, a software engineer or a Hollywood heartthrob perfecting your art takes years of soul crushing repetition. In the book ‘Outliers’ Malcolm Gladwell estimates that it takes a minimum of 10,000 hours or ten years of solid work.

So back to my old pal. Well he certainly perfected his art and is now a leading Hollywood movie director! Coincidentally it was rumored that he was in the running to direct the latest James Bond flick. Anyway, he is now happily married to his super model wife. He has a credit card that’s got no limit and a big black jet with a bedroom in it. Whereas I am single, I seem to live out of a suitcase as I’m always on the move, and I fly either first class or economy depending on my circumstances at the time (no private jet for me so far).

Financially, my friend has achieved a higher level of success than I have. A few years ago I was highly competitive with my peer group and I resented those who I viewed as more successful than me. I now know that this attitude is not only frivolous but it’s also very bad for my health. I have since made a conscious effort to reframe negative thoughts for my own peace of mind. These days I don’t compare my own success with others but instead celebrate their success. This my friends is what you call a winning strategy. If they win, you win. If you win, well, you win. Goodbye status anxiety – an affliction that plagues modern society – hello extended youth and mental well being.

This is a classic example of what Harvard psychologist Dan Gilbert refers to as a ‘psychological immune system’. By reframing how we perceive adversity it is possible to literally create synthetic happiness as opposed to natural happiness, which is when we get what we want. It is almost like having a superpower! Repeated studies have shown that external factors such as wealth have very little to do with happiness.

The Positive Psychology movement that came up with all this stuff goes back to the 1950s. It branched from mainstream psychology to focus on making life more fulfilling. They found that there are three factors that impact happiness. First is a genetic level that is pre-set at birth. Second relates to uncontrollable factors such as a child born into wealth or poverty. Third are controllable circumstances such as an unsatisfactory job or a bad relationship.

What about optimism? Few entrepreneurs are pessimists for obvious reasons but studies indicate that too much optimism can be as negative as pessimism. Being overly optimistic leads to disappointment when an expected positive outcome don’t happen as anticipated. Furthermore being extremely optimistic can lead one to disregard potential pit falls. This is why highly conscientious, risk averse people who consider every potential outcome in advance work as attorneys or airline pilots. One could argue that Richard Branson’s extreme optimism has served him well but I bet he doesn’t write his own legal contracts or fly his fleet of aircraft.

My advice, therefore, is to perfect your art, build a psychological immune system, hope for the best but plan for the worst, then kick ass. Just like they do in the movies.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Investors and innovators have a new social playground in America’s newest mountain village. Summit Series, host of a popular annual conference known for mixing revelry and social good, such as flying in Richard Branson to deliver a keynote on a Caribbean cruise ship, is creating a permanent settlement for the mission-driven organization on Powder Mountain in Eden, Utah.

“Imagine authentic friendship and community of something like Burning Man, but with deeper substance, a la a TED,” explains investor Tim Chang, managing director of the Mayfield Fund, who has convened a few gatherings up at Summit’s temporary lodge. After months of business news speculation about the (reported) $40 million mountain project, Summit has revealed plans to build a 500-home village to foster startups, artists, thinkers, and nonprofits who will build their own version of utopia.

Summit Series began as an intimate conference to convene young, socially conscious entrepreneurs, including TOMS shoes founder, Blake Mycoskie–all of whom have a “work hard, think hard, play hard” mentality, explains X Prize founder, Peter Diamandis. It quickly gained prominence for its special mix of notable keynote speakers who would join in unusually fun activities from shark tagging in the Caribbean to lucid dreaming tutorials in Tahoe.

With notable names came indirect financial impact: Summit has raised money for startups from taxi service, Uber, to eyeware outlet, Warby Parker, and they even raised $1 million from investors, such as Zappos CEO, Tony Hsieh, to preserve an ocean habitat in the Bahamas.

The team got a tip on some relatively cheap land outside Salt Lake City and were inspired to build a permanent home. “What if Summit wasn’t just four days a year? What if you could actually build a permanent place that could actually gather folks 365 days a year,” says Summit Series founder Elliott Bisnow.

“One of the best ways to really get to know somebody is to go outside the boardroom, go outside the pitch meeting, and get outside of just the conferences,” says Chang, who sees the new mountain village as a place to gather potential partners with an eclectic crowd for some secluded big thinking. “The community portion — the networking, the people — that could be even more valuable than just the straight return on investment for a vacation property.”

Every aspect of the new viliage will be open to social experimentation, whether it be making a healthier version of a local bakery or a more entrepreneurial-focused high school, the Summit team wants to allow its meticulously curated community to pilot elements of a typical city.

Despite the social focus, Summit Series is a for-profit business. The majority of investment has been reportedly raised through selling plots of land to big-ticket investors who want an unorthodox vacation home. Continued revenue will stream in through the ski resort of Powder Mountain (the largest ski mountains in the United States, with 10,000 acres), conference hosting, and, perhaps, taking cuts of startup investments.

So, like any for-profit venture, the mountain project is a big economic bet. What gives anyone confidence that a few starry-eyed 20-somethings can pull off the project? “I’m very optimistic because of what they’ve done so far,” says Diamandis. “The experience that they’ve created has been top-of-the-game.” He concludes, “Frankly, it was something, when I was in my mid-20s, I had thought of doing.”

Summit Eden from Summit on Vimeo.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Successful people, not just “lazy stoners”, want pot laws to change. That’s the message of new website Marijuana Majority, which displays over 600 influencers including Peter Thiel, Sean Parker, Paul Bucheit, and Dustin Moskovitz who’ve supported marijuana law reform through donations or quotes. Now it wants Twitter’ers to persuade pot-favoring politicians, celebs, and technologists to stand up.

Marijuana Majority’s goal is to debunk the myth that drug law reform is a fringe issue backed only by addicts and the counterculture. In fact, it’s a mainstream movement with advocates amongst the highest levels of government, business, and entertainment. A Gallup poll from last year said 50% of Americans now support legalizing marijuana, up from 46% the year before.

That means there’s nothing stopping politicians from pivoting after the decades-long drug war has failed. The project’s founder and chairman Tom Angell tells me “anyone that understands that the laws are broken and should be fixed shouldn’t be afraid to say so.”

So Marijuana Majority’s site is designed to make it clear who supports pot law reform so others feel comfortable coming forward. Any of the influencers it lists can be clicked to reveal how they’ve supported the movement. It shows political initiatives they’ve funded, things they’ve said, and icons that denote if they advocate for legalization, decriminalization, medicinal marijuana, or ending the drug war.

When I asked why it was important to get tech leaders on board, Angell told me “They’re influential, particularly to younger, web-connected people.  A lot of them aren’t shy about getting involved in policy debates and supporting organizations and initiatives that they agree with.”

Here’s a list of tech leaders  on Marijuana Majority and their specific contributions to the cause:

• Richard Branson, founder of the Virgin Group – Said California could bring in over $1 billion in revenue that could aid communities by taxing and regulating marijuana.
• Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal, creator of Founders Fund - Donated $70,000 to the Yes on Proposition 19 Campaign, the 2010 California Initiative to Legalize Marijuana.
• Sean Parker, co-founder of Napster and Airtime, first president of Facebook - Donated $100,000 to the Yes on Proposition 19 Campaign.
• Cory Doctorow, co-editor of Boing Boing – Said he doesn’t take mood-altering substances, but believes “everything that we call ‘drugs’…should be legalized and brought into the light of day”.
• Dustin Moskovitz – co-founder of Facebook and Asana – Said a California initiative to legalize marijuana could stabilize national security, aid the economy, and reduce prison overcrowding from jailing non-violent offenders.
• John Perry Barlow, co-founder of Electronic Frontier Foundation – Said maybe the US and Mexico could try decriminalizing drugs.
• Paul Bucheit – Creator of Gmail and FriendFeed – Said marijuana prohibition is an attack on our right to control our bodies and minds, as well as a multi-billion subsidy to organized crime.

Along with the faces of influencers who’ve publicly advocated for marijuana law reform publicly, the site lists figures like Mark Cuban, Bill Nye, Rainn Wilson, and Kanye West who’ve alluded to their support. Angell tells me “Rihanna often tweets about how she loves marijuana but hasn’t said anything publicly about the policy.”

So the site asks visitors to “get out the quote” by tweeting pre-written messages like “Hey @rihanna should US #LegalizeMarijuana & stop locking up so many people? http://marijuanamajority.com/?id=724 via @JoinTheMajority”. Supporters can also donate to the project or share memes seen here from The Marijuana Majority Facebook Page.

Next, the team may look to share its social tools with other movements like the push for marriage equality. That means whatever the issue, Marijuana Majority could fight the stigma attached to voicing controversial opinions. As it says at the bottom of each page, “Bad laws change when good people speak up.”

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Professional social network LinkedIn has begun allowing its members to follow companies over two years ago, giving professionals a way to easily access company updates, such as job openings, new developments and more. But the network has not allowed users to follow individuals. Today, that’s changing. LinkedIn is allowing you to follow certain key influencers from a variety of sectors, who can broadcast their news, blog posts and more across the network.

Currently, LinkedIn is seeing significant traffic from publishers who have embedded a LinkedIn share button on their sites. From this data, the company is seeing that people tend to gravitate towards sharing certain people’s work and news. This has also been observed with LinkedIn’s social news product, LinkedIn Today, says the company’s executive editor of LinkedIn today, Dan Roth.

Now you can pick who you want to follow from 150 of what LinkedIn calls “the most influential thought leaders.” These include Richard Branson, Tony Robbins, Sallie Krawcheck, Craig Newmark, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney and more. You can read what they are saying, like and comment directly on their posts, and share with your network. Posts from influencers will also include videos, photos, and slideshare presentations. On the backend, influencers can see what content is trending, where followers are based and more metrics.

Over the next few months, LinkedIn says it will be expanding the list of influencers you can follow. Members who are interested in becoming an influencer on LinkedIn can submit their request to the company as well. As Roth explains, the company is looking for high quality content.

Recommendations are also part of the new product—LinkedIn is going to recommend similar people to follow based on who you follow and the content you are reading but will eventually do more as LinkedIn gathers more data on user behavior.

“Eventually we want to allow all people to follow each others, ” says Roth.

Launching a follow button for professionals makes sense for LinkedIn. As more people follow each other, and engage in the function; LinkedIn will be able to gather more data on these interactions and provide a more personalized experience for its users both in terms of UI and advertising. The company recently launched the ability to endorse fellow members for skills, which is another way to not only boost interactions and engagements but also create more data points.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Virgin is one of my favorite airlines to fly on — it’s kind of like the airline of the future, with interactive displays in every headrest, cool lighting, an animated safety video, and there’s almost always WiFi on board.

But Virgin is looking to be even more futuristic, promising the customer with the most miles at the end of the year a chance to upgrade to Galactic status.

That’s right, the person who flew the most on Virgin Airlines will win a ride to space courtesy of Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic.

Starting now through August 7, 2013, the contest will allow the most frequent flier to take a trip on Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo, a carbon composite commercial space craft.

The SpaceShipTwo rides along with WhiteKnightTwo before launching into space — it takes far less energy to launch from 50,000 ft than it does from the ground.

A ticket on a commercial space craft is running people around $100,000, at least that’s the going rate over at Space Expedition Corporation (SXC). But the winner will enjoy a galactic trip for free (aside from all the airline tickets). The second-place frequent flier will get a free zero-gravity flight at the edge of the earth’s atmosphere, but sadly will not enter space.

In other words, expect to see George Clooney in space in about a year.

[via USNews]

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

Codecademy, the New York startup that wants to teach the world to code, has capitalized on widespread interest by raising a second venture round of $10 million from top investors — Kleiner Perkins, Index Ventures, Union Square Ventures and Yuri Milner — and serial entrepreneur Richard Branson.

It’s been at the right place at the right time. Thousands of people now want to start their own tech companies, but haven’t learned the necessary technical skills. Millions more are finding code useful for their other jobs, anything from setting up form emails to crunching data in spreadsheets.

The startup has evidence that this trend is global. It has racked up around 100 million code submissions already, cofounder Zach Sims tells me, with half its users coming from outside the US. In addition to more hires and other scaling needs, some of the new funding is going towards internationalization. Versions of the site are coming in five of the most popular languages to date, including Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish and German. You’ll be able to find them at URLs like codecademy.com/ru (which is already live).

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

NASA may not be sending anyone to Mars anytime soon, the exploration of space and beyond – though on a much smaller scale – is being spearheaded by folks like Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos. (Maybe you’ve heard of them.) Though Bezos and Blue Origin continue to work under a veil of secrecy in Texas, Virgin Galactic keeps humming along in the Mojave having recently scored a major milestone for the sub-orbital space tourism arm of Branson’s Virgin empire.

Earlier this month Virgin Galactic and its partner Scaled Composites received an experimental launch permit from the Federal Aviation Administration, the first for a manned experimental aircraft. Considering there have been numerous test flights of both the mother ship (WhiteKnightTwo) and spacecraft (SpaceShipTwo) since 2009, I asked Virgin Galactic president and CEO George Whitesides what comes next.

“Over the next six to eight weeks, we’ll continue integrating rocket motor components into the vehicle [SpaceShiptTwo] itself,” Whitesides told me. “Simultaneously we’ll be finishing ground tests of the rocket motor and then towards the end of the year we’ll get into the vehicle and get up to 50,000 feet for our first powered flight. It’ll be a short burn but we’ll probably get up to supersonic speed to see how the vehicle does.”

With over 500 passengers having thrown down a $20,000 deposit on the $200,000 flight into space, Whitesides says Galactic is “roughly on track” for a late 2013 commercial launch. Of those 500 plus passengers, Whitesides, the former Chief of Staff of NASA, and his wife will be aboard rubbing elbows with other notable passengers like Ashton Kutcher, Stephen Hawking and the dynamic Hollywood duo Brangelina. The Whitesides were two of the earliest customers having purchased tickets in 2005.

Besides a heap more tests over the next year, a commercial operating license from the FAA is the next milestone, says Whitesides. “Getting this experimental permit keeps us on track for the first milestone and within reach of that 2013 milestone.”

Article courtesy of TechCrunch

There have been a lot of complaints voiced over the last couple of years from people who wish entrepreneurs would address the world’s “real problems” or do “something bigger” rather than create “me too” applications and websites. I’m not a fan of that sentiment but that’s really a whole other post I need to write. In all honesty, there’s a place and need in the world for all sorts of business visions – big and small.

And after watching a “big vision” TED talk from a few years ago, it has changed my life. Jane McGonigal presented this idea: Millions of people around the world are becoming gaming and computer virtuosos. Through video games, people journey to alternate “worlds” where they have epic journeys and become heroes. What if we tapped into that talent and desire for a world changing quest to change our own? What if we changed the idea behind gaming completely to create games that directly had a real world impact?

While at a recent Wild-Aid fundraising event, I was thumbing through the live auctions and found a company called The Blu that is trying to do just that. Created by Academy Award winner Andy Jones (for Avatar), a digital whale named “Big Blu” takes followers on a journey through a digital ocean that the creators hope will teach us all about our underwater counterparts and why we might want to save whales and their underwater friends. I was intrigued, and the whale, in fact, sold for a whopping $10,000. Proceeds go towards both the team behind Big Blu Wild-Aid’s outreach efforts.

Having been so enthralled by the concept, I was determined to meet the founders, so I sent this tweet:

Within 10 minutes, they were at my table. We chatted about the broader goals of The Blu and we talked about Jane’s vision, which they shared. The Blu is a beautiful digital ocean with revenue sharing for both the digital artists that create the fish and ocean life and the partner ocean conservation organizations around the world that support the educational mission. It’s not exactly a game, but it is a real-time immersive experience that by itself is a big idea and can become much bigger.

Revenue sharing with non-profits through games is not a new idea. Zynga raised millions for Haiti and has had other such fund-raising initiatives behind their games, but this is one of the first games/platforms that I’ve seen that specifically is targeting changing something tangible in the real world, and where the product experience is truly aligned with that mission.

Towards the end of our discussion, it occurred to me that they should talk to Dr. Sylvia Earle. She’s a personal hero of mine and this seemed right up her alley with what she’s trying to accomplish. Dr. Sylvia Earle won the TED Prize for her wish to protect our oceans. Sylvia has spent over 50 years exploring and working on ocean exploration and conservation. She spearheaded the Google Ocean initiative to help go beneath the water’s surface in order to help give the world access to what she sees on her regular ocean dives, so that we can help her in her quest to save it.

They were already on it; I had somehow stumbled into a breaking story.

Sylvia teamed up with Sir Richard Branson, Jackson Browne, Dr. Rita Colwell, Jean-Michel Cousteau, Graeme Kelleher, Sven Lindblad, Her Majesty Queen Noor, Nainoa Thompson, Ted Turner, Captain Don Walsh, Neil Young and Gigi Brisson (the founder) to create the Ocean Elders, a group based off Richard Branson’s idea of elders who help guide world leaders and world issues, but specifically focused on the ocean.

These elders are going to get on The Blu, June 8th, in honor of World Oceans Day and interact with members during the launch (remember the digital whale?) into the digital wild. You can ask live questions and join them on their mission to save the ocean.

From their press release they are going to send out after this post:

 What: OceanElders, WildAid, and theBlu.com are holding a global online celebration at theblu.com, in honor of World Oceans Day, June 8, 2012. Entitled, “If You Love The Ocean, Download It!” Interested parties are encouraged to start registering immediately to ensure best interaction with the celebrities and leading ocean advocates expected to participate.

I’m so excited about this. I’ve downloaded The Blu and it runs as a screen saver so you are constantly reminded of our beautiful and bountiful ocean that is sometimes too out of sight and out of mind. I plan on sponsoring loads of little digital fish and I will follow the company closely to see how they evolve.

Even though 70% of the earth’s surface is water, if you took all of it and put it in a sphere of its own, it is quite small in comparison to the Earth. 860 miles in diameter, it is one of the single most important resources to our planet and human-kind, yet no one owns any of it and therefore it has very little protection. Thank you team Blu for dreaming big and using the virtual metaphor to make preservation of the ocean more real.

Article courtesy of TechCrunch