Category Archives: Podcast

We probably don’t need to tell you that this episode is about iPhones. We probably do need to tell you that we have an awesome special guest! Welcome Adam Bloom of SynchTank, a recent transplant to Nashville and just one of many digital companies moving into Nashville. SynchTank’s intuitive software automates the entire licensing process — making your digital music and video assets faster to find, easier to manage and more profitable. On this episode we also delve into Deezer’s US launch, and we talk about Microsoft’s 2 b(az)illion dollar acquisition of Minecraft. Where have all the rockstars gone, anyways? Oh yeah, they make games.

Don’t forget to grab your ticket for our upcoming Movies On The Back Porch, featuring This Is Spinal Tap. Head on over to see all the great movies we have coming up this year.

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Show Notes:

• We’re not going to link to any articles about iPhone 6. You can Google that yourself. Instead, here’s a much more interesting story: And Then Steve Said, ‘Let There Be an iPhone’ – NYTimes.com
• Microsoft Near Deal to Buy Minecraft – WSJ
• Deezer comes to America with new streaming music service for audiophiles | The Verge
• SynchTank

Whether your a musician or an entrepreneur, there’s only one key indicator of success: hustle. This episode is all about that.

Be sure to check out our upcoming Movies On The Back Porch featuring 1984’s seminal mockumentary, This Is Spinal Tap.

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Show Notes:

• Album Sales Hit A New Low | Billboard
• David Lowery: Here’s how Pandora is destroying musicians – Salon.com

We didn’t even mention Taylor Swift once in this episode. We did, however, mention Google, Amazon, Twitch, Uber, Lyft, SoundCloud, Spotify, and probably a bunch of other stuff you might have heard of. And the Pulitzer Prize.

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Show Notes:

• Why Amazon Really Bought Twitch | Re/code
• This is Uber’s playbook for sabotaging Lyft | The Verge
• Uber’s Marketing Program to Recruit Drivers: Operation SLOG | Uber Blog
• The Uber recruitment scandal isn’t scandalous – Vox
• SoundCloud Debuts Monetization Play With ‘On SoundCloud,’ Announces $100 Million In Funding | Billboard
• 2014 MTV Video Music Awards | VMAs | MTV
• Drones on Amazon

We tried not to make this episode about Taylor Swift. But, well, it’s about Taylor Swift.

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Show Notes:

• Our Flipboard magazine, The Flashlight
• Taylor Swift | Yahoo Screen Live
• Taylor Swift slammed for ‘perpetuating black stereotypes’ in Shake It Off music video | Mail Online
• The problem with Taylor Swift’s new pop song: it’s perfect – Vox
• Intel unveils ’50 Cent’ branded smart headphones that will measure your heart rate | VentureBeat
• Intel tablet sales are doing well, but maybe we shouldn’t call it a success after all: PCs drive Intel’s earnings, but ‘Bay Trail’ Android tablets are on the horizon | PCWorld
• The Free and the Antifree | Issue 20 | n+1
• CultureCrash | The “Antifree” Movement Takes on “Free”
• Creative Commons
• Mike Monteiro | F*ck You, Pay Me | CreativeMornings/SF

@derekwebb At least it’s only backed up in One Direction.

— Jack O’Briant (@jackobriant) August 20, 2014

Let’s keep it short and sweet: this episode is short and sweet. We hope you enjoy it.

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Show Notes:

• Record Industry Considering a Standard, Global Album Release Day | Billboard
• According to Wikipedia: “Sales collected from Monday-Sunday or Sunday-Saturday are reported to SoundScan every Monday and made available to SoundScan subscribers every Wednesday.”
• Why BuzzFeed Is Launching Its Own Hollywood Studio | Variety
• Hilariously, there is a story called Why Twitter’s Newest Tweetstorm™ Trend Must Be Stopped on BuzzFeed
• Neil Young’s PonoMusic Turns To Equity Crowdfunding To Raise $2.5 Million – hypebot
• PonoMusic: San Francisco, California, US | www.crowdfunder.com (as of recording, the campaign had not yet met its goal; as of publishing, the campaign has surpassed its goal)
• Our equity crowdfunding discussion from Episode 27 with Tim Kappel
• pwned

And finally, did Pono rip off our logo? We’ll let you be the judge.

We’ll miss you, Knoxville! We had the opportunity this week to see the fruits of the labors of the 9 incredible teams in this year’s MediaWorks digital media startup accelerator we ran in conjunction with the Knoxville Entrepreneur Center. All we can say is: holy crap, that was awesome.

Make no mistake. Knoxville means business.

On this episode of Conversely, we’re joined by KEC’s Executive Director, Jim Biggs, and our colleague-in-crime, Entrepreneur-in-Residence, Jonathan Sexton. And we have very special guest Haseeb Qureshi, CEO and Founder of Audiohand, an app for combining multiple mobile phone audio recordings to create incredibly high fidelity masters.

As always we love to hear from you! Email us or tweet at us. Or send us a postcard.

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Show Notes:

First the amazing teams of MediaWorks 2014:

• Audiohand
• WiseFeed
• FanFolio
• Adagio
• Street Jelly
• Airborne Digital
• Vuture
• Closeup.fm
• ParOneTV

Second, The Bonhamizer

There’s probably a lot we’re missing, but that’s the important stuff.

Oh did we mention you can now subscribe to our podcast on Spotify, Rdio, Beats, and more? Use those links above, or search for Back Porch Group.

Elvis Wilson joins us for this very special filmy episode of Conversely, straight from the brand spankin’ new Back Porch Group headquarters at The Skillery in Germantown. We talk about film, distribution, Netflix, paywalls, and of course sociopaths (because really what’s an episode of Conversely without a few crazy people?).

Check out Elvis’ current project, Empathy:

As always please send us your comments, complaints, and death threats via email or Twitter.

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SHOW NOTES (YAY!):

• Sam Smith’s Spotify Gamble: Did It Pay Off? | Billboard
• Netflix Points a Way Forward for Streaming’s Success (Analysis) | Billboard
• Netflix doubles its profits as it reaches 50 million members | The Verge
• Netflix indeed has 1080p: Netflix says all users now have access to Super HD video | The Verge and they shot House of Cards in 4K: Netflix is now streaming 4K, starting with ‘House of Cards’ | The Verge (also we should commend The Verge on their SEO work, because they show up first for every single search we do on this stuff)
• A New NewYorker.com
• South Park to move behind Hulu’s paywall and end unlimited free streaming | Ars Technica
• Garth goes digital
• Nilay Patel’s diatribe about convenience (re: Taylor Swift) and here’s the podcast episode in which we talked about it.
• Netflix: “The Goal Is to Become HBO Faster Than HBO Can Become Us”
• Here are the magic words to say if you want HBO without a huge cable bundle · The A.V. Club
• True Detective is awesome, BTW. Go watch it.
• And go watch John Oliver while you’re at it
• Watch Elvis Wilson’s Being Lincoln on Vimeo
• A long while ago, Mike worked on the film Farah Goes Bang, which raised 81K on Kickstarter
• [SPOILER ALERT] And since it’s just that kind of episode, we have a lot of stuff we like:
  • I ORIGINS
  • Robogenesis by Daniel H Wilson
  • The Science of Evil: On Empathy and the Origins of Cruelty by Simon Baron-Cohen
  • Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain by David Eagleman
  • The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
  • El Mariachi
  • Chef
  • Frankenhooker
  • Memento
  • Belcourt Theatre
  • Uptown Theatre
  • Brattle Theatre
  • Fox Theatre Toronto
  • Drive (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) – Various Artists
  • Moonrise Kingdom (Original Soundtrack) – Various Artists
  • O Brother, Where Art Thou? (Music from the Motion Picture) – Various Artists
  • The Pi soundtrack which appears to not exist anywhere. Go look it up.

Every summer Nashville plays host to the Summer NAMM Show. It looks like a convention and sounds like a giant Guitar Center. And it’s the best place in the world to check out all the newest gear from the biggest musical instrument brands in the world.

We set up shop to demo our brand new product, Endorsee, for all the brands and artists we could possibly round up, including this guy. (What? You want to try it yourself? Well do it.)

We even asked our friend and partner Joe Glaser of Glaser Instruments to join us for a bit. Thanks Joe!

No show notes on this episode. Have a listen!

As always, we love to hear from you. Send us your thoughts, comments, and hilarious NAMM photos by email or Twitter.

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Hey, #namm musicians. Tired of pitching w/ headshots & CDs? There’s a better way. Look for blue shirts or booth 457. pic.twitter.com/PohxbxwZ6S

— Endorsee (@getEndorsee) July 17, 2014

We’d love to tell you the sound quality of this episode has something to do with #ThrowbackThursday, but the truth is we pressed record on the wrong channel and wound up with a whole episode through the ol’ Mac microphone. But hey, it’s just like the old days, right?

On this week’s episode: Taylor Swift says something positive and the internet gets its panties in a bunch; Amazon says something positive and Hachette gets its panties in a bunch; Brian says something positive and if we talk about panties anymore it will probably be construed as inappropriate.

As always, we love to hear from you. Send us your thoughts, comments, deepest darkest secrets by email or Twitter.

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Show Notes:

• For Taylor Swift, the Future of Music Is a Love Story – WSJ
• Taylor Swift is right about music, and the industry should act on her ideas (GigaOm)
• Taylor Swift doesn’t understand supply and demand – Vox (Nilay Patel)
• Amazon makes a direct offer to Hachette authors: Here’s the full letter (GigaOm)

Also this, which we absolutely did no fabricate:

OH YEAH! We’re happier than the Kool-Aid Man in summer today, because Independence Day is right around the corner. Fireworks, hamburgers, bald eagles. You know, the finer things in life. In celebration of the glorious long weekend (because let’s face it, that’s what we’re really excited about), here’s a very special ‘MURICA edition of Conversely.

In this episode: Google buys Songza, Rdio buys TastemakerX, Spoon goes to the record store, teenagers strike it big on the Isle of Vine, and Music City, in addition to having the second best fireworks display in the nation, is in danger of losing a historic landmark.

As always you can hit us up via email or Twitter.

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SHOW NOTES…. ‘MURICA!:

• Google Buys Songza | TechCrunch
• Songza CEO on Google Acquisition: ‘This Is Just the Beginning’
• After ditching Echo Nest, Rdio acquires music discovery startup TastemakerX | VentureBeat
• Spoon : Vinyl Gratification (big thanks to Will Pomerantz for sending this one in!)
• Vine Star Shawn Mendes Set For Big Debut With ‘Life Of The Party’ | Billboard
• The Ben Folds RCA Studio A kerfuffle timeline:
  • June 24: Ben Folds publishes his open letter to the people of Nashville
  • June 27: The developer responds to Ben Folds
  • June 30: #SaveStudioA rally becomes #SaveMusicRow
  • July 1: Harold Bradley fires back at Ben Folds
  • July 2: Ben Folds responds, again
• Joshua Rawlings for TN State Representative

And we’ll just leave you with this: