FISTFULAYEN

I’m overdue writing a blog post saying THANK YOU sincerely to everyone for all the kind words I’ve received regarding the article about me in this month’s WIRED magazine. Those thanks should start with Brian Raftery, Rob Capps, and everyone involved on the WIRED side for making me look like a decent human being, passionate about technology and music and in love with my family. It’s nerve-racking to read an article about yourself, especially when it unexpectedly turns out to be a life-story including family and friends. But Brian did an impressive job (IMHO) stringing my rambling this-then-that into a factual narrative. Yes, the story was a bit of a softball, ignoring most of the countless mistakes I’ve made and the many places you could lay fault or blame at my feet. But at this moment in my life, when Zoe is starting grad school and Lucinda is heading into kindergarten, it was a great feeling to hear “congrats!” from so many people. Being honest, I had tears in my eyes reading the last paragraph of Brian’s piece which quotes from this blog. As silly as it is I have tears in my eyes writing the words you’re reading now sitting at my dining table, waiting for Lucinda to rise. It’s a bit scary and surprising to think of my teen-pregnancy-done-ok story as inspiring to anyone — I generally regard myself as a jackass who likes to work and has had a bit of good fortune here and there. In summary: I don’t know that the attention is deserved but I appreciate it nonetheless. I will do my best to live up to it.

I’m writing today to humbly announce the next chapter of my professional career.

If you’ve followed along with what we’ve been up to at Topspin the last five years you’ll know we’ve been working hard to connect our software tools aimed at helping artists grow their fan base and make money to places where fans experience music. Our integrations with MTV and YouTube are evidence of this, and I voice my opinions in depth in this presentation from Americana Music Fest last year.

While my involvement in the artist-to-fan connection dates back to building the Beastie Boys web site in 1993 my work on search/stream music services dates even earlier. As a computer science undergrad I was lucky enough to receive the vision of (and $6.25/hour work-study job from) Indiana University Music Library Head Dr. David Fenske, who had a vision for how students would search the university library’s card catalog, find and stream music from file servers. It was science fiction until we built a prototype of it, with the help of IBM, Rob Francis, and others. In the twenty years since I’ve found myself involved with updates on that vision many times, from Winamp and SHOUTcast to Muse.Net and Yahoo! Music Engine to LAUNCHcast and MusicMatch. While my focus at Topspin the past five years has been building software for artists, it’s been a blast to watch from the sidelines as streaming music finally becomes a reality for the average (non-nerd) music fan, thanks in no small part to the proliferation of powerful mobile devices and faster cellular networks as well as the music industry’s decline to a place where the incumbents recognize they need to welcome new options.

But there’s still a long way to go. While I use and love many music services today (mostly MOG, Songza, and Pandora in my personal life), the music experience and interface hasn’t evolved all that much. In many ways it seems like we’ve spent the last fifteen years answering the basic question of “how do we make the music available” (the question Napster answered in 1999) and not “how do we find the music we love? the music we want to listen to right now?” I talked about my belief that the next phase of Web distribution is “curation by trusted sources” at length in a presentation at Digital Music Forum West two Octobers ago. In a 2006 presentation I accused iTunes of being a spreadsheet that plays music and I’m disappointed the industry hasn’t found a way to surround music with context in the years since (kudos to Pitchfork for building a context-intense “leak” player — what royalty rate are you paying? ).

Given this, I’m sure you can appreciate my desire to get back in the game building music services for fans. When I left Yahoo! to join Topspin in April of 2008 I was frustrated by the resistance I was meeting from the labels; I felt I was trying to help and my help wasn’t welcome. Times have changed, though, and as Rob Wells at Universal Music Group points out in a conversation we had a year ago, the future health of the industry is dependent on getting these services to scale. Furthermore, the work we’ve done at Topspin over the past five years is immensely useful here. We have direct connections to bios, photos, music, video, merchandise, tickets, etc (context!) direct from artists. Connecting this artist layer to music services fans love will be powerful and exciting.

With this as the backdrop, I’m jumping up and down excited to be able to share that I’m taking on the role of CEO of the project currently known as “Daisy”. Daisy is the subscription service being developed by the folks behind Beats By Dre: Jimmy Iovine, Dr. Dre, and Luke Wood. Daisy, who, as leaked in the New Yorker recently, has Trent Reznor as their Chief Creative Officer. Daisy, who, in July of last year purchased my favorite streaming service, MOG.

At the same time, Beats is making a strategic investment in Topspin (whose revenues grew another 50% in 2012, YAY TEAM) and we are partnering to provide a direct connection to artists inside the coming service. I’m remaining deeply involved in Topspin, taking the role of Executive Chairman and staying on as a member of Topspin’s Board of Directors. We brought in an incredible COO at Topspin six months ago, Jeremy Bellinghausen, and he’s taking the CEO position. The killer team of Bob, Parker, Brad, Jon, Paul, Nicole and so many more remain to double-down on the original mission, with the added bonus of being able to scheme on the ways a consumer service can/should/will serve the artist. [ps - Topspin is hiring! Job postings at http://TopspinMedia.com/blog]

This is an enormous opportunity for Topspin to take the approach we’ve pioneered with MTV, YouTube, and the ArtistLink API generally and set the gold standard for how artists can be integrated into consumer music services. This is the next step in the evolution of the way fans find the music they love and connect directly with the artists who make it. I am stoked and fortunate to get to be a part of it.

I’d like to extend a special thanks to Shamal Ranasinghe for believing in me as Topspin’s CEO to begin with, and to Peter Gotcher, Tim Haley, Ryan McIntyre, and Mark Solon for your patient mentorship and guidance. I’ve always said I’m the luckiest startup CEO in the world to have y’all as my board and it’s a fact.

To the Topspin team, y’all are family and you’re not getting rid of me just yet so I’m not making as much as a wave goodbye.

Thanks sincerely to Jimmy Iovine and Luke Wood for your unending belief in my being the right person for this job. We first started talking about working together on a streaming music service exactly five years ago. I appreciate your patience. The time and circumstances are right. Game fucking on.

ian

Thx to Brian Frank for the suggestion this would be the most appropriate image for this blog post:

Unfinished business, indeed. So watchya sayin?

For the past year and a half I’ve hosted a sometimes-weekly show called This Week In Music. It came about after my appearance as a guest on two different shows on Jason Calacanis‘ This Week In network, Jason’s “This Week in Startups” and Mark Suster‘s “This Week in Venture Capital”. Jason had an overly-generic and ultimately-abandoned “This Week in Music” program and I convinced him to let me turn the show into something music-business focused.

It’s an exciting time in the business and I find myself having many conversations schooling me on the history of the business and how its various pieces operate(d) and hearing predictions of what’s to come. There are no end of great stories and colorful characters in this business. I’ve been blessed with access to some of these characters and it just felt like something that needed to be shared.

I wasn’t sure how it would work or if I could find the time but it seemed worth doing and I figured if I could get fifty or so of these interviews onto the Internet it would be a good contribution to the collective knowledge in the business and take the place of that book I’ll never have time to write.

But 52 episodes, it’s time for This Week In Music to find a new home. Jason announced on Friday he’s consolidating This Week In into his other baby, Launch.

I couldn’t have even attempted it without the help of the great folks at This Week In. They made it so I only needed to ride my bike to the studio, sit and chat about the biz, and leave. They provided the studio, a production team, research on guests, editing, posting to YouTube and ThisWeekIn.com. I showed up for a conversation, chatted with someone I was interested in anyway, and then ran off while they did the hard part. I owe Jason, Will, Carolyn, Brandice, Mo, Jason D, and the rest of the crew a huge debt of gratitude for making this possible for me. I also owe Elisabeth Kines and Wayne Leeloy from Topspin big thanks for helping source and schedule guests. We managed small sponsorships from MOG and Sonos for a few episodes but there’s no possible way they made any money on my show. I really appreciate you giving me the platform to film and distribute these conversations. I’m sure you don’t hear the kudos as often as I do but I promise you your generosity helped raise the level of conversation a notch or two here and there. Thanks sincerely.

Truth be told, I wish I’d had more time to do a better job. The show was always a seat-of-my-pants sort of thing. I didn’t spend a lot of time finding guests and ideally I’d have had time to be more strategic about them. Jason D, I apologize I didn’t have time to make a more concerted effort to draw in sponsors. Lack of time is not equal to lack of desire to help!

So now what? The shows will stay up and archived and I still have some great guests on top for 2013. I’m talking to Steve Rennie and J Sider about doing a monthly interview on the shows they do. Stay tuned!

Until then, please jump over here to check out some of the interviews we’ve done on the show over the past year and a half. Enjoy!

ian

This past September and October 7,000 people participated in The Whole Life Challenge. The Whole Life Challenge was developed at CrossFit LA by Andy Petranek and Michael Stanwyck but this Challenge was run at 140 affiliate gyms worldwide, the first test of Andy and Michael’s new WLC software for affiliates. As a veteran of one of their previous challenges and a beta tester they were kind enough to let me play along as if I were a gym. I recruited 125 people into my “gym” via Facebook, Twitter, and this blog. The takers were all over the map, literally and figuratively, from fit to fat, from across the United States to as far away as Russia. Together we chatted in a Facebook group and logged our points daily at WholeLifeChallenge.com.

In the end there was a winner. The winner is determined algorithmically and the components of the score are: improvement in a workout performed at the beginning and end of the challenge, change in body measurements taken at beginning and end of challenge, and performance on the WLC scoreboard. There were a total 330 points possible on the WLC scoreboard over the 8 weeks, 6 points per day plus 2 possible bonus points per week. Daily points: 1 point for at least 10 minutes of exercise, whatever kind you choose; 1 point for at least 10 minutes of mobility/stretching; 1 point for taking fish oil or some other form of omega 3; and you start each day with 3 food points, losing one each time you eat something on the NO list. The NO list is restrictive enough to get just about everyone out of their comfort zone (grains, dairy, sugar, alcohol, soy, corn, juice, and white potatoes) and that’s the point — over the course of the challenge you experiment and find new loves and habits. The scoring is simple and the accountability is motivating.

So who came out on top? Who were our biggest losers? I’m glad the scoring was algorithmic or I’d have been accused of nepotism. My twenty-two year-old daughter, a first-year graduate student at Stanford, Zoe Rogers, took first place.

I graduated from MIT in June at 180 lbs. I spent the summer running five days per week, training for my first 5K in July and my first 10K in October. I was “watching what I was eating”, trying to limit pasta/bread, with mixed success in a house where cookie dough out-numbered vegetables. September 1st I had just started in a new town, school, and apartment, and was down to 165 lbs. During the 8 weeks of the challenge I lost about 18 pounds and 2 clothing sizes (about 6 inches of circumference around my waist) and I’ve kept going — I’m at 145 lbs now, the lightest I’ve been since freshman year of high school.

The Challenge isn’t just “a diet”. You have to fit The Challenge into your day/week/lifestyle. You make time for the exercise. You make time for the stretching. When you get in bed and realize you haven’t taken your fish oil you get out of bed and take your fish oil. You spend time planning your meals and grocery shopping. The points keep you accountable. It’s fun and I’m competitive so when I may have otherwise been lazy I got up and did what needed doing for The Challenge. At first you’re forcing these things into your schedule, then you realize they don’t take that much time and the results far exceed the amount of time you put in.

The hardest part was having to explain myself to everyone and being the difficult person who asks about all the food and substitutions. It’s fine when you cook for yourself but being social around meal times is frustrating a lot of the time. Over the 8 weeks I stopped caring what other people thought, though. Once I saw/felt the results and believed in The Challenge conceptually personally, I didn’t feel the need to explain The Challenge to others anymore. I felt like I could just explain what I was doing and let the results speak for themselves.

There are a bunch of things I took from The Challenge which I’ll keep doing. I learned how to eat delicious food that’s not bad for me. I hit the local farmer’s market on Saturdays and cook on Sundays for the entire week. It takes two hours then I have delicious meals for lunch and dinner to last me the week. It’s a small investment to keep me from eating greasy pizza (I’m a grad student) the rest of the week. Not only is it delicious (and I’ve learned to enjoy cooking and trying new things) but I save money by cooking for myself. I spend $55-60/week on my farmer’s market and grocery trips combined and I’m eating home-cooked meals 90% of the time.

Now that The Challenge is over, the only things I’ve added back into my kitchen are greek yogurt, honey, and soy sauce. Other than that I’m staying “Challenge-Compliant” at home (I say as I enjoy a glass of sparkling wine away from home). Still no bread, no pasta, no cheese, and generally avoiding calorie-containing beverages. The Challenge trained me to drink more water than I used to and tea is my other go-to.

I found out I love CrossFit. The results I’ve seen from CrossFit in 8 weeks are exponentially better than those I saw running the year-and-a-half previous. As a person who’s never had any arm strength, the ability to do half a push-up and half a pull-up is an accomplishment. I joined Amity CrossFit in Palo Alto during The Challenge. It’s different every day so I don’t get bored. Every day I push myself a little further (harder, heavier) than I could in yesterday’s workout and it’s encouraging to feel progress at that level. I was trying to CrossFit alone [DIY CrossFit program here - ed] but belonging to a gym gives me coaching and community that has made me push myself harder and try new things I’d have never done without the class and the coach. Now I CrossFit at Amity five days per week; I make it a priority regardless of what my schedule has in store (I biked 8 miles in the pouring rain to get there in time for the 8am class yesterday). As a grad student my funds are limited but I don’t regret the money I spend on CrossFit — if I get nothing else done in a day but I’ve gone to class, I still feel like I’ve accomplished something.

Whole Life Challenge was hard, worth the initial struggle. It’s not something you can do half way you need to be committed to giving it 8 weeks of a chance. For me, it’s been completely transformative, not just numerically, but mentally. I don’t want to go back.

Second place was Paola Palazzo. In her words:

The results with Whole Life Challenge (WLC) were more than I expected.

Actually I didn’t know what to expect, but I knew I had to be involved.

In August, I got an upper respiratory infection at Lollapalooza. For 3 weeks I couldn’t shake it and I became extremely tired and had zero motivation. My weight was at its highest point. When I read Ian’s Facebook post on WLC, I was intrigued and looked into it. I knew I had to do this. I had to be a part of this. I will be turning 45 in December and there was no way I was going to weigh 153lbs. My goal with WLC was to lose 10lbs, and I did. I also ended up losing 12 inches which was mind blowing to me. I knew I had abs underneath that belly fat and now I see them! I have so much energy, stamina, strength. My hair and skin are glowing. I have a pair of jeans that I couldn’t wear for a year because they were too tight, now they are very loose!

The WLC allowed me to believe in myself again. I’ve worked out with so many trainers, tried different work out classes and never achieved the results I have by doing WLC. I became bored with other diets and workouts and fell back on bad habits. With WLC, I ate healthy, home cooked food which was easy to make. I’ve always enjoyed cooking, so this was fun for me. I have purchased new cookbooks and love trying new recipes. I didn’t find that cutting out sugar, dairy, grains was that difficult. I found interesting ways to eat protein, vegetables and fruit. Most importantly, I was accountable for what I was eating. I was accountable for logging in my workouts and stretches. I was accountable for me and my life. Sounds simple, but really I wasn’t doing that in the past. I made excuses.

Now, that’s all changed. Working out is part of my daily life, even if at times it may be for only 10 minutes. I enjoy it and I’m trying new activities. I recently joined the LA Kings Beginners Hockey Camp and I love it!!

WLC has become a part of my life. I continue to take a fish oil every day, I stretch before I go to bed, and I’ve eliminated cereal, bread, dairy, cheese, most sugar from my diet. I will have small portions of pasta (hey I’m Italian!), and an occasional glass of wine. I continue to pay attention to what I’m eating and how it’s prepared.

One of the more rewarding things to come out of this is how I’ve influenced those around me. I received so much support and encouragement from my colleagues at work, my close friends, and my family and the WLC participants. The WLC Facebook page was my go to every day…loved reading other peoples recipes and motivating stories. My mother came to visit from Canada 2 weeks after I started WLC and had already noticed a difference in my appearance and how I was eating. We would go grocery shopping and she was reading labels with me. I know that she now has changed her eating habits because of my success with WLC.

I would recommend WLC for anyone who wants to learn to live a clean, healthy, active life. Eat real food, and really take care of yourself. You don’t need to do this for weight loss, although that will happen. I think this would benefit anyone who wants to change their eating habits, incorporate working out and stretching into their lives, and become accountable for the way they are living life. This makes you stop and really pay attention to what you’re eating, doing, and thinking.

I’m grateful to have done this and the positive impact it’s had on my life.

In third was Charlene English:

Hooray! I am so thrilled that I completed and somehow managed to do well on what is sure to be my first Whole Life Challenge. I was pretty miserable the first three weeks and I was cursing Ian and Julie for getting me roped into the WLC – I mean no sugar, wine or cheese – I was a very grumpy lady. But after I got into the rhythm of being organized, prepping my food for the week and scheduling my workouts – I found that I was cruising along and I felt great. I did the challenge primarily because I knew I was not eating a very balanced diet, and needed a way to jumpstart a healthier way of eating, and perhaps I would lose a little weight. Not to mention I was totally motivated by the word CHALLENGE.

By the end of the challenge I had lost 20 lbs and a few inches here and there. My new habits have me eating healthier and weight loss has me more motivated to get fit. Some key takeaway going forward for me:

1. It is not daunting to find 10 minutes per day to do exercise. From walking, to fitness videos or short runs – telling yourself it is only 10 minutes is a great jumping off point to get yourself moving everyday.
2. Almond milk is really good!
3. Good and tasty food can come from really simple recipes and fresh produce.
4. Prep prep prep

I recommend the WLC for anyone who wants a healthier lifestyle, with the help of a really active and helpful community. I really enjoyed the support of the other WLCers and liked the fact that we were all playing the game together. The “diet” may not be for you long-term, but you will definitely learn a lot about how and what you are eating and how you can benefit by being a more active person.

As for me, I couldn’t overstate the inspiration I’ve drawn from leading a group of people through The Whole Life Challenge. It’s not often enough we feel we’ve had a deep and positive impact in the life of a fellow human. Watching people improve in something so basic to existence, fitness and health, was moving in a way too few things in everyday life are. That one of the folks who saw the biggest change was my daughter, when fitness and food have been a difficult point for us for so many years, was life-changing. The increased health/fitness blogging you’ll see here is a direct result of this experience. Thanks sincerely to Andy and Michael for having us along for the ride, and thanks to everyone who participated. I still have a stack of recipes from y’all I need to try!

If you’d like the Whole Life Challenge in your life stay tuned, the next full Challenge starts in April and we will be doing it again!

As a reminder, all proceeds from our Whole Life Challenge this time around were donated to Pablove. Visit them here to learn more about what they do to fight childhood cancer with love.

ian

Back in June I opened up my wallet and spent $100 to register for this morning’s California International Marathon (widely known as CIM). CIM is one of the top marathons in the world and one of the top five contributors of qualifiers to the Boston Marathon. It’s relatively flat and since it’s held in Sacramento in December the weather is usually cool and moderate, good conditions for a personal best.

This past Monday I had to drop out of the race due to a calf strain. I’ve been following along closely, though, particularly with a couple friends still running, and reading Facebook and Twitter right now it appears I may have picked an ok year to skip. I woke up to this:

So I checked my friend Meredith’s Facebook page:

And now I’m following along with a Twitter search for #cim:

Yikes. Running a marathon is hard enough without conditions like these. I agree with this sentiment:

I wish I was there to support, but I’m glad I’m not there with my daughters this morning. GOOD LUCK to all the runners. Please stay warm and safe.

On Monday the plan was for Lucinda and I to go visit Zoe in San Francisco this weekend, anyway. The tickets were booked and a weekend in the bay isn’t a terrible thing. But when we saw the weather forecast we reconsidered and swapped — Zoe came to Southern California for the weekend. We’re now at a friend’s place in Palm Springs. By contrast to the CIM we could have been at, this is the view we woke up to this morning:

Guess Amy Blackman had the right idea doing a Triathlon in Palm Springs today instead. Good luck out there this morning! See you at lunch!

ian

As I’ve mentioned before, I pick a couple songs to listen to with six year-old Lucinda at bedtime. Tonight “I’d Have To Be Crazy”, sung by Willie Nelson, originally appearing on one of my dad’s favorite albums, The Sound in Your Mind. Take a listen. Like Al Green’s “Simply Beautiful”, I could listen to it one thousand times in a row and still have that feeling of awe you get when a song just nails you in the middle of the chest. Willie didn’t write this one, Steven Fromholz did. He also sings that haunting background vocal at the end of the song. Perfection.

Tonight Lucinda told me, “Sometimes things that are close feel really far away.” I know the feeling exactly, and I remember laying in bed next to my mom as a kid trying to convey the same feeling. Anyone else?

Speaking of the power of song, sincere thanks to Peggy Dold for sending a link to the BBC special “The Joy of The Single” this evening. I have nothing against entertaining but songs can be powerful in a way far beyond simple entertainment. If you need a reminder (or even if you don’t), watch this:

It’s also about a time when music listening and music purchasing were one and the same. When I was a kid, if you wanted to hear a song you either borrowed it from a friend, waited for it to come on the radio, or you bought it. I bought a lot of records. Today, music is “No Purchase Necessary”. If you think about the process of music discovery, as you move from unaware of a song, to aware, to a fan, to a customer, music LISTENING is no longer at the “customer” phase. It’s at the awareness phase. It’s impossible to overstate the impact this change will have, and we’re only part-way through this transition.

So the above video, being about the 45 single, is 100% nostalgia.

But listen again to that Willie Nelson song. From YouTube. For free. There’s nothing nostalgic about that experience. The power of the song is timeless. We will find a way.

I talked more about this in my presentation at Billboard’s Future Sound Conference a couple weeks ago, if you’re interested.

“Albums, yeah, albums. I think it might have been the start of something really bad and insidious — it may have been the beginning of that little bit of rot that got into the gunnels of the ship of rock and roll.” – Jimmy Webb

“You never thought of albums. Albums were the process that came along after you had two or three hit singles. Then the record company would let you make an album. You didn’t cut an album and then start taking singles off the albums. The albums were an afterthought, really.” – Noddy Holder

Fact: Lucinda (age six) has two turntables, one in the album, one in the playroom.

ian