January 2014

Last night we held the S’more StartupSB: Fireside Chat about music, techs & startups event at our office and had an absolute blast. We were joined by Brad Barrish, formerly from Topspin Media, Eric Shiflett from Santa Barbara Bowl, Tucker Bodine from Playback Recording Studio, and Aaron Foreman from SONOS. Our very own Mike Wald moderated the chat about digital music marketing and technology. An interesting new startup called BeatStream also gave a great presentation about the new social music platform they are developing. We were also stoked to present the debut of our new product and app, Storywall! More information and news coming on that soon.

The event was also catered by one of our local favorites, Rusty’s and of course we finished off the night by making tasty s’mores by the fire. Thank you to StartupSB for asking us to host their great event at our office for the second year in a row. It was a wonderful night filled with interesting people and interesting chat!

Check out some of the Instagram shots from the night below!

From the moment you start up the application, Beats Music wants to know and understand you. It wants to be your perfect human DJ. Listening to favorite genres and discovering new songs has just become a lot more colorful and interactive with the recently launched platform’s bold designs and features. Like Pandora, Spotify, and Rdio, Beats Music offers an extensive streaming library with no commercials for a monthly subscription fee of $10. New users can try out the platform for free on their credit card-less seven-day trial.

When you first open Beats Music, it asks you to tell the application about yourself. A “Just for You” section is created and geared towards your favorite genres or away from the ones that you want to avoid. There are three ways to get to a collection that suits your current mood. First is the good old-fashioned search option after you swipe right on the screen. The second way is through the “Find It” section where you can choose among genres, activities, and curators. The last is one of the most interesting features of the platform: “The Sentence”. Beats Music lets you play mad lib to generate a suitable playlist in a quirkier way. Are you on a rooftop? At the gym? Making bad decisions? The application wants to know where you are, what you feel like doing, who you’re with, and what you’re potentially listening to.

With Twitter being the source of chatter surrounding the most popular current events, Facebook has now created a feature that allows their users to view what pages are currently trending. 

The new ‘Trending Pages’ feature is easy to navigate and provides a description of why the page is so popular, which helps you decide whether or not the topic would actually be interesting to you. 

Facebook wants to compete with Twitter for being the source of current news and events, and it seems that this new feature is receiving some heavy criticism for being too similar to Twitter’s features. Comparisons of Facebook and Twitter have now begun to critique which feature is better. This article on TechCrunch describes the pros of each social network.

With all the buzz surrounding Facebook’s new update, every user should check it out themselves to get a feel for the feature and it see if it actually could prove useful.

Santa Barbara Entrepreneurs rally around startups, music, and technology at Oniracom on January 30th at S’more Startups and Music.

SANTA BARBARA, CA – Jan 27, 2014 – StartupSB is kicking off the New Year with a January 30th event featuring music industry professionals, musicians, and startups at one of Santa Barbara’s most creative office locations, Oniracom.  The evening event, titled “S’more Startups and Music”, will feature a fireside chat with Brad Barrish, Head of Operations @ Topspin Media, Aaron Foreman, Head of Digital Marketing @ Sonos, and Eric Shiflett, Program Director @ The Santa Barbara Bowl.  The panel will cover topics surrounding entrepreneurship in the music business and the intersection of music, technology, startups, and opportunity for new ventures.  Beat Stream, winner of Startup Weekend San Luis Obispo, will also present their winning music streaming application, and local singer/ songwriter/musician Jesse Rhodes will play songs around the fire while attendees roast marsh mellows and eat s’mores. 

StartupSB is a Santa Barbara community based organization focused on celebrating local startup companies, fostering entrepreneurship and building a startup community in Santa Barbara and the Central Coast.  The public is encouraged to attend.

“We are excited to be hosting a StartupSB event and this amazing group of music professionals”, said Jacob Tell, Oniracom’s CEO and Creative Lead, “This should be a great night of entrepreneurship, music, startups and networking.”

“This should be a great kickoff to a year of StartupSB events”, Kyle Ashby StartupSB’s executive director stated,  “We are planning to have a lot of fun with the fireside chat theme for this event… think campfire songs, stories, inspiration… and s’mores.”

S’more startups is the first of StartupSB’s 2014 event series.  The series will consists of 10 events hosted at Santa Barbara based startups and the headquarters of Santa Barbara’s most entrepreneurial companies.  Two of these events will be Demo Nights featuring Santa Barbara startup companies showcasing their companies, products and technology. 

The event starts at 6pm and is located at Oniracom’s office at 720 East Haley Street in Santa Barbara. To RSVP for the event please visit http://www.meetup.com/startupsb.  For more information about StartupSB, and to become a StartupSB member, vist: http://www.startupsb.com.

About StartupSB
StartupSB began as a Meetup group and has grown to a membership base of nearly 800 Santa Barbara area entrepreneurs and startup enthusiasts.  The group, run by local Entrepreneur and Startup Evangelist, Kyle Ashby, hosts monthly events at local startups and is heavily involved in helping the startup community grow in the Santa   Barbara area. For more information visit: http://www.startupsb.com

About Oniracom
Founded in Santa Barbara in 2001, Oniracom is a proven partner for brands and organizations looking to cultivate and expand their audience.  Jack Johnson, Deckers,  Warner Music, Topspin, Universal, SONOS – these top brands and many more trust us to produce authentic stories that rapidly increase brand growth and awareness.  http://www.oniracom.com

Contact Kyle Ashby at 805.323.6160, or .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) for more information.

New year, new resolutions. Naturally, we made a playlist that gets us pumped up, motivated and ready for whatever crazy event the new year may bring. These are songs that get us up and moving physically and mentally.

I am pretty satisfied that Venga Boys made it on the list. Well done Justin.

Justin:
1. “Good Vibrations” - Marky Mark And The Funky Bunch
2. “Space Jam” - Quad City DJ’s
3. “Let Me Clear My Throat - DJ Kool
4. “We Like To Party” - Venga Boys
5. “C’mon N’ Ride It” - Quad City DJ’s

Haaris:
6. “Wu-Tang Clan Aint Nuthing Ta F’ Wit” - Wu Tang Clan
7. “Freedom” - Rage Against the Machine
8. Who Gon Stop Me” - Jay Z & Kanye West
9. “Cosmonaut” - At the Drive-In

Calia:
10. “XO” - Beyoncé
11. “Gun” - CHVRCHES
12. “Livin’ It Up” - Ciara
13. “Can’t Hold Us” - Macklemore & Ryan Lewis

Tad:
14. “Mr. Blue Sky” - ELO
15. “Soul Meets Body” - Death Cab for Cutie

Jacob:
16. “Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’” - Michael Jackson
17. “Whats The Difference” - Dr. Dre
18. “Make The Money” - Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
19. “A Day At The Races” - Jurassic 5
20. “Bang Bang” - K’NAAN

Tracy:
21. “Lies” - CHVRCHES
22. “Don’t Hold the Wall” - Justin Timberlake

Cheyenne:
23. “Days Are Gone” - HAIM
24. “So Close” - Kidnap Kid

Lucy:
25. “Wild Child” - WEKEED
26. “Changes” - Faul & Wad Ad vs. Pnau

Elvis:
27. “Fatty Boom Boom - Die Antwood

Celebrating its one-year anniversary today, Vine is moving forward as a mature social network. Vine is achieving this goal with their life-long partner Twitter who realized the potential to install the built-in video platform a year ago.

Colin Kroll, Vine’s GM and co-founder, expects more collaborations, cameos, and hardware hack innovations to continue appearing on the feed.

But how is Vine changing after one year of service? Kroll states, “This year, we’re really focused on making it easier to discover videos and find new accounts.”

This app integration has been keeping up the competitive creativity of Vine against its similar social platforms like Instagram Video, Snapchat, and Youtube. However, the six-second videos of Vine continue to breed a unique creativity and production amongst other mobile video players.

Advertisements, film trailers, and actors’ comedic skits have all utilized Vine to achieve publicity, discovery, and monetary gains. Their influence in the past year has impacted other social media platforms to keep up and add additional video options.

You can now get PAID for your beautiful work on Vimeo, if you so please. Available exclusively to Vimeo PRO members, Vimeo launched a new feature that (in my opinion) revolutionizes the brand called ‘Vimeo On Demand’ It’s an open self-distribution platform that enables anyone to sell their work by uploading their very own videos to Vimeo’s video player.

I know what you’re already thinking. “How much of the money goes to Vimeo? What do I get to keep?” Creators/distributors keep 90% of the revenue, hip hip hooray! Creators also have the option to personalize their Vimeo page where they showcase their films, series, individual episodes, etc. that are for sale.

When initially landing on the Vimeo On Demand page, I immediately thought ‘Netflix.’ The interface is similar, but also different, only showing a few ‘Vimeo Selects’ with the ability to browse other genres towards the bottom of the page, which is a bit difficult to locate. Take a look for yourself here.

This new On Demand feature will allow filmmakers, artists, etc. to easily distribute their artistic endeavors out there. We are looking forward to seeing what route Vimeo will take next!

Darryl Tell just published a book of poems titled Establishing Shot.

We helped put his website together through a simple and sleek design that features a blog page and a place for his fans to purchase his book. Check out the screenshots below and visit the site here.

I was surprised when I found out that WWE holds the largest television audience in sports, second only to the NFL. I was even more shocked to find out that WWE intends to use their audience size and revenue to take the first step in revolutionizing the way that television programming is organized and purchased. On January 8, 2014, World Wrestling Entertainment announced the February 24th launch of the WWE Network- the “first ever 24/7 streaming network” (WWE).

In the past, WWE has been hugely successful with their monthly Pay-Per-View events costing approximately $50 each month, rounding out a year at $600. The new WWE Network will charge $9.99/month with an initial contract of 6 months. Not only is this substantially cheaper for consumers than the PPV option, but it will also be available on a plethora of devices including Roku, Apple, Sony PlayStation, and Xbox devices ranging from smart TVs to tablets to smartphones. Along with it’s monthly PPV events that will continue to be broadcast on cable, the network has announced that it will offer new, original programming, archival content, and programming highlights to fans all via online streaming. New original content will include WWE Superstars, The Monday Night War, and WWE Legends House among others- all of which will be available on demand after their first air date.

The WWE Network will be the first to offer full television quality and style content through the internet instead of the cable box. Whether other television companies will follow suite and switch to streaming only time will tell, but I think it’s safe to say that WWE is taking a step in a new, and likely revolutionary direction.

A few weeks ago, Facebook launched a ‘Donate Now’ Button for non-profits — an extremely beneficial tool. As of now, Facebook has only launched this feature for select non-profits. It is currently in beta mode, being tested for larger non-profits such as the American Cancer Society, Red Cross, and a few others. We’re keeping our eyes and ears peeled for this button to make its way across all non-profits, which will hopefully be very soon!

Here are some of its awesome features:

As TechCrunch mentions, “Facebook seems genuinely determined to help these causes” (TechCrunch). The Donate Now button will serve as a great tool for non-profits on Facebook.

So far, the Donate Button is up and running for the following non profits:

Everyone here at Oniracom wishes you a happy new year! Here’s to a prosperous and innovative 2014!