United State of Pop 2011

Josh Krajcik - Audition 1 Full video coming 5/27 on the official Alex & Sierra YouTube channel. Subscribe here: Follow Alex & Sierra on socials: Sign up to the Alex & Sierra newsletter here: What It Really Takes To Get To 90 Million Views A Month Nearly 10 years ago, Cenk Uygur launched The Young Turks (TYT) network on a budding website called YouTube. A multi-channel network of now 30 shows, TYT Network generates an astounding 90 million views per month. The flagship program, The Young Turks is one of the largest online news shows in the world, covering topics ranging from politics, pop culture, and social trends, and is hosted by Uygur and Ana Kasparian, Now, the L.A.-based cofounder and host shares the lessons he has learned on the road to success.

Reverb, Marketplace for Musicians, Cranks Up With $25 Million in Funding Reverb, an online marketplace for musical instruments and equipment, is getting some serious amplification. The Chicago-based company has secured a fresh $25 million in funding. Led by investment firm Summit Partners, the series B round will help Reverb expand internationally, founder and CEO David Kalt tells Billboard. The new investment will also go toward Reverb's recently launched marketplace for music lessons, as well as buttressing the company's core instrument-trading business. "We're not doing anything radically different," Kalt says. "We've got a winning formula -- keep making it easy to buy and sell gear." Millennials Stare at Their Phones for 30 Percent of Live Shows, and Other Revenue Opportunities: Op-Ed Donnie Dinch is GM of Consumer for Ticketfly. Donnie was named one of Forbes' 30 Under 30, and was the CEO and co-founder of WillCall, a music discovery app that Ticketfly acquired. Last week, I walked into Walgreens just like I have hundreds of times before. But this time, I walked out without ever reaching into my pocket for my wallet. I didn’t even need to grab my phone.

Fusion gets $30 million injection Posted on 20 May 2015. Tags: Fusion, Univision Disney/ABC and Univision are pumping another $30 million into its joint venture Fusion. The cable network, which was originally conceptualized as an English-language news and lifestyle network for millennial Latinos and later changed its strategy to target millenials in general, has undergone a series of show changes and cancellations and struggled to find an audience, but both parent networks seem committed to finding a winning formula for its multiplatform outlet. According the New York Post, Fusion, which launched in October of 2013, can now be seen in 40 million homes.

Sean 'Diddy' Combs said to bid $200 million for Fuse Sean Combs wants to light a fuse under his new cable network Revolt. The hip-hop mogul is said to have made a bid to buy Fuse, a music channel owned by Madison Square Garden Co. The bid comes after Combs launched his own music cable network Revolt TV last year. If Combs is successful in his efforts to acquire Fuse, he would most likely replace it with Revolt. Fuse is in over 70 million homes, while Revolt, which only launched last fall, is in a fraction of that. The rap star offered $200 million for Fuse, according to Bloomberg News.

It's Official: Warner Bros. Leads $18 Million Funding Round For Machinima In February 2014, news broke that Warner Bros. was mulling a $10 to $15 million investment into Machinima. Today, it’s official. The YouTube multi-channel network and self-proclaimed “next-generation video entertainment network for the gamer lifestyle and beyond” has closed an $18 million round of financing led by Warneer Bros., with existing investors MK Capital, Redpoint Ventures, and Google Capital also participating. The deal makes sense for Warner Bros., as it’s had continued success in partnering with Machinima as a distribution platform for its high-profile digital series (like the first and second seasons of Mortal Kombat: Legacy) and trailers and sneak peaks of its blockbuster films (like G.I. Joe: Retaliation). Machinima was reportedly eying a much bigger financing round in the ballpark of $50 million, but apparently wasn’t able to secure that much cash amidst a number of setbacks.

Amanda's Million Last week Amanda Palmer became the first musician to raise more than a million dollars on Kickstarter. Her project's numbers: $1,192,793 pledged by 24,883 people in 30 days. A musician getting a million dollars from the internet is a very big deal. Statistical Portrait of Hispanics in the United States By Renee Stepler and Anna Brown There were 55.3 million Hispanics in the United States in 2014, comprising 17.3% of the total U.S. population. In 1980, with a population of 14.8 million, Hispanics made up just 6.5% of the total U.S. population. Click on any of the bold headings below in the summary table to see detailed tables for each. Click here for a PDF of all the tables below and read the accompanying report. Download the Excel workbook.

40 maps that explain the world By Max Fisher By Max Fisher August 12, 2013 Maps can be a remarkably powerful tool for understanding the world and how it works, but they show only what you ask them to. So when we saw a post sweeping the Web titled "40 maps they didn't teach you in school," one of which happens to be a WorldViews original, I thought we might be able to contribute our own collection. Mark Suster's State of Venture Capital There are a lot of data points that one can use to get a sense of the venture capital markets, including the number of startup financings and the level of VC fundraising. They point to some widely known facts: Deal volume and valuations are up massively over the past seven years and non-VC money has entered the system. But these data points are often lagging indicators. Perhaps a better barometer would be to gather data on VC perceptions in the market right now.

Record Label Revenue Flat in First Half of 2015 Led by streaming revenues, which accounted for a third of the total, U.S. recorded music revenue was basically flat in the first half of 2015. According to figures released by the RIAA Monday, total revenue was down 0.5 percent to $3.17 billion while wholesale revenues -- what distributors and labels actually receive -- rose 0.8 percent to $2.32 billion. Digital revenues grew 6.3 percent to $2.32 billion as streaming gains outpaced download losses. Streaming revenues grew 23.2 percent, or $193.7 million, to $1.03 billion. The sting from the 9.4 percent drop in digital track revenues was lessened by a 4.2 percent gain in digital album revenues.

Is Disney Going To Acquire Maker Studios For $500 Million? Disney announced last week its plans to lay off 700 employees in its interactive division, a section of the Mouse House that has attempted to exploit Disney’s incredible library of intellectual property in the industries of video games, mobile games, and online video, but has so far scored far below expectations, reportedly losing upwards of $1 billion in the past several years. “We are trying to consolidate things and focus largely on the mobile platform,” the president of Disney Interactive, Jimmy Pitaro, said in an interview with Reuters. But maybe a realignment to focus on mobile wasn’t the only reason Pitaro and other Disney executives cut roughly 25% of Disney Interactive’s staff. Maybe they’re cleaning house and freeing up some capital for a bolder shift in strategy. Disney is pondering a $500 or more acquisition of Maker Studios according to a report from Recode. Maker Studios has a raised a significant amount of cash, too.