Part 2 of my series on Kobalt Music and the state of the music industry breaks down the complex structure of copyright tracking and royalty payments in music and how Kobalt has pushed the industry forward through centralization and transparency. Read it on TechCrunch >> How Kobalt is simplifying the killer complexities of the music […]
Author Archives: Eric Peckham
Kobalt Music deep dive, Part 1
Similar to my past series on Patreon and the efforts of independent content creators to monetize their core fans, I’m writing a series of posts on the music company Kobalt and the state of the music industry. The fist post explores the founding of (London-based) Kobalt and its overall structure. Read it on TechCrunch >> […]
TC Interview: Laura Martin of Needham & Company
I saw leading Wall St media analyst Laura Martin of Needham & Company debate the future of Netflix on stage at the Banff World Media Conference in June and caught up with her after to expand on her assessment of the streaming giant and the streaming video landscape more broadly. Check out the transcript of […]
A guide to Virtual Beings
Last week in San Francisco, I spoke at the first Virtual Beings Summit (organized by Fable Studio CEO Edward Saatchi). The term “virtual beings” gets used as a catch-all categorization of fictional personalities that humans can interact with. This ranges from activities like Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft pouring resources into conversational AI technology to […]
Takeaways from VidCon 2019
I attended VidCon for the first time this year and typed up my takeaways from the various conversations and presentations I found most memorable. Check it out on my TechCrunch column >> The need-to-know takeaways from VidCon 2019
TC Interview: Northzone’s Paul Murphy goes deep on the next era of gaming
Paul Murphy is a London-based general partner at VC firm Northzone who previously founded the popular mobile game Dots when he worked at betaworks in NYC. Paul looks at a range of startups but 2 of his 4 first investments at Northzone have been related to gaming. I interviewed him on his current investment theses […]
Fundraising 101: How to trigger FOMO among VCs
I talk to startup founders every day, a portion of who are inevitably fundraising. I noticed successful serial entrepreneurs I know have more methodical approaches to how they raise money from VCs and create competition among potential investors. So I asked several of them to share their tactics. Read the post on TechCrunch >> Fundraising […]
TC Interview: Delane Parnell’s plan to conquer amateur esports
Los Angeles-based PlayVS (pronounced “play versus”) wants to become the dominant platform for amateur esports, starting at the high school level. The company raised $46 million last year—its first year operating—with the vision that owning the infrastructure for competitions and expanding it to encompass other social elements of gaming can make it the largest gaming company in […]
Where top VCs are investing in media, entertainment, & gaming
In my TechCrunch column, I just posted long-form quotes from these 9 sharp VCs on their investment interests in the media, entertainment, & gaming space. If you’re an entrepreneur planning to raise money (or an investor curious what your peers are focused on), I suggested you give it a read. Cyan Banister (Founders Fund) Alex […]
Monetizing Media (April 28) – Zwift & Northzone interviews, Research Update, Interesting Deals this Week
Happy Sunday night, media friends. (I’ll send Monetizing Media when I send it. Aiming for shorter posts that vary a bit in format since a formal weekly routine didn’t happen.) Great to see many of you over drinks in London and LA recently. Shout out to Hummingbird VC and Sinai VC for co-hosting those events. I’ll be at the Milken […]