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Source: NurPhoto / Getty / X / Twitter / Elon Musk
This news should surprise NO ONE. X (formerly known as Twitter) is a hot a** mess; users have bounced, and it is not bringing in any ad revenue.
Spotted on Variety, Elon Musk’s plan to make Twitter, oops, we mean X, and make it the most worthless social media platform on the planet seems to be working.
In only a year after he reluctantly took over the debt-burdened platform that was known as Twitter and made such stupid moves like the 80% reduction in staff, stupidly renaming it to X and making the blue check useless, and turned the platform into a haven for misinformation, it should come as no surprise X is not doing good.
Per Variety:
Millions of users, including several celebrities, have quit in the wake of Musk’s takeover and dramatic refashioning of Twitter. In September 2023, monthly active users for X/Twitter had dropped 15% worldwide (and 18% in the U.S.) year-over-year, according to web analytics provider SimilarWeb. Other third-party measures indicate a roughly similar decline; mobile daily active users dropped 16% on an annual basis in September 2023, to 183 million, according to Sensor Tower. Musk last month claimed that X has 550 million monthly active users, who share up to 200 million posts daily, but it’s unclear how that might compare to past measures.
Advertising On X Is Also On A Downward Spiral
Twitter, damn, we mean X, relied heavily on advertising dollars, but if you have been on there lately, the ads have been lacking, except for numerous Cheech and Chong gummy ads up and down our timelines.
The website reports, via the Wall Street Journal’s reporting, that ad spending from major ad agencies on the platform has dropped to 54%. That’s a significant dip.
Instead of blaming himself, Musk blames groups like ADL for pointing out that his platform has become a haven for hate speech under his ownership, and that is what is keeping advertisers from coming to the platform.
“Our US advertising revenue is still down 60%, primarily due to pressure on advertisers by @ADL (that’s what advertisers tell us), so they almost succeeded in killing X/Twitter!” Bootleg Tony Stark wrote on Sept. 4.
Musk even said he would sue the ADL, but whatever issues between Musk and the ADL seem to have been resolved.
“We appreciate X’s stated intent over the last few weeks to address antisemitism and hate on the platform,” the ADL wrote in a statement released on Oct.4.
X also slapped activist research group, the Center For Countering Digital Hate, with a lawsuit for claiming there is a rise in hate speech on X, which Musk says is false.
Instagram Threads is looking better and better.
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Photo: NurPhoto / Getty
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Source: Kate Green/BAFTA / Getty / Sarah Bond
We are quickly seeing the aftereffects of Xbox’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard King. Xbox is reorganizing its leadership structure, and Sara Bond is rising in the ranks.Following the $69 billion acquisition was FINALLY approved, Microsoft and Xbox have begun moving with way more confidence after walking on eggshells, hoping regulatory agencies would give them the green light.
Now that everything is officially a go, Xbox has reorganized its marketing and leadership less than two weeks after the ABK deal was given the thumbs up.
Microsoft is promoting Matt Booty to president of game content and studios, and he will also oversee ZeniMax. Sarah Bond is now Xbox president and will oversee the Xbox platform and hardware work.
Chris Capossela, who has been with Microsoft for 32 years, is stepping down as chief marketing officer.
In an internal memo obtained by The Verge, Microsoft CEO Phil Spencer explained broke down the reorganization, “ZeniMax will continue to operate as a limited integration entity led by Jamie Leder, President and CEO, reporting to Matt.”
With Booty now overseeing Zenimax and Bethesda, the goal is to avoid another Redfall situation. Redfall was one of the first-party titles Xbox gamers were looking forward to, but when it launched, it was a broken mess, It has since been patched up and is running better.
“Great games are fundamental to everything we do,” Spencer continues in the memo. “We believe that an expanded gaming content organization — one that enables Xbox Game Studios and ZeniMax’s development studios to collaborate effectively together — will empower those world-class studios to do their best work in growing our portfolio of games players love.”
Sara Bond Has Been A Rising Star In Xbox Ranks
It’s been no secret how vital Sara Bond has been to Team Xbox since joining in 2017, and for her brilliant work behind the scenes, she earned a promotion.
She was pivotal in getting the ABK deal done, especially with her explanation of video games and the Xbox business to Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley during her appearance at the FTC v. Microsoft hearing.
Bond will now take over the hardware and software platforms of Xbox.
“To manage the platform of today and build the platform of tomorrow, we are bringing together the teams that will make this possible,” says Spencer. “Sarah Bond will lead this team as President of Xbox — bringing together Devices, Player & Creator Experiences, Platform Engineering, Strategy, Business Planning, Data & Analytics, and Business Development.”
News of Bond’s promotion was celebrated on X (formerly known as Twitter). It’s no secret in the video game space that Black and Brown representation in the world of gaming is still a struggle; to see a Black woman in such a high position is a massive win.
Salute to Sarah Bond.
You can see more reactions in the gallery below.
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Photo: Kate Green/BAFTA / Getty
2. Neccesary reading.
All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes.
Gayle has hit the road for her first-ever tour — titled Scared But Trying — and you can still score last-minute tickets to through Ticketmaster and resale sites including StubHub, VividSeats and Seat Geek. What’s unique about this tour (besides it being her first time headlining) is the digital experience she’s providing her fans with through Adobe Express — an AI-first creativity app featuring apps for easier content creation.
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Whether you were able to score travel deals to attend the concert in person or not, the “ABCDEFU” singer is giving fans a behind-the-scenes peek of her tour through a virtual scrapbook. It will be available following the tour through a 3-minute music video highlighting her experiences. Anyone who views it is also encouraged to use Adobe Express templates to tell their own “Scared But Trying” story.
“It was really important to me to try and meet the people who cared to [come to my] shows and really talk about the theme of Scared But Trying, and what it means for them in their lives, and just being more open about our fears and our insecurities and things that we’re scared to do,” Gayle tells Billboard. “Adobe and I wanted to come together to try and create a space for people and create a community to come together and collaborate.”
Rather than have to download Photoshop, Lightroom, Illustrator, Adobe Premiere Pro and more apps onto your laptop, this will be an all-in-one creative app.
Outside of her partnership with Adobe, Gayle also shared insight into it was like for her to tour with artists including Taylor Swift, Pink and My Chemical Romance, as well as her Scared But Trying trek, new music and any essentials she takes on the road.
Read on for our interview with Gayle.
What inspired you to release singles like “Don’t Call Me Pretty,” “Leave Me for Dead” and “I Don’t Sleep As Good As I Used To”?
I was [originally] thinking about making an album because I had put out EPs last year. I was thinking naturally it was developing into an album and I didn’t particularly know what I was doing touring wise. Then, when I had these amazing tour opportunities put in front of me, I obviously wasn’t going to say no because they were really exciting and it was a really big honor — and opening up for Taylor [Swift] and Pink, I had never opened up for a stadium act before.
I’m a perfectionist. I want to try and be great at everything I do and I felt like I couldn’t be great at making my first, like, debut album and be a great touring artist. So I decided to put out singles that I felt captured the energy of my live show and intensities of attitudes that I felt. Then it lead into putting out “Leave Me for Dead” and I was going on tour with Pink and I played that song on the whole Pink tour, and it was a really fun song to play live.
GAYLE performs on The Late Late Show with James Corden airing Tuesday, March 15, 2022.
Terence Patrick/CBS via Getty Images
And the bloody covers for each single — how did the idea come about?
When I was thinking of a single cover, I was just thinking my ears bleeding would kind of fit conceptually with the song. If you just heard “Everybody Hates Me” and then you see a picture of a girl and her ears are bleeding, I felt like metaphorically, it kind of said something and was fitting conceptually with where the song was going. Then, I thought it would be cool if the blood just kept getting more and more dramatic, and at some point I actually pick up a knife.
I [also] have this song called “Don’t Call Me Pretty” and it kind of talks about the objectification that people can feel in their life, where it’s like, oh my gosh, isn’t it a compliment, isn’t it so nice to be pretty, but it’s that feeling of when that’s the only thing a person can see you as, and that feeling of being objectified is so beautiful. It makes you feel so hollow. For me, when I’m covered in blood, it’s like I’ve reached that breaking point where that one last person called me pretty or objectified me and made me feel that way [and] I just lost my mind.
Can we expect a debut album anytime soon?
I’m definitely working on starting the process of creating an album and starting to talk about it. It’s also kind of the conversation of do the songs I put out this year, do they go on the album? Do I write completely new songs? Like … we’re really focusing this year on finishing out the touring and this headlining run and really celebrating what the past two years have been for me. Then starting a new era and my perspective with the album.
You’ve also toured with some big names like Taylor Swift, Pink and My Chemical Romance. What has been the best piece of advice you’ve received?
The overall message from everybody that I’ve toured with (when we’ve had conversations) is that it’s obviously a hard thing to tour, it’s a hard thing to put yourself out there. But if you truly love doing it, you really have to put yourself out there, keep consistently working on your craft, keep doing the things you love and good things will follow from that.
That’s really all you can do, you know, there’s no secret button or secret formula, we’re all scared and we’re all just trying our best.
Do you have a favorite experience so far?
Oh gosh, every tour there’s always a highlight. I remember opening up for [My Chemical Romance] and I threw up for the first time. I remember going up and walking on because I was so scared — so scared. Oh my god, I’d never been that scared before ever, ever, ever in my life. Or the first Taylor [Swift] show, I walked on stage ten seconds late — I missed my first line and that was the most like terrifying thing I’ve ever experienced in my life, and I was asking so many questions that I missed my cue to walk on stage, so I had to run, like, sprint on stage, and I missed my first few words.
But even with Pink there’s so many fun times — and even I’m looking at my room right now and I’m seeing, like, a disco ball necklace that somebody threw on stage for me, or big pink heart sunglasses from from people throwing things from the crowd and being on tour during Pride Month is just the best time to be on tour with Pink, ever. The love and the pride that was at that show and what we got to celebrate was so beautiful.
How do you think it prepared you for going on tour solo?
It really made me understand the stamina that it takes to have a live show. When I’m opening up for somebody and I’m out of breath in 30 minutes, versus I know the hour and a half or even three and a half hour show the artist has to play [after] me. It also made me more comfortable with being on stage, and moving around and talking to people, and interacting — I heard this quote and it really spoke to me where it’s like, you don’t get energy from a crowd, you put energy into the crowd and you hope that they bring it back to you. I don’t walk on stage and I’m like, “OK, everybody else get me hype,” I’m like, OK, I need to try and get everybody excited,” and then we can all hopefully make each other more excited off of that excitement.
Are there any tour essentials that you have to take with you?
Oh gosh, we’re taking so much Vitamin Water Zero Sugar. I always bring a tour diary with me because I think it’s important to try note the way that you were feeling on shows — even though it’s very scary traveling with the diary because you can lose it so quickly. I need my bandmates with me — we’re such a family, so I need all of them with me because we always have such a great time, and they’re great emotional support. And fans because I need the people who like my music, and I like them [and] I want to show up and I want to celebrate them — and that is a tour essential. And two obnoxiously oversized suitcases.
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Source: Nacon / Teyon Games / RoboCop: Rogue City
Xbox has some new pep in its step after finally closing its $69 billion acquisition of Activision Blizzard King. To show its focus is back on what’s essential, games, we got a glimpse of what’s to come during the Xbox Partner Preview.
Like PlayStation’s State of Play presentations, the Xbox Partner Preview spotlighted the games coming to the Xbox Series X and Series S console from third-party studios.
During the 30-minute presentation, we got trailers and gameplay footage from Xbox’s third-party partners like Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio, Remedy Entertainment, Studio Wildcard, Nacon, Konami, and more.
Gamers were happy to see the first in-engine footage from Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, island activities from Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth, more gameplay footage from RoboCop: Rogue City, the first footage from Ark: Survival Ascended, and so much more.
In case you missed the Xbox Partner Preview program, we are here to break it down for you.
Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater
Source: Konami / Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater
Snake is back, and he looks better than ever. No, this isn’t a new game, but a revisit to a game many say is the greatest entry into the Metal Gear Solid franchise, Snake Eater.
Now called Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater, Konami has reimagined the tactical espionage stealth action game using the powerful Unreal Engine 5, giving the game a complete graphics overhaul.
The in-engine look gave us a glimpse of the dense jungle vegetation that will help Snake hide and take out his enemies and the predatory animals that not only pose a danger to Snake but also could be his next meal and help him survive.
Unlike the original game released in 2004, Metal Gear Solid Detla: Snake Eater will not only feature cutting-edge graphics but 3D audio as well when it arrives.
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RoboCop: Rogue City
Source: Nacon/Teyon Games / RoboCop: Rogue City
RoboCop: Rogue City is high on our list of games to play in 2023. While we don’t think this one will be on the level of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 or Diablo IV, it looks fun as hell, dishing out justice and handing out parking tickets as the cyborg.
In the latest look at the game, we get some more story beats, a look at Alex Murphy, aka RoboCop, his partner Lois, some gunplay action, and even a showdown with ED-209.
RoboCop: Rogue City is now available for pre-order—no release word on a release date.
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To see the rest of the announcements from the Xbox Partner Preview, hit the gallery below.
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Photos: Konami / Nacon
1. Alan Wake II Launch Trailer
Per Xbox:
Ritualistic murders in a small town. An FBI agent looking for answers, and a writer looking for an escape from the nightmare he is writing. Who is the victim, and who is the monster? Follow the horror story into the dark when Alan Wake 2 launches on October 27th. Play as the writer, Alan Wake, and the FBI agent, Saga Anderson. Explore two beautiful and terrifying realities, and solve a deadly mystery before it’s too late. Alan Wake 2 is available October 27th on Xbox Series X|S.
For more, head here.
2. ARK: Survival Ascended – Xbox Partner Preview
Per Xbox:
Respawn into a new dinosaur survival experience beyond your wildest dreams… as ARK is reimagined from the ground-up into the next-generation of videogame technology with Unreal Engine 5! You awake on a mysterious island, your senses overwhelmed by the blinding sunlight and brilliant colors bouncing off every surface around you, the azure waters of a verdant Island lapping at your bare feet. A deep roar echoes from the misty jungle, jolting you into action, and you stand up – not afraid, but intrigued. Are you ready to form a tribe, tame and breed hundreds of species of dinosaurs and other primeval creatures, explore, craft, build, and fight your way to the top of the food-chain? Your new world awaits… step through the looking-glass and join it!
For more head, here.
3. LIKE A DRAGON: INFINITE WEALTH | DONDOKO ISLAND REVEAL TRAILER – Xbox Partner Preview
Per Xbox:
Too many street punks getting you down? Time for the getaway you deserve? Dondoko Island is the destination for you. Create the resort of your dreams in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth when it launches January 26th, 2024.
4. Still Wakes the Deep – Gameplay Reveal – Xbox Partner Preview
Per Xbox:
Still Wakes the deep is an upcoming survival horror game from The Chinese Room. Set on an oil rig, this game pushes you through claustrophobic environments and freezing waters escaping an unthinkable horror. Still Wakes The Deep is coming to XBOX in 2024. Secret Mode are a Video Games publisher under Tencent and Sumo Group. Our goal is to delight and inspire you, and that’s why we are Secret Mode.
5. Manor Lords – Release Date Announcement Trailer – Xbox Partner Preview
Per Xbox:
Manor Lords, the highly anticipated historical city-building game, is coming on day one to PC Game Pass! Manor Lords launches in Game Preview on April 26th, 2024.
6. IKARO: Will Not Die – Announce Teaser – Xbox Partner Preview
Per Xbox:
From Futurlab, the award-winning creators of Powerwash Simulator and Velocity, in partnership with Thunderful, comes IKARO: Will Not Die, a momentum-based, fast-flowing action rogue-lite.
7. Spirit of the North 2 – Announcement Trailer – Xbox Partner Preview
Per Xbox:
Embrace the aurora and save the guardians in Spirit of the North 2, coming to Xbox Series X|S. Unveil the mysteries of a beautiful ancient world in this breathtaking 3rd-Person Adventure, a sequel to the acclaimed ‘Spirit of the North.’ Take on the role of an isolated fox with a raven companion on a quest to restore the lost guardians and return home. In an ancient world left in ruin, embark on the journey of an isolated fox far from home. With the help of a wise Raven companion, seek out the lost legendary guardians and release them from the grasp of the dark shaman Grimnir.
8. Dungeons of Hinterberg Social Gameplay Reveal – Xbox Partner Preview
Per Xbox:
Join us for a deeper dive into the social side to Dungeons of Hinterberg gameplay! In this new trailer, we explore a day in the life of Luisa, what she gets up to and who she meets.
9. THE FINALS – Open Beta Trailer – Xbox Partner Preview
Fight alongside your teammates in the world’s biggest, loudest, and most anticipated combat entertainment game show. Experience destruction in a way you haven’t before. THE FINALS Open Beta kicks off on Xbox Series X|S on October 26 – November 5, 2023.
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Bowers & Wilkins, a leading audio company that produces top-of-the-line products, offers an array of award-winning speakers, headphones, and other devices. The brand’s Px8 over-the-ear headphones are among those lauded devices, and Bowers & Wilkins rolled out a new color finish that reminds us of a certain suit-wearing genius superhero.
Founded in 1966, Bowers & Wilkins has emerged as a leader in providing studio speakers, home speakers, car audio devices, and more. Engineers, musicians, and true audiophiles are the target audience for B&W products but they provide their premiere technology at a fair entry price.
The latest color from B&W for the Px8 is the Royal Burgundy finish. This version of the Px8, as we noted before, is a noise-canceling over-the-ear wireless headphones set that sport a Nappa leather finish along with gold trimmings. The Royal Burgundy joins the existing and still popular Black and Tan Nappa leather finishes.
The B&W team has refined the bells and whistles of its flagship headphones. If one is familiar with the vast world of headphone drivers, the Px8 came equipped with 40mm Carbon Cone drive units, the same drivers that power its innovative loudspeaker units. Paired with the Bowers & Wilkins-developed DSP (Digital Signal Processing), fans who use music streaming services can expect 24-bit high-resolution sound.
Other features of the Px8 included its standard single cast-aluminum arm structure, and the earcups, memory foam cushions, and headband also feature the Nappa leather trim. The Px8 also comes with a handy carrying case for easy transport and storage.
B&W updated its acoustic tuning that promises faster response and low distortion across a wide range of frequencies, building upon the build quality of the bar set by the Px7 S2 earbuds and the Px7 S2e over-the-ear headphones. What listeners can expect is the best representation of sound from the music you enjoy, especially if you use a streaming service that offers high-fidelity options.
The Bowers & Wilkins Px8 model is priced at $699 in the Black, Tan, and new Royal burgundy finish.
Learn more here.
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Photo: B&W
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Source: Andrew Toth / Getty / FaZe Clan
Esports is struggling, and you don’t have to look further than what popular esports and influencer brand FaZe Clan is going through. Now, the organization is hoping after being purchased, it can stay afloat.
Spotted on The Verge, Faze Clan has been acquired in a stock deal worth about $17 million by gaming analytics and Esports brand company Gamesquare.
The $17 million is a steep drop from Faze’s $725-million valuation at the time of its special purpose acquisition company, SPAC, merger in July of 2022.
The website also notes that Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones is an investor in Gamesquare.
Like many entities in the Esports industry, the Esports organization has struggled since SPAC made it a publicly traded company on the Nasdaq exchange, posting a $28.4-million loss “through the first half of 2023,” Bloomberg reports.
A History of Struggle
Before news of the $17 million acquisition, FaZe Clan gave CEO Lee Trink the boot. The Esports organization boasted big names like Lil Yachty and LeBron James’ son, Bronny James, as members and NBA hooper Ben Simmons as an investor.
The organization abruptly lost one of its most prominent investors, Snoop Dogg, who reportedly lost millions after investing in the Esports organization.
With the acquisition by Gamesquare, FaZe Clan hopes that hitting the reset button will help right the sinking ship. FaZe Clan’s leadership is reverting to its original leadership structure.
Richard “Faze Banks” Bengtson will serve as CEO, Thomas “Faze Temperrr” Oliveira will become president, and Yousef “Faze Apex” Abdelfattah will take over as COO.
Via a press release, FaZe Clan says it will be “re-engaging with its core fanbase” in hopes that it will return the organization to the top of Esports relevancy.
We shall see if this all works out for the once mega-popular Esports organization.
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Photo: Andrew Toth / Getty
All products and services featured are independently chosen by editors. However, Billboard may receive a commission on orders placed through its retail links, and the retailer may receive certain auditable data for accounting purposes. Listening to your favorite artists doesn’t have to be done only through your Bluetooth earbuds, and Soundcore wants to make it […]
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Source: Blizzard Entertainment / Diablo IV
Still on the fence about entering Sanctuary and taking down Lilith? Well, thanks to Xbox Free Play Days, you can take the game for a spin without opening your wallet.
Diablo IV is currently in its second season, The Season of Blood, and many players have already taken down the game’s big bad Lillith, but many still have not yet experienced the greatness that is Diablo IV.
Kicking off on Thursday, October 19, Xbox Free Play Days gives gamers a chance to play 10 hours of Diablo IV for free, and when the trial is up, buy the game for 25% off.
Players will have access to Diablo IV’s content, and your progress will carry over if you purchase the game.
In our review of Diablo IV, our resident gamer, Beanz, wrote, “I’ve been through hell and back and enjoyed every minute of my hellishly addictive journey in Diablo IV.”
Diablo IV Is Rewarding Players In A Unique Way
In more Diablo IV news, players are encouraged to donate real blood to save lives and earn in-game rewards to celebrate the Season of Blood.
The new season sees Lord Zir use his Blood Seekers to raid the Sanctuary to procure blood for him using Blood Harvest rituals where players must defeat mini-bosses.
Diablo offers players in the United States residents a chance to donate “666 quarts of actual donated blood (equaling around 1,332 separate donations, with 1 pint per donation) into in-game rewards, while ultimately helping to save lives.”
Once the goal is reached, players who donated and those who didn’t will be entered in a contest to win a new custom-built PC infused with real human blood in its liquid cooling, which pays tribute to the game.
Well damn.
Here is a breakdown of the giveaway:
Tier 1: At 33% participation of the total 666-quart goal, all players will receive weapon cosmetics which include:
Dagger – Bloodpetal Anlace
Axe – Bloodpetal Sever
Necro Offhand – Bloodpetal Heart
Sword – Bloodpetal Blade
Druid Staff – Bloodpetal Bludgeon
Tier 2: At 66% participation, all players will receive the aforementioned rewards plus The Loch Raeth Maor Barbarian armor set.
Tier 3: At 100% participation, all players will receive the aforementioned rewards plus the Vermilion Eye Piebald mount, and the custom real human blood-infused PC sweepstakes will become available to enter.
So what are you waiting for? Download the gamer and start a journey in Sanctuary to spill some demon blood and guts.
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Photo: Blizzard Entertainment / Diablo IV
A little more than two years ago, HYBE invested millions into Supertone, an AI voice synthesis startup. Their relationship would allow for a collaboration with an existent artist that created a new kind of artist entirely — here’s how it happened.
An AI Alliance
HYBE’s relationship with Supertone begins in February 2021, when HYBE reportedly invests $3.6 million into it. By January 2023, their partnership expands when HYBE acquires Supertone entirely for a reported price of over $30 million. Little was then known about HYBE’s plans to integrate Supertone technology into its music empire (the company’s stable of K-pop supergroups includes BTS, Tomorrow x Together and ENHYPEN) other than that HYBE’s founder and chairman, Bang Si-Hyuk, told Billboard in his recent cover story that one of HYBE’s first integrations was referred to internally as “Project L” and scheduled for May 2023.
The Digital Debut
Right on schedule, HYBE starts to tease an upcoming single from MIDNATT, a new alter-ego of popular Korean singer Lee Hyun. Two weeks later, on May 15, he releases his first single, “Masquerade,” using Supertone technology to help him translate it into six languages: English, Korean, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese and Vietnamese. Through Supertone, the singer improves his intonation and pronunciation of the languages to sound more like a native speaker. Shortly after its release, MIDNATT says that he was inspired by “talking about language barriers” with his team: “When I would listen to music in other languages, I couldn’t immerse into the music as well as in my native language, and we were talking about how we could overcome [that].”
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How It Works
Voice synthesis is best understood as a subset of generative AI that lets users manipulate their voice while talking or singing, allowing them to assume the timbre and tone of a particular celebrity, character or loved one. But some companies, like Supertone, also enable users to make other edits, like altering the language, age or gender of speech.
The Results
It’s a controversial use of AI, raising ethical questions about assuming someone else’s voice and making one’s own unrecognizable, but MIDNATT’s employment of voice-synthesis technology was largely well received. “After I experienced it myself, I think it really depends on how you utilize it,” he says of using the technology. “The sense of responsibility is what matters the most. So as far as it is used in the music, I think it is a great opportunity for me to make [my song] more accessible and more immersive to the fans worldwide.”
This story will appear in the Oct. 21, 2023, issue of Billboard.
Since the dawn of the dotcom bubble, countless promising tech companies have flamed out shortly after starting up, often dragging investors down with them.
Billboard asked three prominent music tech advocates to identify the red flags that investors need to watch for and applied them to three sectors once touted as the future but since consigned to the past.
NFTs
One of the most-hyped tech innovations in recent years, non-fungible tokens generated $25 billion in total sales in 2021, according to market tracker DappRadar. The digital collectibles that are bought and sold using digital currencies drew big-name investors such as Jack Dorsey, Mark Cuban and Guy Oseary and generated millions from successful NFT sales by artists like Diplo, Grimes and The Weeknd. But today, the chat rooms where NFT investors gather are “just such a sad place,” Diplo told Billboard in August. “It was such a mountain of hype.”
The once-popular Bored Ape Yacht Club collection, which Oseary represented and celebrities including Jimmy Fallon, Madonna and Justin Bieber promoted, has seen its floor price — a minimum dollar amount that indicates market demand — decline by 88% from its peak in April 2022. (Two money-losing Bored Ape NFT holders subsequently sued those celebrities, alleging they failed to disclose their financial stake in the company they were promoting.) The lesson? Raised in Space music/tech investment fund founder and managing partner Shara Senderoff says it’s crucial to remain “unfazed by the allure of potential brand partnerships, inflated market-size potential or endorsements from other investors. What truly matters is a focus on revenue generation and the scalability of the business model.”
Livestreaming
In the first year of the pandemic, over two dozen livestreaming companies launched — including Sessions, Bulldog DM and Dreamstage — offering fans the ability to stream concerts at home. Among the investors in the reportedly $1 billion industry were Sony Music Entertainment, Scooter Braun, Deezer and Superfly founder Rick Farman, drawn in by the industry veterans leading the companies and high lockdown demand. Over 113 million U.S. internet users viewed livestreams in the second quarter of 2020, according to market research and analysis company MusicWatch.
Ultimately, fans were overwhelmed. Bandsintown aggregated more than 44,000 global livestream events from late March 2020 to August 2021 — and once in-person events resumed, demand dwindled. After a wave of consolidation, only a few companies like Veeps, which Live Nation acquired in January 2021, claim to remain popular. Artist Partner Group/Artist Publishing Group head Mike Caren says he always looks for businesses that offer “a clear road map for their future development,” which in this case ought to have factored in the resumption of in-person live events.
Social Audio
Another area of music tech that flourished during the pandemic, social audio startups from Spotify, Amazon, X (formerly Twitter) and Clubhouse have all shut down or changed strategy in recent months. At its height, Amazon’s Amp, which the company closed in October, let users host their own shows by streaming music and drew high-profile acts like Lil Yachty, Nicki Minaj and Travis Barker for hosting gigs. While one such platform, Stationhead, remains popular, Raine Group partner Joe Puthenveetil is among investors who say it is usually wise to avoid “companies that rely on buzzwords” over time-tested business metrics.
Additional reporting by Kristin Robinson.
This story will appear in the Oct. 21, 2023, issue of Billboard.