Sam Blake
Sam primarily covers entertainment and media for dot.LA. Previously he was Marjorie Deane Fellow at The Economist, where he wrote for the business and finance sections of the print edition. He has also worked at the XPRIZE Foundation, U.S. Government Accountability Office, KCRW, and MLB Advanced Media (now Disney Streaming Services). He holds an MBA from UCLA Anderson, an MPP from UCLA Luskin and a BA in History from University of Michigan. Email him at samblake@dot.LA and find him on Twitter @hisamblake
Community, the L.A.-based tech startup whose platform enables mass text-messaging to fans and customers from artists, celebrities and brands, announced Friday it has raised $40 million from Salesforce Ventures.
Community is part of a wave of companies that help consumers build direct relationships with the brands and creators they idolize.
<p>Over 3 billion messages have been exchanged between what Community calls "leaders" – the likes of whom include Tom Brady, Deepak Chopra, Barack Obama and People Magazine – and the "members" who sign up to receive the text messages. </p><p>"Our business model and purpose are built on keeping people directly and instantly connected to the conversations that they want to be part of at scale," said founder and CEO Matt Peltier in a statement. </p><p>The company has now raised nearly $90 million since launching in 2019. Previous investors include Ashton Kutcher's Sound Ventures, Live Nation and Sony Innovation Fund. </p><p>"On other platforms there's a guarantee of instant publishing, but there's no guarantee of instant distribution," Community's head of activation <a href="https://dot.la/music-startups-2647008629.html" target="_self">Jake Udell told dot.LA last year.</a> </p><p>The company claims that 95% of messages sent by its leaders are opened. </p><p>"The idea that you will always be able to reach your fans — this community — via text, is a really empowering thing not just for you personally but for your business," Udell said previously. </p><p>In a statement on the role Community plays for brands, Salesforce president and CMO Sarah Franklin said, "Community lives at the intersection of trust, technology and culture, and is a powerful example of how organizations of any size can foster human connection to build meaningful relationships and drive growth."</p><p>The pandemic has accelerated the importance of artists engaging with their fans. </p><p>"That understanding and that willingness, combined with technology that allows artists to actually know who those superfans are, (and) engage them directly on a sustainable basis, is really starting to redefine how an artist looks at their fandom, and where to put their time, energy and resources," Zach Katz, CEO of music-tech investment firm Raised In Space, recently told dot.LA.</p><p><em>Editor's Note: dot.LA co-founder Spencer Rascoff invested in Community in a previous round. </em></p>
From Your Site Articles
Related Articles Around the Web
Read more
Show less
The virtual influencer Miquela Sousa, aka Lil Miquela, whose rise has garnered equal parts uproar and admiration, continued her foray into NFTs on Wednesday with part two of a five-part series that promises to "tell a special story over time."
<p>Brud, the L.A. startup behind Miquela and a handful of other characters with fully fledged digital identities across social media, is doing the free drop to hype up their superstar avatar and expand her narrative. An announcement from the company said the underlying artwork, called "Unseen by eyes but forged in stone," can exist as a standalone piece or as part of a collection that will roll out over the next several months. </p><p>Brud appears to be gamifying the collection of tokens to unlock a unique, surprise reward. </p><p>"This NFT is part of a larger series featuring Miquela," the company wrote in a Google doc linked in Miquela's tweet announcing the drop. "Each NFT in this series serves as a piece to a larger puzzle. Each piece will work together to tell a special story over time. The only way to access the story before anyone else is to own each NFT and connect them together along the way."<span></span></p>
<div id="eef39" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="35a8e276238c475a9b7bbb831dbef475"><blockquote class="twitter-tweet twitter-custom-tweet" data-twitter-tweet-id="1379841663426682880" data-partner="rebelmouse"><div style="margin:1em 0">New NFT drops NOW!
First 1500 people to reply to THIS TWEET with their wallet address will BE BLESSED and the FULL… https://t.co/7XZdblfZbd</div> — lilmiquela (@lilmiquela)<a href="https://twitter.com/lilmiquela/statuses/1379841663426682880">1617814863.0</a></blockquote></div>
<p><br>Users could claim one of the available 1,500 NFTs by replying to Lil Miquela's tweet with the address to their crypto wallet.</p><p>Brud, valued at $144 million, said it will deliver the tokens within 24 hours. Users had to agree to let the company contact them in the future for marketing purposes.</p><p>Within three hours the post had received nearly 4,000 comments and been retweeted over 1,600 times.</p><p>Upon validation of users' addresses, Miquela's Twitter would post a response.</p><p>"Obsessed with u, there's 1481 left!"</p><p>"We're making history, TYYY!! there's 1377 left!"</p><p>"We're making history, TYYY!! there's 1203 left!"</p><p>And so on.</p><p>Since debuting on Instagram in 2016, Lil Miquela has picked up three million followers and sponsorship deals from the likes of Supreme and Barney's. Her curated digital identity ostensibly makes her less of a risk than human influencers for brands. </p>
<p><br/></p><p>Last year, the digital teenager was estimated to have earned <a href="https://www.onbuy.com/gb/blog/the-highest-earning-robot-influencers-on-instagram~a243/?source=cjSkimlinks&exta=cjunct&AID=13595431&CJEVENT=8ccc83b597e611eb8211003a0a82b82d" target="_blank"><u>more than $12 million</u></a>. She's repped by CAA, alongside many real celebrities, and has appeared on a billboard in Times Square.</p><p><u><a href="https://superrare.co/leviathan" target="_blank">In November, Brud released her first NFT</a></u>, tied to a digital artwork entitled "Rebirth of Venus" that sold via SuperRare for 159.5 Ether. At the time, that was worth about $82,000; Ether's value has since nearly quadrupled. The winning bidder of that token appears to be linked to crypto investment fund Divergence Ventures, based on the link in the buyer's SuperRare profile.<br/></p><p>It has been a common refrain as NFTs have gone mainstream: the investor behind last month's headline-grabbing $69 million NFT tied to a digital artwork by Beeple <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/03/12/buyer-of-69-million-beeple-nft-is-a-crypto-investo-metakovan.html" target="_blank"><u>also had a financial interest in propping up the legitimacy of cryptocurrency</u></a>.</p><p>The latest Miquela offering is part of <a href="https://dot.la/nft-artists-2651366283.html" target="_self"><u>an ongoing spree of creative NFT offerings</u></a> that provide buyers more than just a certificate of digital ownership tied to the blockchain. It also expands the storyline of a 19-year-old who blurs the lines between fantasy and reality as a racially ambiguous, socially conscious teenager.</p>From Your Site Articles
- 'Owning Things Matters':NFTs Change the Game for Creators - dot.LA ›
- LA's Music-Tech Startups Are Poised to Reshape the Industry. - dot.LA ›
Related Articles Around the Web
Read more
Show less
The movie business is breathing a provisional sigh of relief today after weekend box office numbers show "Godzilla vs. Kong" broke several pandemic-era records. But Hollywood still has reason to worry.
In its debut domestic weekend, the Warner Bros. film played on over 3,000 screens and raked in $32.2 million, both highs since lockdowns began. None of these figures would represent big wins in normal times, though this is hardly normal.
<p>Pre-pandemic average opening weekend of 2019's top four box-office hits was about $200 million. And for the first time, Warner Bros., Disney and other studios have simultaneously released what would normally be theatrical tentpoles on their streaming services. </p><p>"It's clear that wherever audiences are ready to safely return to the theater, they have, and we're thrilled with the results," Jeff Goldstein, who heads domestic distribution at Warner Bros. Pictures, said in a release announcing the numbers.</p><p>The new data suggest Hollywood, which had an abysmal box-office year with theaters across the country shuttered, is headed in the right direction – even if the cinema business is in decline. And with only 55% of theaters operating in North America according to Comscore, and most of them at limited capacity, there is still plenty of room for recovery. </p><p>The box office figures represent about a 50% increase in screen count and 278% jump in revenue from Disney's "Raya and the Last Dragon," the most recent big-name film to debut in the U.S., in early March.<br/></p><p>The film also set pandemic-era records for largest opening day since lockdowns began ($9.6 million, on Wednesday last week) and largest single day ($12.5 million, on Saturday). Overall, it has earned $48.5 million since its mid-week release. Including international, where it has been showing for about two weeks, it's brought in over $285 million. </p><p>For further comparison to the film's $32.2 million weekend, the pandemic-era debut of "Wonder Woman 1984" took in about $16.7 million domestically over Christmas weekend, while "Tenet" earned $20.2 million over its opening weekend in September. </p><p>Like "Wonder Woman" and "Raya," "Godzilla vs. Kong" viewers had the option to watch the new film on a streaming platform. "Raya" was sold for $30 on Disney Plus, while the other two were available on HBO Max for no extra fee. The extent to which this impacted their box office performance is unclear.</p><p>Given the relative success of "Godzilla vs. Kong," though, there may be some cause for optimism that the magic of the silver screen still has its charms–perhaps especially so for spectacles like superheroes, explosions and nuclear lizards fighting giant monkeys. </p>
Read more
Show less