For a deeper dive into some of the themes influencing Silicon Valley investors this year, spend some time reading the “16 Things” series of blog posts by VC firm Andreessen Horowitz.
It lays out “a few of the things we’ve been observing or thinking about”, from virtual reality to “sensorification of the enterprise”. Among the themes most relevant to Music Ally are crowdfunding, which the company thinks will go “mobile and mainstream” in 2015.
“With smartphones in our pockets, we not only have access to crowdfunding platforms whenever we want, but to the crowd that comprises the various social circles of our lives — from family to school, work, and the region we live in,” it suggests.
“With the same ease-of-use, immediacy, and frequency of everything else on our phones, crowdfunding will increasingly be the way people turn their ideas — large and small — into reality.”
Andreessen Horowitz thinks this will also be a disruptive year for online video, citing competition for YouTube from Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, Twitch and messaging apps.
“The age of platforms not taking care of makers may come to an end. YouTube ‘stars’ generate tons of views for YouTube, but those views don’t translate into meaningful earnings for most of them. As the size of the entire pie grows bigger, there needs to be a piece for everyone,” it explains. “Online video is far from done… so it will be interesting to see what even a little competition will do here.”
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Tools: Kaiber
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