RapGenius is a YC-funded (and VC-backed) company that lets people annotate rap lyrics. BUT rap is just the initial theme that helps them fine-tune the product. It's increasingly used as a general annotation engine.
So here's a high-profile investor demonstrating exactly that point, that it can be used beyond rap.
But what do these annotations mean? Are they things that Jobs said that weren't in the prepared remarks? Are they some kind of ironic commentary by Ashton Kutcher? Are they explanatory annotations?
It seems to be some of the usual Reality Distortion Field in effect by someone who feels they really appreciate and understand who Jobs was and what his inner-most thoughts are.
Ashton Kutcher plays Steve Jobs in the new movie and did a crazy amount of research for the role.
He listened to hundreds of Steve's talks, studied art & topics that influenced Jobs, read Jobs' favorite books, obsessed over him for months, ate Jobs' diet, even learned to walk like Jobs (who has an odd gait, likely due to years of walking barefoot).
I got to see a screening of the movie yesterday with subsequent QA by Kutcher. Even though he's humble and doesn't claim to be an expert, it was borderline freaky how well Kutcher seems to understand Jobs. At least, from the point-of-view of someone who wasn't friends or family.
I consider him an expert.
Related: I like when RapGenius branches out from rap. I wonder if it will always be called RapGenius for non-rap content, or if they'll come up with a more general brand name. I think it'd be neat if RapGenius became as broad as Wikipedia.
He also talked about Jobs extensively on here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4GB-2l9_kc. It really looks like he studied everything Jobs had done, as well as he can. His reasons for accepting the role is kind of funny, but I liked that he was being honest about it.
Hey Pud, there was actually a chapter on this in the YC book: http://www.amazon.com/The-Launch-Pad-Combinator-Exclusive/dp... - with a ton of interesting debate between them and Harj Taggar on it. Anyone who has ever tried to name a startup can definitely relate.
I believe they're eventually planning on silos, like Stack Exchange, but are focusing on the main brand initially.
Their thinking could have obviously changed since launch, though.
"It's so awful and atrocious," said Wozniak,
who said he got access to a copy of the movie's script.
"Unlike the way Steve and I really dealt with each other.
"I didn't want to have much to do with that movie."
I'd imagine (haven't seen the movie yet) that Wozniak has a problem with the way they potrayed him in the movie. It's not to far out there that the movie would try to showcase him as a quite, naive, computer guy. Hollywood tends to always do that when portraying hackers.
More to the point, Woz has approved of the way people were portrayed in "Pirates of Silicon Valley", including himself.
"It's funny, but even with all the things that aren't said outright, a great number of people, like yourself, saw a lot of things in that movie that are totally true. The personalities were very accurately portrayed."
"The personalities and incidents are accurate in the sense that they all occured but they are often with the wrong parties (Bill Fernandez, Apple employee #4, was with me and the computer that burned up in 1970) and at the wrong dates (when John Sculley joined, he had to redirect attention from the Apple III, not the Mac, to the Apple ][ ) and places (Homebrew Computer Club was at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center)."
>>I wonder if it will always be called RapGenius for non-rap content, or if they'll come up with a more general brand name
They appear to have decided to keep it all on the rapgenius.com domain but are calling the different verticals "_____ Genius"
If you hover over 'rap' in the navbar you see a dropdown with the following:
-rock -> links to rock.rapgenius.com
-poetry -> links to poetry.rapgenius.com
-news -> links to news.rapgenius.com
On those subdomains the logo reads 'rock genius' 'poetry genius' or 'news genius'. I checked and they own the .com for each of those as well, which redirect to the subdomains. They also have corresponding Facebook and Twitter accounts.
'That seems to dovetail with their goal of annotating the entire internet, a notion that would seem to sit well with Andreesen Horowitz and other Rap Genius investors including Ashton Kutcher and budding venture capitalist Nas.'
semi-related: I saw the trailer for Jobs before Pacific Rim and it was cut to be laughably bad, like a Daily Show or MADtv sketch. I have low hopes for the movie, but the trailer seemed almost intentionally terrible.
30 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 73.6 ms ] threadSo here's a high-profile investor demonstrating exactly that point, that it can be used beyond rap.
He listened to hundreds of Steve's talks, studied art & topics that influenced Jobs, read Jobs' favorite books, obsessed over him for months, ate Jobs' diet, even learned to walk like Jobs (who has an odd gait, likely due to years of walking barefoot).
I got to see a screening of the movie yesterday with subsequent QA by Kutcher. Even though he's humble and doesn't claim to be an expert, it was borderline freaky how well Kutcher seems to understand Jobs. At least, from the point-of-view of someone who wasn't friends or family.
I consider him an expert.
Related: I like when RapGenius branches out from rap. I wonder if it will always be called RapGenius for non-rap content, or if they'll come up with a more general brand name. I think it'd be neat if RapGenius became as broad as Wikipedia.
I believe they're eventually planning on silos, like Stack Exchange, but are focusing on the main brand initially.
Their thinking could have obviously changed since launch, though.
What do you make of this Wozniak's comments [1]:
[1] http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/30/tech/innovation/wozniak-jobs-m...news.yc discussion of [1]:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5157396
More to the point, Woz has approved of the way people were portrayed in "Pirates of Silicon Valley", including himself.
"It's funny, but even with all the things that aren't said outright, a great number of people, like yourself, saw a lot of things in that movie that are totally true. The personalities were very accurately portrayed."
"The personalities and incidents are accurate in the sense that they all occured but they are often with the wrong parties (Bill Fernandez, Apple employee #4, was with me and the computer that burned up in 1970) and at the wrong dates (when John Sculley joined, he had to redirect attention from the Apple III, not the Mac, to the Apple ][ ) and places (Homebrew Computer Club was at Stanford Linear Accelerator Center)."
http://www.woz.org/taxonomy/term/2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirates_of_Silicon_Valley
They appear to have decided to keep it all on the rapgenius.com domain but are calling the different verticals "_____ Genius"
If you hover over 'rap' in the navbar you see a dropdown with the following:
-rock -> links to rock.rapgenius.com
-poetry -> links to poetry.rapgenius.com
-news -> links to news.rapgenius.com
On those subdomains the logo reads 'rock genius' 'poetry genius' or 'news genius'. I checked and they own the .com for each of those as well, which redirect to the subdomains. They also have corresponding Facebook and Twitter accounts.
Tech Genius next please!
Yeah, i think it's pretty trivial for the wikipedia folks to implement a modal popup...
- Job's favorite books - Arts that Jobs liked
Any help/pointers will be appreciated?
http://www.forbes.com/sites/zackomalleygreenburg/2013/05/02/...
A celebrity-signed promotion. Otherwise, we gain practically no new information.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nryTz9iBqEI
On another side, Jobs going around barefooted and even stinking is a true story. It's really a good material for the movies.