DanceJam, founded by M.C. Hammer, Geoffrey Arone and Anthony Young (Arone and Young come out of Flock), is opening its doors to a select few beta testers this afternoon. This is a company that I have personally invested in, so I won’t editorialize much here (I will be linking to other blogs and news sources who cover it, though).
The site, which has already had some mainstream news coverage, will be a place for users to upload videos of themselves dancing. Viewers can watch and rate the clips, and there will be a constant stream of “face-offs” between dancers to determine the top people in various dance types and locations.
In preparation for launch, the team has been traveling to various locations to film people dancing in casual settings. Much of this footage will be included as original content on the site. See the video below for some of it:
They are inviting a few people who’ve added their emails to the DanceJam home page. We are also giving away 100 invites right now – just email techcrunch@dancejam.com. The first 100 to email get in.
DanceJam has raised $1 million in angel funding from investors including Rustic Canyon, Ron Conway, Michael Arrington, Alex Algard, Michael Tanne, Geoff Ralston, Alex Welch and Ariel Poler.
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now i know why hammer was a panelist at techcrunch20. if there is anything extremely popular on youtube, its dance videos, especially with the soulja boy crank dat craze.
This is a cool idea and one that I would imagine would gain lots of eyeballs. I am very interested in checking out the dance offs. I always liked the funnier dances myself and don’t really like the ones that people take themselves too seriously.
I’m working on a similar concept but the primary focus will be salsa dancing.
More to come in the next few months.
Wish I could get one of those tickets for newTeeVee.
clever, dance video on the internet, very very clever
psst…I’ll let you in on a secret…how about “music videos on the internet”
I know, crazy
niche video site – the next big thing.
You FAIL Mr. Arrington for passing off this ridiculously stupid video site as being news only because you are an investor. WTF, I can’t even stop the video. Flash9/Firefox2+. FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL.
I always wondered who the hell was investing in all of these niche video sites…
You guys might laugh at this site and why micheal is investing in this site.
But I personally see some potential in that.
Also you’ll have to bare in mind that the key isnt the idea but the execution with a list of angels like this one and people like M.C hammer as a founder, I guess advertisers and partners will pour in.
http://www.octabox.com
M.C. Hammer’s DanceJam Opens Its Doors To A Select Few (or: What M.C. Hammer is spending his last pennies with)
Anyone want to challenge me to a ‘dance-off’?
So it’s like YouPorn, but people are not fu*ing, people are dancing.
not to mention the flash video player throws a error every page refresh in firefox, but MA would’nt know cause he’s a Mac head
Sites like this live and die based on how heavily they focus on Breakin’. All dancers are passionate about their craft, but for a social networking/video site to really take off, they have to court the selective and easily-dissuaded B-Boy demographic.
If they see a bunch of kids doing the worm, they’re going to go to one of the many other services in this crowded space, but if DanceJam can offer top-notch electric boogaloo, it could become a contender.
I think the last study I read put the best sites at a ratio of 40% popping, 50% locking, and 10% robot-ing, but those aren’t rigid numbers (no pun intended).
Good luck, Mr Hammer!
i’m game for a danceoff, as long as its not exotic dancing….
hes still alive.
Obviously there wouldn’t be much overlap in the demographic for this site and the audience that reads Tech Crunch so of course most of the readers here will think that this idea is lame and has no hope of success. It’s all about Urban 2.0 . All they need is a couple people gettin’ krump, krunk, clowinin, c-walkin, as well as steppin and this site could explode all over the urban 2.0 scene. Big-ups to you Michael Arrington for taking a risk, having some vision and putting some faith in Tha Hammer. It’s time to Turn This Mutha Out!
Church!
IT Gangsta
)
(keepin it real for all the playaz and hustlaz chasin after that paper in the corporate world
Clearly this will be a huge success. I mean MC Hammer people!!! Wow!!! How did you get him on board? What a coup!!! What did he cost you? like.. $50? Man, and to think you where able to steal him away from the Surreal Life!
And people won’t upload the exact same thing on an established site with a LOT more eyeballs (cough-YouTube-cough) because…?
Sure it will create some early buzz (MC Hammer!!!11oneone!!) but successfully monetizing it? You sure read too much into that Long Tail book…
What you need is celebrity guests to post challenges. Get Chris Brown, Soulja Boy, Usher to pose a challenge, or Wade Robson, or Fatima, or go find and film some of the crews from Rize (the documentary by LaChapelle).
Damn. You need me as a consultant.
Holla @ ya boy.
IT Gangsta
You have “personally invested” in a site that users “upload videos of themselves dancing”? And MC Hammer is founding it?
This is the funniest shit I have read all day. Thank you for failing.
I think Web 2.0 just jumped the shark. What’s next tiffany opens a social networking site to allow people to rate leg warmer photos.
Hey Mike, I’m curious about the site’s policies on the music playing in the background. Are you paying royalties to the artists or are they only getting the ‘benefit’ of the free publicity with being part of the videos?
Recently Universal created waves by serving youtube with a takedown notice on a dancing infant – who apparently loved to get down to Prince.
Back 2006 I remember you authoring an article questioning that very situation on youtube, google video, etc……
Now a site you’re investing in is doing the same thing so where do you stand on the artists getting compensation for the playing of their music?
I forgot to add that these videos couldn’t exist without the music – after all who dances to silence now that our favorite mime has passed.
It’s not like this site isn’t reliant on musicians so what’s the plan?
#9: “the key isnt the idea but the execution” – wha??
Of course the key is the idea and this one is dumb. Will people flock to it? Initially, yes. Will people stick around? Doubt it. Is this a real, sustainable business? No way!
How fast could YouTube put this company out of business by creating a dance channel with some minimal voting capabilities. Why invest in a company that get get squashed so easily by the big guys in a half-second?
Can’t touch this.
Reminds me of an episode of south park where the kids “got served” by some “cool kids” from NY. Then they had these back & forth dance battles throughout the show.
@25 Len: http://youtube....h?v=YRjZz1GS0hI
Funny all the people carrying Hammer’s 10 year old loser gossip to this day, not knowing that the gossip got all the freeloaders off his back so he can continue being a community activist and cultural supporter. He’s a true trooper flying under the radar (especially of pop-culture 2.0 myopics).
just got back from hip hop class. can’t wait to see this site go live.
there is probably a reason why the number one youtube video is a guy dancing. they are fun to watch.
For EH #27:
I’ve seen Dave before but without the music it looks like he’s on one hell of an acid trip.
Speaking of which, a friend of mine from wayyyyy back had a trip where after he hit his bed, the numbers on the calendar hanging on his wall came to life walking down his wall, across his floor and then up onto his bed kinda miving around like Dave in the video.
Back to the subject, you have to admit it just isn’t the same without the music and I’m still wondering if this site will compensate the artists for the use of their music while these peeps are doin ther thang. (yes I’m white, couldn’t you tell).
Question- would Arrington invest in this company if the idea had been presented to him by a few 19 year olds? No way! Sounds like he couldn’t resist the chance to get in on some celebrity action.
As long as he doesn’t start wearing gold chains and asking everyone to call him the ‘MA’, no harm done.
the pause button as well as the stop button doesn’t seem to be working in the embedded video
I’ve got a one-off dance blog where I dance to different songs at glitterparade.com Maybe i should get in on this action.
It seems as though the embedded video player is throwing security sandbox error while trying illegally to contact javascript on the techcrunch page – it probably thinks it’s on it’s regular page where it can contact the JS. This is quite annoying for anyone using the debug version of flash (most flex/flash developers), as an error will appear each time you load techcrunch.com
I think its great what Hammer is doing. Despite some of the tumultuous times he’s been through, he’s getting into a market that he wasn’t exposed to before.
can someone explain the reasoning behind investing in this company?
I can’t imagine any investor really understands what hiphop, bboying, and dancing is about, I’m assuming mainstream street dance that are actually viral. They must see, MC Hammer = trendy. The truth, not really. I’ve seen people bring back MJ moves because they have staying power, never have I seen the MC Hammer moves come back ever.
They must also see the traffic that dance videos get, and so somehow that correlate that to cha-ching.
Lets start with the name, DanceJam, what a cheezy name.
Dancing, if anything is about style, and if this idea is about execution, then execution needs to reflect that style, which is very hard to manufacture if you are unauthentic.
We also need to ask if dancers would actually post their videos. Let me suggest that most dancers are dirt poor and are do it for the love of it. If they are going to post any video, they’ll put it up on YouTube. But generally, it takes a lot of work to actually complete a decent video that is worth sharing, and dancers you want on the site are too busy practicing to care enough to make a video and compete with some unknown across the world.
@22: Web 2.0 hasn’t jumped the shark. Web 2.0 basically *is* one drawn-out shark-jumping. All Web 2.0 is, is a bunch of “entrepreneurs” flying through the air on waterskis, grinning at a gaggle of investors on the beach and going “Eyyyyy!”. At which point the investors think “Wow that guy’s cool, maybe I can be as cool as him if I give him a kajillion dollars”.
Of course, you can only defy gravity, and the fact that businesses are supposed to make money (profit, not turnover), for so long. At that point, Happy Days is going to turn into Jaws.
Well done, Mike! That’s way cool. I can remember “Hammertime” from the underage discos… I’m sure this will last much longer. I’m waiting for the fake MC Hammer blog now.
Although a different approach for a video site there are too many others. I feel the site to keep an eye on is SonicGateway.com.