Your Tech Story

founders

Revision3

Revision3 – Jay Adelson, Kevin Rose, and David Prager’s internet television network that marked the beginning of tech content shows

Leave a Comment / Founder, Story, Tech Story, Uncategorized / By

Today, many options are available for entertainment. While the most popular option among all is the web series. Many web series on different topics are available today. But if we look back, it was not a common thing like the present days. Perhaps, tech content was absolutely not as popular as it is today. However,  an internet television network called Revision3 made this possible. It is known for producing web television shows presenting fun tech content during 2005-06.

San Francisco based firm Revision3 released several shows on niche topics during those days.  In 2005, Jay Adelson, David Prager, and Kevin Rose set up Revision3 along with their other business partners. Discovery digital network captured the firm in 2012. As well, it was a Discovery channel’s subsidiary till 2017 and shut down in the same year. Though, the journey of founders to set up Revision3 must be inspiring to know.

Revision3 Founders in Limelight

Revision3 founders
Image Source: techcrunch.com

Jay Adelson

Adelson is a well-known American entrepreneur in the field of the internet. He is known for several startups in this field. Like center electric, Opsmatic, and of course Revision3. His work in this field is remarkable and inspiring for any newbie entrepreneur. Jay was listed in the Top 100 Most Influential People in the World in 2008. As well, he was the finalist on the same list in the next year.

Early life

He was born on 7 September 1970 in Detroit. However, he spent his childhood mostly at Southfield in Michigan. Jay went to Cranbrook Kingswood School for his early education. While he attended Boston University to study Computer Science and Film and Broadcasting. Thereafter, he moved to Dan Rafael to find the job.

Career

He started the career with Netcom, the World’s one of the first ISPs. In there, he worked as an Installation Coordinator. Thereafter, he joined PAIX. It was a Digital Equipment Corporation’s Network System Laboratory. After that, he co-founded several firms related to the internet. Revision3 is one of the business ventures of Jay.

Robert Kevin Rose

He is a USA based Internet entrepreneur, known for his startups like Digg, Revision3, Milk, etc. Apart from that, he was the co-host of the famous television web show ‘The Screen Savers’. Because of his contribution to technology, MIT Technology Review TR35 marked him as one of the top 35 innovators in the world under the age of 35.

Personal Life

He was born on 21 February 1977 in Redding in California. Due to some reasons, Rose Family shifted to Las Vegas. Thus, Kevin spent most of his childhood time in there.

Coming to his education, he attended Southeast Career Technical Academy for high school. Thereafter, Rose went to the University of Nevada Las Vegas to study major in computer science. But he dropped out in 1998.

Career

Prior to plunging into entrepreneurship, he worked as a production assistant for The Screen Savers. As well, Rose appearing on-air in the “Dark Tip” segments and on Unscrewed. Throughout his television career, he worked at many tech shows. Also co-hosted some of the shows. Rose also worked at Google as a senior product manager.

However, he also set up several startups like Digg. It was set up in 2004, with other partners including Jay Adelson. Digg was a technology link website. Moreover, he also contributed to the foundation of Revision3.

David Lawrence Prager

He is one of the founding members of Revision3. As well, contributed to the development if a special project for Revision3. That time, he was Vice president of Special Project.

Early life

He was born on 17 January 1977. While he attended Trinity University in San Antonio in Texas. There he studied Communication and Media Studies. David worked for Bowne Litigation as a network administrator during his early days of career. As well, he worked at ZDTV, TechTV, and G4.

Career

He worked as a technical writer as well as journalists prior to the establishment of REVISION3. As well, David was a segment producer at G4techTV technology show The Screen Savers. That’s how he met other founding members of Revision3. Most of them were somehow associated with the show ‘The Screen Savers’. At Revision3, he served as a Vice President of Special Projects. As well, assisted the weekly podcast about the social bookmarking news and technology website known as Digg.com.

How they set up Revision3?

It’s all began during the founders were working at the international television network, TechTV. Thereafter, they started with the very own hacking web show, The Broken. In a very short duration, the show received a good response and over 2 million-plus downloads.

With this, Revision3 showed that people also like to watch tech-based content. But it should be fun tech content. That’s how, Revision3 started to deliver reliable, entertaining yet, professional content for the internet and TV.

SoundCloud : The Success Story of YouTube of Music

Founder, start-up, Story, Tech Story / By

Today, there are several audio streaming services, including Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, and Amazon Unlimited, etc., available online, but there was a time when there was no such platform, where people could access audio music online. But then, in 2007, two students from Stockholm School of Economics, Alex Ljung and Eric Wahlforss, influenced with the success of YouTube and Flickr, realized the need for a music sharing website, where artists could connect, and founded SoundCloud.

The Founders

Alex Ljung and Eric Wahlforss, both belong to the Swedish descent and were always interested in music. Since his childhood, Ljung was interested in both music and technology and had decided to become a sound engineer in future. By the time, he had become quite skilled in the music creation and produced an album and was able to secure a job at a post-production studio, after completing his school education. But again, he was more concerned about his studies, so he joined the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm.

ljung and wahlforss
Image Source: sign-in-box.com

On the other hand, Wahlfros was also another alumni at the same institution pursuing a degree in MA. The two met at the college UNIX lab and found many things in common with each other, especially the passion for music. The two started spending more time together and did many university projects together.

Founding SoundCloud

At the time, Flickr was doing exceptionally well, and YouTube was emerging as a powerful video hosting platform. As the two were into music creation themselves, they thought of a new startup, through which they could make other music artists to share their music with other people and collaborate with different global artists, online.

After digging deep and working hard for a long time, the two launched SoundCloud, in 2007, keeping music and sound as its core objective. They founded SoundCloud in Stockholm, Sweden, but eventually established the headquarter of the company in Berlin in the same year.

In 2008, they launched the website for SoundCloud, where artists could share their creation and look for collaborations. But soon, the popularity of SoundCloud turned the platform into a music distribution platform.

The concept was unique, so it became popular in no time. In fact, in just two years, SoundCloud received worth €2.5 million investment from Doughty Hanson Technology Ventures, in the Series A funding. In 2010, the company reported one million registered users for the service. In 2011, in the Series B funding, SoundCloud raised a worth of US$10 million. In the same year, the company got raised to 10 million registered users, and in the next year, the number went to increase up to 15 million users.

Although since 2014, the company has been incapable of handling the huge empire it has built in a few years, SoundCloud is still working hard to maintain its spot in the music distribution industry. Even there has been the rise of several other new music platforms, it is SoundCloud that took the first step in providing the new artists to share their work on an online platform, and eventually, gave birth to new music distribution system.

SoundCloud has been the biggest medium for many artists to showcase their talent, and artists like Iza Lach from Poland and Lorde from New Zealand got their first break, through SoundCloud, and today are one of the most in-demand singers.

Alex Ljung served as the CEO of SoundCloud for almost a decade and stepped down from his position in 2017. Wahlforss holds the position of CPO in the company. He has also produced a few tracks that are available on SoundCloud itself.