21 ms·
Rap Genius Raises $40M, Changes Name To Genius
- keehun 12y agoI wonder how much it cost them to get the domain name.
- outericky 12y agoProbably under $100k... Location location location, am I right? Even if it was more, that's your brand. As we've seen that search engines can make or break you, this is one of the few things you can control.
- nicklovescode 12y agoI'd be very surprised if 100k did the job. I would bet under $500k though. Still worth it.
- jonknee 12y agoYes, for all those people that type in domain names... Unless they're doing a print campaign, it's not a huge win. Hopefully they won't screw up the SEO on this one.
- robgibbons 12y agoConsidering how Google punished them, moving to a new domain can only help.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- sergiotapia 12y agoI thought there were three founders? Did they really just write off the third that got kicked off and no longer even mention him as a founder? Ice cold baby! Ice cold!
- bcohen5055 12y ago"It’s taken a few stumbles and one less founder to get here, but Genius tells me “we’re psyched to pursue our mission of global annotation with newfound vigor.”" Mentioned but hidden...
- sergiotapia 12y agoCurious, feel kind of sorry for him.
- famousactress 12y agoI hope that's because you didn't read about how why ended up leaving http://techcrunch.com/2014/05/26/rap-genius-co-founder-resigns-following-elliot-rodger-manifesto-annotations/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/05/26/rap-genius-co-founder-resig... And frankly, everything I've seen come out of rap-genius suggests that this wasn't culturally aberrant there.
- sergiotapia 12y agoI'm aware of why he was fired. I still feel sorry for him. I think a lot of people overreacted over what he said, then again I'm not that familiar with post 9-11 US culture.
- sp332 12y agoIt was really offensive, and he made the jokes right after people had been killed which was even more offensive, and he didn't even put it on his own blog but injected that crap into the product.
- iopq 12y agoSo? People make fun of people dying all the time. I didn't feel his comments were offensive. I thought it was actually true, since it seems like Elliot Rodgers was angry at pretty women.
- nightpool 12y agoThe original Business Insider article, with verified annotations from the Genius co-founders: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-inside-story-of-how-rap-genius-fired-a-cofounder--and-just-raised-40-million-annotated-2014-7 http://www.businessinsider.com/the-inside-story-of-how-rap-g... (and the HN comments page: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8022076 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8022076) Also, we've been doing embeddable pages for a long time now! For example, see our embed with the Alantic on Google's self-driving cars back in May: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/05/google-reveals-more-details-on-its-automotive-vision/371761/ http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/05/google...
- ghayes 12y agoWhen looking at the article on BI, I feel the annotations take away from the flow of the article, rather than adding to it. I find myself constantly re-reading entire paragraphs to get back to the story.
- nightpool 12y agoHm, interesting! I think this might be a function of the annotation size—we try to keep single annotations short to maximize readability, but the author of the article seems to be breaking this rule, and having 3 page+ annotations definitely ends up detracting from the original text. (The one that stands out to me is the one that explains the background of the founders, and then just keeps going... And going... And going...) Its important to remember that this was probably the BI author's first time using the platform though, and I found the annotations from Tom, Ilan and Marc much more readable and concise.
- JustinJBM 12y agoAgreed with OP. Wish you guys could come up with a different way to show text is annotated. The highlight just grabs my attention way too much and it tells my brain that "this is important" which isn't necessarily true with Genius annotations. It works well for lyrics on rapgenius, but for content on news and other websites not so much. I hope website owners will be able to pick their own style.
- NickWarner775 12y agoI think it's a great idea to consolidate annotations for all kids of genres in one site, but it will surely make their lives much harder trying to keep track of all that. It's just so much more content than a company their size can sustain.
- nightpool 12y agoActually, there hasn't been any changes to the amount of content on Genius, we (the community) are just presenting it better! And while Genius has, off the top of my head, about 20 employees (including 9 engineers), they have 150+ community moderators that oversee the site's community and hundreds of community editors that are trusted with accepting and editing the site's annotations. Genius isn't a small project!
- incision 12y ago>'...they have 150+ community moderators that oversee the site's community and hundreds of community editors that are trusted with accepting and editing the site's annotations...' Are these people paid anything? Also, isn't 'project' generally suggestive of something a bit more open than a VC-funded startup?
- nightpool 12y agoNo, no-one except the paid employees are paid. I mean, I suppose you could say that we're all getting duped into providing value to a company, but I truly believe in the strength of the Rap Genius mission, and I don't think that that mission is irreconcilable with a for-profit company either—look at StackOverflow, for example. They too are very heavily community dependent, and have many contributors that don't get paid, but still provide the backbone of the site.
- sanitydc 12y agowhat about the "strength of the Rap Genius Mission" makes you believe in giving hours of your time to them for free? When they have some kind of an exit with this product you will get nothing, they will get a fortune. I don't understand you.
- snide 12y agoCan't help but be reminded of Entertainment 720 from the photos in this article. Congrats on the funding! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGSIf1KXGHs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGSIf1KXGHs For those that miss the reference.
- diminoten 12y agoIt also helps that one of the founders has a passing resemblance to Jean Ralphio.
- ErikRogneby 12y agoWhen I saw this, I asked myself, "Is this the Onion?"
- warrenmiller 12y ago"embeddable annotations so any website can hover over text and see explanations and background info on what that text means." Doesn't this exist already, and for a while?
- huffman 12y agoDon't lots of websites have links and comments? It's not about the capabilities (which are a little more nuanced than "hover over text and see explanations") it's about the quality and community which creates the content.
- pduszak 12y agoSo basically this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Sidewiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Sidewiki
- Slackwise 12y agoAlmost. The concept was great, the implementation, not so much. Sad that Google didn't improve upon it. (Then again, they're no longer an innovation house, as I see it.)
- smegmalife 12y agoTaking a queue from Diddy?
- onewaystreet 12y agoAnyone else not like the black design? White would be more welcoming since they are going for a more universal appeal.
- anExcitedBeast 12y agoI wish more sites would adopt dark designs. Easier on the eyes and saves energy. When you spend 8-16 hours in from of a monitor every day those become important factors to consider.
- sosborn 12y ago> saves energy As far I understand this is not true. Can anyone smarter than me comment?
- dflock 12y agoIt depends on the type of screen you're using and whether it's actually black - rbg(0,0,0) or just dark. In some cases, yes, it saves energy, some not.
- jckt 12y agohttp://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-black-is/ http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-bl... I think it only saves energy on CRT screens, which is not popular these days.
- guelo 12y agoSome of the phone screen technologies such as AMOLED also save power with black.
- rootedbox 12y agoThey only save energy if you are using a CRT.
- 12y ago
- oftenwrong 12y agoHopefully the quality of the annotations will be better than on rap genius. It's mostly bad attempts at humor and unnecessary slang translations. I don't see the value in it.
- flatline 12y agoIn all fairness, most pop music is pretty vacuous. The Wall annotations are pretty good, a nice mix of references from the movie and personal anecdotes of the band members, e.g. http://rock.genius.com/Pink-floyd-nobody-home-lyrics http://rock.genius.com/Pink-floyd-nobody-home-lyrics
- lmg643 12y agoi agree with both this and OP - while the format and function of the site is great for reading, i am usually underwhelmed by the annotations. in fairness to the annotators, the content they are annotating is often pretty inane - "he's bragging about his sexual prowess" etc etc. perhaps we should rename is "genious". let's at least have a sense of humor about what we're doing here.
- oftenwrong 12y agoYou are right, the annotations on that are quite good.
- sparkzilla 12y agoThe annotations for "Nobody Home" are weak, pseudo-intellectual warblings with very little added value. "So far, the majority of the discussion of the song has focused on the discord created by the alternating ideas of artistic yearning and mundane if not altogether oppressive reality. But what of the chorus and its reiterations of nobody home? Just who is Pink trying to reach when I pick up the phone?" Who indeed. There may be other sectors where the annotations work better, but that kind of "insight" doesn't make me want to go back.
- nightpool 12y agoWhen was the last time you visited? Ignoring our other channels (many of which, including News and Lit (née Poetry), have been in place for a long time), we've been working very hard to decrease the "geekspeak" and unfunny humor annotations. Guidelines have been in place against these types of annotations since I've joined over 12 months ago, and we're still trying to work through the 3 year backlog of bad annotations, while keeping up with the new stuff. Try looking at some of our more popular pages, or some of the stuff on other channels, such as news.genius.com. There's a lot of value possible in annotating, analyzing and contextualizing primary sources!
- antr 12y agoQuestion: is there any out-of-the-box product/technology that isn't Genius that allows me to annotate text on my site? ala Medium, with user login, etc.?
- ramykhuffash 12y agoLiveFyre Sidenotes let people add comments on a per-paragraph basis, which is similar I guess: http://web.livefyre.com/streamhub/#liveSidenotes http://web.livefyre.com/streamhub/#liveSidenotes
- MichaelGG 12y agoFunny how this keeps going around. Internet Explorer used to have a "discussions" feature to add comments to arbitrary web pages. That was around 1999 or so, I think.
- nobodyCares99 12y agoannotatorjs.org
- techaddict009 12y agoHow much might have they spent on Domain?
- joeblau 12y ago$40 million
- onewaystreet 12y agoIt must have been a real good offer because the former owner, publicly traded CallidusCloud, just launched a major product using the domain last month: http://calliduscloud.com/about-us/press-releases/pr-feed/calliduscloud-launches-genius-com-content-store-and-mobile-learning-platform/ http://calliduscloud.com/about-us/press-releases/pr-feed/cal...
- Isofarro 12y agoWhich it acquired itself in February 2014: http://customerexperiencematrix.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/genius-and-loopfuse-are-acquired.html http://customerexperiencematrix.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/geniu... Interesting timing. I would not be surprised if the May launch of genius.com was just something hacked together over a weekend and launched just to push the domain price up. There isn't much talk about genius.com around the May launch (apart from a bit of press-release marketing). And the focus in acquisition in February leads with LeadRocket, tacking on the brand Genius as an afterthought. The domain details of genius.com was only switched to CallidusCloud's details in June: http://www.thedomains.com/2014/07/11/rapgenius-com-upgrades-rebrand-to-genius-com/ http://www.thedomains.com/2014/07/11/rapgenius-com-upgrades-... -- 4 months after acquiring the domain. Interesting set of coincidences. I wonder when Callidus software knew of RapGenius' interest in the genius.com domain. And their original intentions for it when they acquired it in February.
- jgalt212 12y agoIs this an April Fool's Day joke, or a case study in failing upwards?
- aheilbut 12y agoAnyone remember Third Voice?
- hboon 12y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Voice http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Voice. The idea was ahead of its time. I remember it as a Singaporean company, but the Wikipedia page is thin on details.
- jqm 12y agoWhoever gave this band of clowns 40 million is extremely socially irresponsible in my view. Either that, or else they have a vested interest in social degradation. I haven't made up my mind which I believe yet. Yep I'm biased. I can't stand rap genius nor those nappy haired punks that run it. Some people might think this comment is simply ugly hatred. But it's a small shadow of what I've seen spewing out of rap genius guys. Can't_Stand_Them!
- boling11 12y agoWoah I'm taken aback at how hateful this comment is. What did these guys ever do to you? At the bare minimum, Rap Genius is a huuuge step up from all the other lyrics websites out there.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- beedogs 12y agoWow, an incoherent rant with nothing to back it up. Have I stumbled into a MRA subreddit without knowing it?
- jqm 12y agoThere is nothing incoherent about that post. And.. I freely admit my bias. I don't like these guys nor what they do. This isn't a science debate. I don't need "something to back it up".
- sehr 12y agoHate them all you want, but nappy headed is a really offensive slur.
- joemaller1 12y agoHas Apple sued yet?
- HistoryInAction 12y agoSounds like a Vox-killer to me. Good riddance to those explainer cards!
- beggi 12y agoBusy day for Dan Gilbert: http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nba/cavaliers/2014/07/11/lebron-james-cleveland-cavs-return-hometown-hero/12528973/ http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nba/cavaliers/2014/07/1...
- daenz 12y agoGreat for Rap Genius, but every time I read something about them, I think of this interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NAzQPll7Lo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NAzQPll7Lo
- bane 12y agoPlease tell me this was some kind of parody. A stage full of impossibly lame "bro-schtick" cartoon characters and a live-action anime-style interviewer complete with absurd hair. I wouldn't have trusted these clowns to heat up a can of beans let alone put them in charge of millions of dollars and then "value" their company at an amount of money that could build house and feed a medium sized city for a decade. I guess that goes to show what I know since they've executed pretty well and can apparently evaluate literature. Maybe I'm just getting old but man is it depressing.
- dkarapetyan 12y agoSilicon Valley and general startup culture these days has very little actual substance. If you don't have actual substance you have to substitute something else for it. I can't really think of words to describe what the substitute is but that linked video does a pretty good job.
- wavefunction 12y agoI'm with you. I'd prefer to maintain my current lifestyle if "success" meant having to act as douchey as these ass-clowns. This is the end-result of privilege meeting a lack of consequences.
- goldenkey 12y agoIt's not because you are an old man. Compare that talk with the one with the Google Founders: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wdnp_7atZ0M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wdnp_7atZ0M Rap Genius needs so much humble pie, they'd choke to death on it.
- harkyns_castle 12y agoWhat sickening, repulsive little wankers. It feels a bit surreal seeing what people will invest in, or enjoy.
- infoseckid 12y agoAnother useless service --- here comes the bubble.
- mitchell209 12y agoObviously useless to you, but it's by far the best lyric site for hip hop. And with all of the subtle references in lyrics, the annotations can be invaluable in helping casual listeners understand an artist's message.
- samweinberg 12y agoWhy do you think this is useless?
- beedogs 12y agoWhen do they get sued by Gracenote, like all of the other lyrics sites of the past decade?
- dzink 12y agoI've owned Genieous.com for a number of years and it's been an empty page. Now I know why the number of visits spiked recently :)
- computerjunkie 12y agoGreat for them. Just a couple suggestions for the website is to change the black colour scheme, possibly a lighter colour scheme.Viewing content can get more challenging overtime because of the colour scheme. "Lit" could be changed to "Literature", it doesn't make sense to name all other titles in full and leave one out. But I guess they are still in beta for the genius.com domain.
- chippy 12y agoI think annotations is a powerful idea. Imagine seeing all the annotations of your favourite satirist, or politician. Instead of a thinker writing their own blog, they could just annotate others - attacking, critiquing and defending. This awesome power has to work with verification and moderation. No one likes trolls, and no one likes those who do not contribute to the discussion - but no one likes sterile, conformist, one-sided annotations either. What my ideal annotation service would provide free expansion of ideas rather than at best a kind of directors commentary.
- ssanders82 12y agoAbout 5 years ago I submitted a post here asking for comments on an online text discussion/annotation tool: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=821559 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=821559 Rap Genius looks very similar; glad someone made this work.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- 0xeeeeeeee 12y agoI'm still very curious how they plan to make money. I guess we will have to see... In my opinion urban dictionary actually solves the same problem that Rap Lyrics is solving except instead of explaining a whole sentence urban dictionary explains one-a few words.
- notastartup 12y agoWaiting for the bubble to burst.
- unclesaamm 12y ago"The company also launched an iPhone app earlier this year that also helps ween the startup off of Google’s teat." Wow, really weird word choice.