AiC Episode 96

In this episode, Teri welcomes Tahsim Ahmed, the founder of Fanspoke, a company that alleviates the journey for the top dance-music artists in the voice-first world, by building innovative voice applications to engage their fanbase.

Welcome, Tahsim!

Tahsim has been in the voice space for the last two years and he comes on to talk about his new company, and how he is helping DJs get their message out there using voice technology. He will also talk about how the new announcements from Amazon, particularly about products like the Echo Studio; will benefit the audio/music industry.

Background

  • His start in the voice space was with a company called Tribalscale where he helped build their Venture Studios practice, which was incubating companies that they saw as the future of innovation. One of those companies was in voice technology and Tahsim helped them build a company in that space to the point where it just took off.
  • In the music space, he helped radio stations take their content into Alexa.
  • That led him into starting his company, Fanspoke, which merges his two passions of voice technology and electronic dance music (and music in general). To take that vertical to a new level, Fanspoke builds engaging voice experiences that help musicians, producers, and DJs, build their brand on a voice platform.
  • Fanspoke recently has worked with international DJ/Producer, Sam Feldt, to release the world’s first dance music voice application.

The Idea of Creating Skills to Promote DJs

  • Tahsim was surprised that nobody in the voice space had thought of music even though over 80% of first time smart speaker users use them for music while over 40% of users use them daily for music.
  • He saw that music was an underserved vertical and saw an opportunity to create amazing voice applications and branding opportunities around that space.
  • With the recent announcement of new Alexa devices, music is a primary use case for all the opportunities, and the opportunities for branding are the logical next step.

DJs, Music, and Voice with Tahsim Ahmed

Skills Fanspoke Has Created

  • In their work with Sam Feldt, they created a voice application that helped Sam reach out to his fans to vote for him in the DJs/Music Producers top rankings (the DJ Mag Campaign). The application was very successful and got a lot of positive feedback from Sam’s fans. To try it, simply say, “Alexa, Open Vote Sam Feldt.”
  • There are many other scalable opportunities like merchandising, charitable fundraising, etc.

Tahsim’s Thoughts on Echo Studio

  • He is very excited about it because it allows musicians to get a bigger presence.
  • He predicts that Amazon will continue building a more robust music ecosystem to not only compete with the big streaming players, but also to have a robust music ecosystem so that when musicians are more active on the voice platforms, their experience is seamless.
  • He sees the Echo Studio as more of an opportunity to get more engaging musical voice experiences out there.

Future Direction with Fanspoke

  • He believes that the electronic dance music industry has great monetization opportunities that would be easier to exploit using voice technology.

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