Will.I.Am’s Innovations
Over the past several years, I have seen Will.I.Am and the The Black Eyed Peas innovate.
Whether it be how they sound, distribute their music, perform live, they have taken some big risks, and according to the charts and ticket sales – it’s paid off.
There are 4 significant innovations from over the years.
The first, The Oprah Flashmob.
From memory, the first Flashmob I had seen of this scale. Now Flashmob is a dirty word – at the time it was a completely new way of performing live. ‘I Gotta Feeling’ went straight to number one for 17 weeks, and in March 2011, it became the first song in digital history to sell over 7 million digital copies in the United States.
As erizindo comments on the Youtube video,
first i thought it was some great crowd watching Black Eyed Peas performing - then i realized it was the exact opposite, it’s Black Eyed Peas watching a great flashmob performing
The second major innovation, is the BEP 360 app.
I stumbled across this app and have used this as pitch theatre, and confess to stealling some UI from it since downloading it over 6 months ago. It’s made beautifully and was the first of it’s type to explore 360 video and photos using the iPhone’s accelrometer.
The genius here is use of the app to distribute music though – or the not distributing of the music.
Once the app is on your precious phone desktop, Will.I.Am has permission to ping you anytime he wants to release a track. This hit comes wrapped in an interactive video, which you can’t experience anywhere else but the app, and cannot be shared (easily).
The MP3′s are locked in the app.
I felt this was a monumental innovation in war against the MP3 sharer, and a fine use of smart phone tech.
The third innovation, is Will.I.Am’s recent launch of The Black Eyed Peas Experience, for Kinect.
No controls needed, you start out dancing to 30 exclusive remixes of his tracks in a nightclub, and as you earn fans for dancing well, you build up to performing with Will & and the crew in front of a stadium crowd.
Although they aren’t the first band to jump on the Gaming juggernaut, I give credit to Will for just ticking it off the list of places they belong. It is just another avenue for him to release his songs.
I think that is the big take out for me. He doesn’t just tour, and release his music. He scatters it everywhere and establishes permission, and continues to innovate with his fans across multiple platforms.
The fourth, is going down on Google+. I have just seen him experimenting with Google+ heaps, including the band hosting a hang out. He starts off talking with punters and takes the laptop out on stage and gives them entire concert, live.
If only Michael lived through this era. He would be killing it.