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USC: CRED.FM
Product: Music game
Chief Executive: Chris Swain
Year Founded: 2011
Location: Santa Monica
What Is It?
Chris Swain: Cred.fm is the game you play by sharing the music you love. A player recommends songs to others in the network and – if the recommendation is listened to – then she gets influence points. If she plays well, she will legitimately get to say, “I am the most influential Vampire Weekend fan at USC.” The system also allows players to build custom DJ spaces and avatars. The avatars travel to other people’s DJ spaces along with song recommendations. This means people can create DJ rooms that are very popular and become a creative form of music discovery.
What was the idea that led to the creation of the company?
Cred.fm started as a university project about the future of music. We started by building prototypes of online music infrastructure projects. We were trying to figure out the analog to Google Maps for music. However, we learned the hard way how much infrastructure already exists via open-source projects such as MusicBrainz. The team and I built three completely different infrastructure prototypes over the course of 2010 and had to scrap all of them. Finally we came up with the concept for Cred.fm and, because of what we had learned, were able to build something completely differentiated from other music sites out there.
What were the biggest challenges?
By far the biggest challenge with Cred.fm has been execution. The vision and overall design were very challenging, but a piece of cake compared to executing and integrating all the moving parts. The system seems simple in concept but requires a raft of new technologies and multiple interdependent components under the hood to talk to one another.
Why was it born at a university?
I won a small research grant within USC in 2010 to explore digital music. We were fortunate to attract some brilliant grad students and were able to overhaul the project multiple times before arriving at the core concepts for Cred.fm.
What has been the benefit of spinning the company out of the university?
USC has provided excellent mentors, help with patents, introductions to potential investors, and the good will that comes along with being associated with the institution. The people at USC have provided guidance and enthusiastic support through the bumpy ride of the company.
What’s been the biggest change since spinning out?
The culture of the startup is a pressure cooker with hard deadlines and investor expectations, whereas the culture within the university was open-ended and free. The transition from one culture to another with the same people was a big challenge.
How could it change society?
Our system democratizes the spread and adoption of quality media. It connects artists and fans in ways that were not possible before networked communications. Music is our first content category, but other online content can benefit from the same social curation engine. We’ve understood for a long time that specific individuals are key influencers in the viral spread of ideas within society. Cred.fm provides the first way to formalize who these individuals are and assigns a number value to them.
What’s next?
Cred.fm will launch in the fall. It will start at USC and spread virally.
