Altro, a leading credit-building and financial literacy platform, has raised $4 million in a strategic funding round, gaining support from figures such as Tinashe, Quavo, Marshawn Lynch, and Chris Paul. Altro Founded in 2019 by Michael Broughton and initially known as Perch, Altro has been instrumental in helping users enhance their credit scores. It ingeniously integrates everyday payments and subscriptions into its credit-building mechanism, including Netflix, Spotify, Amazon Prime, and Starz. Beyond this, Altro extends educational resources to all its members, even those with a baseline free membership. These resources encompass Altro’s Convo, featuring short
Spotify has launched a pilot of Voice Translation for podcasts, using OpenAI technology to translate podcasts into other languages in the original podcaster’s voice. While making English-language podcasts more accessible to global audiences, there are concerns about the growing use of AI translation and voice generation technologies. Voice Translation Spotify announced they are piloting a new feature that translates English-spoken episodes into other languages, such as Spanish, French, and German. The feature is powered by OpenAI’s voice generation technology to clone the original podcaster’s voice. Spotify stated it would match
Essence Festival of Culture is suing Spotify for using its branding without permission, according to The Guardian. The festival’s lawyers say they are taking a stand against the “intentional exploitation of Black culture.”. Essence Festival of Culture Essence Festival of Culture is held over the Fourth of July weekend in New Orleans with music performances, inspirational speakers, and proactive conversations about gender, race, culture, and art. It was started in 1994 as a one-time event to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Essence – a magazine aimed at African American women. Since
A Surf Ghana event with several panellists including Sandy Alibo. A Vibrate poster is visible on the wall.
This article was first published by Jason Yip on Medium. On 29 Nov 2022, I learned I was being laid off by Spotify, official termination date 31 Dec 2022. This is a rough summary of my job search experience. I started looking the moment I got the same day “urgent” calendar invite on 29 Nov and had set my LinkedIn status to “Open to Work” on 30 Nov. At least 35 positions contacted me first. 25 led to at least an initial chat. The remaining 10 went nowhere after initial contact.
Spotify has allegedly spent less than 10% of a $100 million diversity fund it launched after its top podcaster, Joe Rogan, came under fire for spreading Covid-19 misinformation and using racial slurs in his podcast. The world’s largest music streaming service announced its $100 million Creator Equity Fund in February 2022 to support the licensing, development, and marketing of music (artists and songwriters) and audio content from historically marginalized groups. However, Bloomberg News reports that, after its first year, Spotify had spent less than 10% of the money on that work. Riddled with
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Spotify has a white supremacist problem. The music-streaming platform has become an attraction point for racist and discriminatory podcasts that have garnered widespread popularity over recent months. The ADL is a Jewish nonprofit group focusing on civil rights law. In a recent investigation, they found that approximately 40 white supremacist artists are currently on the platform. As a result, the ADL is calling for Spotify to stop the hate speech and harmful content currently circulating on its app. The organization believes they are yet to
Rappers Pusha-T and Nas have jumped the bandwagon and followed the likes of Jason Derulo by investing in a new streaming platform, Audius, which is looking to rival Apple Music, Spotify, and Tidal. The free-to-use streaming platform built on blockchain technology launched in 2018 and also supports NFTs or non-fungible tokens. Last week the venture also announced a $5 million round of strategic funding. “I believe [blockchains] might be the most important technology to ever hit the music industry,” Nas said in a statement. “Everyone who uploads to Audius can be an owner. You can’t say that about any
TL;DR — This isn’t a self-promotional post about landing a job. It’s about embracing failure and hard lessons as a necessary part of the process in making a lofty dream become a reality. These days when people ask me how I’m doing, I would often ask if they’ve seen “The Pursuit of Happyness” because life for me is like the movie (mainly the ending). Through the pursuit of my own “happiness” — I learned valuable lessons in making a dream become a reality. Imagine celebrating your birthday with family and
