David B. Goldberg
Chairman and CEO
Launch Media Inc.
Santa Monica
“I want my MTV” used to be the battle cry for teen-agers in search of new music and videos. Today, teens are just as likely to conduct those searches online.
And that’s a trend David Goldberg is out in front of.
As chairman and CEO of Launch Media, Goldberg, 32, operates a music Web site (www.launch.com) replete with downloadable videos from top artists like Backstreet Boys, Korn, and TLC. The site can be personalized to individual tastes with artist biographies, compact disc and concert reviews, articles, and chat rooms where fans with similar tastes can gather.
“David sees technology as an opportunity to leverage an existing business and enhance the consumer experience,” says Bob Roback, Launch.com president and Goldberg’s childhood friend. “He didn’t create the music business, but he’s making it better.”
Capabilities under development include virtual 3-D rooms where users can “interact” with their favorite celebrities. (Various celebs are going to be lined up to participate in videotaped interviews covering assorted topics. Using those tapes, a 3-D image of the celebrity would be created.)
Goldberg’s roots in the music business have served him well in his quest to develop and popularize such cutting-edge distribution channels.
During his tenure as a Capitol Records marketing executive, he was in charge of developing multimedia marketing channels and understood that TV couldn’t be all things to all fans. That is, Metallica fans don’t want to sit through a Britney Spears video in order to get to what they want.
Launch Media was originally founded in 1994, and for the first two years it produced a bimonthly CD-ROM that read like a magazine. Content included written text and moving pictures, similar to what Launch.com now offers. But Goldberg and Roback saw the CD-ROM as merely a step in Launch’s evolution a precursor to their site, where Web surfers could become virtual program directors.
And so in 1997, Goldberg launched the Launch.com site, and he and Roback have been upgrading the site’s technology and capabilities ever since.
All its offerings are authorized by artist managers and/or record labels, so Launch tries to have a cooperative, rather than adversarial relationship with the record industry. (A deal was just recently cut with Sony Music.)
While some major labels are taking a wait-and-see approach to the Internet, Goldberg says they should be excited, not concerned, because Launch.com provides a new channel of distribution that will ultimately increase industry revenues. “We are an alternative to, not a replacement for, record stores, radio, and music television,” he said.
Still, Goldberg recognizes that things could get messy for a while. And only those companies that stay ahead of the curve will survive. “You have to perpetually evolve, or you become a passing fad,” he said.
Daniel Guss
