William Henshall might have founded the first online music streaming site that’s made to be ignored. His Focus@Will has been specifically, and scientifically, designed to fade into a listener’s subconscious and help the mind focus. The trick, he said, is to keep the music soothing, without vocals, and – most importantly – unrecognizable.
Henshall thinks even the classical stations on a service such as Pandora might not be best for someone trying to cancel out any distractions and, say, power through to finish writing a column before deadline.
“We’re the opposite of Pandora, where you thumbs up music you like,” Henshall said. “Our idea is to have you put music on and not notice it.”
Henshall has a background in music, though not from the easy listening side. He’s a founding member of the British R&B new wave band Londonbeat, and the mind behind the group’s 1990 – and by no means concentration inducing – hit “I’ve Been Thinking About You.”
His career in pop songwriting brought him to Los Angeles in the late ’80s, and he previously developed some music technology that was incorporated into professional studio software ProTools.
Focus@Will and its nine employees are headquartered at Henshall’s Echo Park home; so far it’s raised $3 million in seed funding.
The service recently went live (though it’s officially still in beta) and is the result of a collaboration with Montreal biotech software maker Thought Technology Ltd. and UCLA psychology professor Stephen Sideroff.
Focus@Will has eight different stations, including Classical, Film Score, and Mystical Spa. Once someone chooses a station, the player streams a continuous set of music for 100 minutes, which is the average top length of time before a listener’s concentration tends to wear off, Henshall said.
Despite peoples’ instincts to pick a genre to suit their musical tastes, the better choice might be outside a musical comfort zone.
“We’ve found that listening to a genre of music that you’re not familiar with is better for relaxing the mind,” Henshall said.
Since the site went live late last year, he said a few thousand people have signed up. He isn’t sure yet how the service will make money – though it won’t mimic Pandora’s strategy of cramming commercials into song breaks. In addition, Focus@Will is hoping to avoid the high costs many music streaming apps pay out to license popular music.
“We’re going only through independent labels,” Henshall said. “And we’re trying to build a catalog of music that’s composed directly for us and this project.”
Engines Ahead
Steamboat Ventures LLC has put together a new investment fund worth $85 million, according to a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Steamboat, which is affiliated with Walt Disney Co. and acts as the Burbank company’s venture capital arm, has had four previous funds, all with a focus on digital entertainment and tech.
The last fund, named Steamboat Asia, was directed only at companies in Asia and led to wide speculation that it was no longer investing in North American corporations. That opinion looked stronger when two of the three L.A. partners left in early 2012.
Although officials at Steamboat declined to comment, a source close to the firm said the next group of investments will be across both continents. It has already included San Mateo’s Woodman Labs Inc. and its digital sports camera GoPro. Previously, Steamboat led investment rounds for Santa Monica content delivery network EdgeCast Inc. and online ticket reseller RazorGator.com in Marina del Rey.
Tech Titles
Music Mastermind Inc., a Calabasas music and tech company, recently named James Mitchell chief technology officer. Mitchell was formerly with music streaming service Napster, where he held the same title. … Adam Rockmore is the new vice president of marketing at West L.A.’s Fandango Inc. He came to the online ticketing service after positions at ABC Daytime, SOAPNet and ABC News, where he was part of the effort to integrate the news networks’ online and broadcast content.
Staff reporter Tom Dotan can be reached at [email protected] or (323) 549-5225 ext. 263.
