What Is Yahoo’s Ian Rogers Up To Now?

TOPSPIN LAUNCHES

When Ian Rogers stepped down from Yahoo Music a few months ago TechCrunch declared that Yahoo! had "lost their music soul".  Lofty praise. But if passion for music and forward thinking count for anything – and they should – it’s praise he often deserves. Ian Rogers is that rare bridge between the music industry and tech who understands the past and quite often has a vision of the future.

Rogers left Yahoo to head a semi-stealth start-up called TopSpin and this week the company began to reveal what they’ve been up to.

In the broadest sense, Topspin is about artist empowerment. On the company blog this week Roger’s wrote:

"Topspin is founded on the principle that while costs of production and distribution in the music industry are dropping, unlimited choice for consumers only increases the importance of efficient marketing. Marketing means both connecting and cultivating relationships with your existing fans (much of what Seth Godin describes as “Permission Marketing” applies) as well as discovering new fans. Topspin is building software tools to help artists market efficiently.

But we are not a “marketing services” company. Topspin is a technology company…"

I expect to be getting "under the hood" of TopSpin in the next few days as well as talk to a key player or two in the company. Until then, you can learn a bit more about TopSpin on the company website. But don’t expect too many revelations. TopSpin like Rogers is at the very start of what could to be a very long and interesting journey.