Andrew Benton

Why MC Hammer Might Have it Right This Time

Jan 7 at 8:08am by Andrew Benton

You all remember MC Hammer, the parachute-pants wearing guy who brought you the heavily sued, “stuck in your head and cant help but know every word” song “Can’t touch this” guy, right? If you don’t, you either lived under a rock or were just born (if you’re the latter you have mad skills to be able to read at age 0).

Well, it seems MC Hammer is throwing his hat into the ring with DanceJam. Basically, its a social website to share dance moves. I think this will absolutely be successful. It’s a niche that has no real base. Sure, you can find this kind of stuff on youtube, but they usually suck, and plus, MC Hammer is a good force behind this. Here is an excerpt from an AP report:

The Web site, scheduled to debut in mid-January, will try to upstage YouTube and become the Internet’s hub for sharing and watching dance videos. DanceJam then hopes to make money by grabbing a piece of the rapidly growing Internet advertising market, which is expected to rake in $27.5 billion in 2008, according to eMarketer…

But Hammer’s involvement in DanceJam has more to do with his technological savvy than his celebrity, said Ron Conway, a longtime Silicon Valley investor who is part of a small group that provided DanceJam with $1 million in startup funds.

“I expect him to integrate all his knowledge into this Web site,” said Conway, who befriended Hammer at a baseball game seven years ago and has been tutoring him in the ways of technology ever since. “He is the lightning rod for this whole thing.”

Hammer, 45, started poking around Silicon Valley while he was still selling millions of records. He often hung out at computer makers like Silicon Graphics Inc. and Apple Inc., hoping to learn more about how technology might help his music career.

“There is no high-tech lingo or business strategy that you can talk that is above my head,” Hammer boasted during an interview. “I breathe this stuff.”

So, be on the lookout for DanceJam.com, it’s going to be the big thing to hit the internet in the 1st quarter of 2008. I’ll report more on this site once it’s launched, but I have big hopes. It taps a niche that is very, very profitable.