Hey there, everyone.

I hope you and your family are doing well. Included in this newsletter are some of my favorite freelance projects from the last year. They range from the typical (fan affinity, listening parties, playlist generation) to the more experimental (gaming, telephony, group interaction.) Each project includes a link to an in-depth dev blog about why and how we built each. (You’ll also find videos and images.) Skim through or dive as deep as you wish. In addition to client work, I’ve included an update on Listening Party development. Finally, if you make it to the bottom of this email, you’ll find some of my recent hacks and a bit of info on technology I’m excited about. As always, thank you for listening and supporting the work.

Projects

	Web app audio player for Me Rex's Megabear, a 52 track album which can be shuffled into 8.06e+67 different seamless arrangements.
	Waterparks premiered a snippet of a new track on a custom audio player but with a catch: the volume was controlled by the velocity of #GreatestHits tweets and it lowered itself.
	We conducted an online seance for Lord Huron in support of their new record Long Lost. May you live until you die.
	A custom YouTube powered listening party for Girl In Red's record If I Could Make It Go Quiet which included a heatmap and realtime chat.
	A web app which celebrates the 5th anniversary of Caamp by inviting fans to generate a curated walking playlist for Spotify and Apple Music.
	A Spotify powered web app which detects how often Greta Van Fleet fans have been streaming the catalog and encourages them to share their progress to 100%.
	Need to reject someone? Let Peach do it for you by passing along the number to her Rejection Hotline. Developed in support of her single "JOSH."
	A web app which detects how often a user has been streaming Girl In Red and rewards them with a personalized selfie reflective of their commitment.
	Helps fans and non-fans identify which track off the new SG Lewis record may resonate with their tastes based on their Spotify listening history.
	A spin on the classic 8 puzzle for Evanescence to tease the release of their new single and drive contesting.
	Meduza asks their fans where is their "Paradise," calculates the distance, and provides an image they can share socially.
	Music Ally’s listening party of the year. A rolling album stream premiere for Future Islands which unlocked based on a particular location’s activity.
	A Spotify and Apple Music powered quiz for iDKHow which determines how stressful a user is while also driving streams to their latest single.
	Detect how faithful Hurts fans are by how often the artist appears in their recent Spotify streams. Included a leaderboard and social asset generation.
	Interactive tracklist reveal for Pop Smoke's posthumous debut album Shoot for the Stars, Aim for the Moon which used a user's mobile gyroscope.

Software

At the beginning of this year, I kicked off development on a new app called Listening Party which allows artists to hold album and song listening parties with their fans. Since then I have created separate solutions for MP3, Spotify, and Apple Music powered streaming. Using these beta solutions, Listening Party has hosted parties for several artists including Saint Raymond, Tom Grennan, Ashe, and more. My next plan for development is to merge all of the audio solutions into a single offering. Want more info on Listening Party? Check out the FAQ. Want to host a listening party? Get in touch.

Experiments

Hip Hop Hand Gestures

I like asking fans to complete small tasks in order to gain access to something of value. I guess that is sort of the core tactic to social marketing... Anyway, I had an idea years ago which required Jay Z fans to make the "roc" hand gesture in order to unlock content. Up until recently, trying to pull this off on the web was pretty complicated. However, Google recently released a hand tracking model to their Tensorflow ML offering which simplifies things. After a bit of hacking, I was able to detect the Jay Z, Run The Jewels, and Wu-Tang Clan hand gestures.

Web Camera Development

Building bespoke camera apps on the web is one of my favorite pastimes. I’ve developed an Off White camera, a Solitaire camera, and many other concepts for clients. Over the years, I have closely followed how the web has evolved to fill in the gaps on core functionality that would make a web camera campaign successful and covered the entire saga on a Twitter thread. All you need to know is that recent developments to iOS 15 allow these custom camera experiences to now record video and easily share them back to Instagram (or other social platforms.) I believe the web is now ripe to be an incredible platform for custom goal oriented camera development. Check out this demo I put together which shows an entire camera user experience built for the web and this demo which uses Tensorflow selfie segmentation to create an effect you might see on Instagram or Snapchat.

Dilemma Aah! Detector

I enjoy using complicated technology for dumb purposes. That was definitely the case when I leaned on the Tensorflow facemesh model to detect whether a user’s mouth was open or closed. The application? Allowing a user to provide the iconic "aah's" in Nelly and Kelly Rowland’s classic "Dilemma." Check out the demo here.

Close Your Eyes

I recently revisited my classic "close your eyes to listen to a song" concept using the latest Tensorflow facemesh model. See a pattern here? Don’t sleep on Tensorflow! Anyway, you’ll find the latest demo here and you can try it for yourself here.

Do you need more info on anything? Want to build something awesome together? I’m just an email away.