Mondays aren’t always smile-inducing, but today two news stories cropped up that were pretty fun — and showed the increasing crossover between the worlds of technology and hip-hop.
First, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg signed up for a verified profile on Andreessen Horowitz-backed “hip-hop Wikipedia” RapGenius to help decode the preamble to her best-selling business book Lean In. Her annotations range from references to additional data points and Nicholas Kristof books to personal photos from her honeymoon and college graduation.
The main takeaway is that it’s fun to see typically buttoned-up people like Sheryl Sandberg talking about real issues in a unique way — and, of course, it’s another feather in the cap for RapGenius’ always quotable founding team.
Also stealing some of the Monday news spotlight has been Snoopify, the app released today from legendary rapper Snoop Dogg (aka Snoop Lion.) It seems to be the tech elite’s favorite photo app obsession of the moment (pictured above is New York Times technology writer Nick Bilton taking Snoopify for a spin.)
https://twitter.com/nickbilton/status/331482989794058241
Yes, it’s a silly celebrity app, but it’s also actually slick, addictive, fun, free to download on Android and iOS, with revenue-generation-tool-of-the-moment “stickers” available for purchase. So basically, all the other mobile app CEOs out there should watch their backs.
Individually each of these two things are small news items. But they’re just the latest examples of technology and hip-hop coming together — and that’s proving to be a marriage that seems to produce some of the most interesting stories around.