Empire’ Season 2 Recap

Last night marked Empire‘s midseason finale. Star-studded to the core, Fox proved they 

have what it takes to pull out celebrities at the drop of a hat.

The show’s 60-minute midseason finale kicked off with Jason Derulo appearing as himself 

as he announces the 2015 American Sound Award nominations live from Los Angeles.

 Please keep in mind, the American Sound Awards – or the ASAs – are not real, but in the 

interest of not paying to use the title of an actual awards show, Fox invented the next best 

thing. While announcing music’s hottest nominations from the West Coast, Lee Daniels and 

Danny Strong tapped Power 105.1’s The Breakfast Club to simulcast ASAs contenders from

 New York. In fact, The Breakfast Club held their own nomination party, referred to as

 Charlamagne’s Nomination Party, on the show.

Performances are going on throughout the day, but Jamal and Skye Summers, played by 

Alicia Keys, make their musical cameo with the premiere of “Powerful,” it seems like the two

 did a little more than just kiss when things wrapped during last week’s episode. Lucious 

walks in on the two canoodling with one another, and asks Jamal point blank, “are you 

hitting that?” And with a smile on his face, Lucious finishes his statement with a simple, “She

fixed you!”

Now, fast forward to Skye and Jamal’s nomination performance. If you know Charlamagne 

tha God, you know he doesn’t hold anything back. So, after the two finish their debut 

duet, Charlamagne hits the stage. He commends the duo on their song, but quickly finds a

 way to erase the compliment by challenging Skye and her racial identity. “Powerful” 

addresses the brutality and civil injustice going on across the world, so Charlamagne 

seemed a little surprise to hear Skye lend her vocals to such a track since her career has 

thrived in the pop lane. “So you Black, now?,” he asks her. Skye may have built her career

 with a strong pop influence, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that she’s Black

.

While Jamal is feeling the fruits of his musical labor, his father is busy illegally

 purchasing 

Swift Stream, “the fastest streaming service in the Universe.” As he’s explaining his plan to 

his business partner, Mimi, she’s recording the entire conversation with her pen. Lucious, of

course, is none the wiser. So when Mimi pulls Empire together for a staff meeting, the devil

 himself is totally caught off guard. Mimi moves to hold an emergency board meeting to 

overthrow Lucious as Empire’s chairman and CEO now that it’s a publicly traded company

 and all.

Andre, Thirsty and Lucious work to round up every board member they can to vote in favor 

of keeping Lucious on the team. The family needs one additional board member to vote with

 them, but Hakeem heats things up when he lobbies against his father. Thus, Lucious loses

 the empire he’s spent 15 years building, and Mimi Whiteman is named as Empire’s new 

chairman. However, Mimi’s battling breast cancer so she authorizes her wife to act in her 

place. Who’s her wife might you ask? Remember Hakeem’s ex-girlfriend Camila Marks?

 Well, looks like she’s back. And looks like this entire hostile takeover was orchestrated by

 her. Well played, Camila!

Everyone in the family clearly has their own problems, and during this round of familial 

drama, Cookie takes Hakeem and Laura to perform during Family Day at the prison she 

was incarcerated at for 17 years. Here, Da Brat finally makes her Empire debut as Jezzy, 

Cookie’s “family” in prison.

Cook always promised Jezzy should would make her a star after she was released, but it

 looks like Jezzy’s locked up for life. After Cookie got out, Jezzy thought she bounced and

 bailed on her, so she didn’t see a reason to fight anymore. Thus, Jezzy got life while locked

 up by offing her bunk mate over some toothpaste.

But before over-saturated celebrity drama could bid farewell to 2015, there was one last

 story line left to leave viewers cringing on their feet: Anika and Rhonda.

For weeks now, Anika has kept her pregnancy a secret. She’s befriended Rhonda, who’s

 having Lucious’ first, and only, grandchild, as far as anyone knows, and lets the jealously

 spill over instead of coming forward with the truth. Boo Boo Kitty asks to see the nursery 

one more time, not knowing Anika had ulterior motives up her sleeve. That same night,

 Anika sneaks into Rhonda and Andre’s home wearing all black and pushes Rhonda – and 

her baby – down the stairs. Talk about going out with a bang.

For all those rocking with anticipation for the next episode, sit back and take a breath 

because things don’t heat back up until Mar. 30.

Read More: 'Empire' Season 2, Midseason Finale Recap | http://theboombox.com/empire-season-2-midseason-finale-recap/?trackback=tsmclip

Off Top Blogs : Making You Tube Pay:You Tubers VS Bands

Off Top Blogs : Making You Tube Pay:You Tubers VS Bands: This is the second in a series of YouTube generation posts.  See the first one here . A couple of weeks ago  I wrote about Generation Ed...

Making You Tube Pay:You Tubers VS Bands

This is the second in a series of YouTube generation posts. See the first one here.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about Generation Edge – the under 16 millennials – and how they are driving an entire new subculture of YouTube stars that throw the traditional fandom rulebook out of the window. One of the intriguing paradoxes (or at least apparent paradoxes) is how a generation of native YouTube stars can create both vast audiences and revenue while for music artists YouTube is simply a place to build awareness and probably lose net revenue due to YouTube streams cannibalizing paid streams. So how can the model both be broken (for music) and yet buoyant for native YouTuber creators?

PewDiePie And Taylor Swift

Compare and contrast the biggest earner in music with the biggest earner on YouTube.  Taylor Swift netted $39.7 million in 2014, compared to $7.4 million for PewDiePie. Seems like a slam-dunk for music right? Except when you start digging a little all is not quiet what it seems. Swift’s numbers are gross revenue so include the revenue earned by everyone else (record labels, promoters, ticket agencies, venues etc.). Let’s say she earns a third of that income which would equate to $12 million (and before anyone suggests it should be higher given her relationship with her label Big Machine ¾ of her revenue came from live in 2014). So suddenly the difference doesn’t look quite so big. Then consider that PewDiePie’s $7.4 million refers just to his YouTube ad revenue and doesn’t take into account his live appearances income or his merch revenue. And, perhaps most importantly, the cost of earning that income was negligible. PewDiePie’s audience is right there on YouTube and his videos are home made. The cost of production, distribution and marketing are close to non-existent. The exact opposite is true of breaking a release like Taylor Swift’s ‘1989’. It’s no secret that most big labels lose money on lots of their bigger front line releases, relying upon a few massive successes and the steady income from back catalogue to pay the bills.

10 Billion Views And Counting

PewDiePie just passed 10 billion views three weeks ago and has 39.9 million subscribers– that’s one for every (gross) dollar that Taylor Swift earned in 2014. Anyway you look at it, those numbers are big. Game Of Thrones, which can lay claim to being one of the mainstream media success stories of the moment, has clocked up around 700 million total views globally over the course of 5 series. And while traditional media apologists will argue that you cannot compare a PewDiePie view with a GoT view try telling a PewDiePie subscriber that their viewing is somehow less worthwhile because it is more than weekly and doesn’t come from a traditional TV set.

Taylor Swift of course also has a pretty hefty YouTube / Vevo presence too, with 16.5 million subscribers and 6.3 billion views. But while she has 20 videos available PewDiePie has nearly 2,500. And therein lies one of the key differences. PewDiePie lives on platforms like YouTube and Twitch. His focus is making content regularly for his audience and engaging directly with them. YouTubers typically make multiple videos every week and often multiply that across multiple different channels. Try squeezing that in around touring, recording, writing sessions, media work etc. Swift, unlike many big pop artists, also knows how to do the native YouTube thing too and has had her own, non-Vevo, YouTube channel since 2006, posting 136 videos there to date. But in stark contrast to her Vevo channel Swift has just 1.4 million YouTube channel subscribers. So even one of the most YouTube-centric of pop artists that also happens to be one of the biggest pop acts on the planet right now simply doesn’t have the time, positioning nor content to compete with a shouty gamer from Sweden.

YouTube Is Generation Edge’s Destination Of Choice

So where does all this leave artists and YouTube. Unless bands want to ditch the guitars and start doing Minecraft commentary videos, becoming a full-on native YouTube creator simply isn’t feasible for most artists. But there absolutely is middle ground between the dominant focus on seeing YouTube simply as a marketing channel for music videos, and the native creator route. Part of the solution is seeing YouTube for what it actually is. It is not a video platform, or a marketing platform, it is one of the most important destinations for Millennials of all ages, especially Generation Edge. It is at once a social network, a TV network, a fun place to hang out, a discovery destination, a place where they can simply be themselves and feel connected. YouTube is all of that and more. In fact the breadth and depth of content means that it is everything to all people.

The Value Of An Authentic Voice

Treating YouTube simply as a marketing channel not only underplays its potential but it also completely misses what it means to your target audience. PewDiePie, Zoella, Stampy, Michelle Phan are all so successful because they speak directly with their YouTube audiences in an authentic voice that communicates that it is the here and now that matters. That it is about the moment not simply an attempt to try to get the viewer to go somewhere else to do something else. Authenticity is a priceless commodity and native YouTube creators have it in spades. That is the currency of the YouTube generation.

Posted in Artists, YouTube | Tagged Ad Supported, Big Machine, michelle phan, PewDiePie, stampy,Taylor Swift, YouTube, youtube economy, YouTubers, Zoella | 9 Replies

Dressed in Code

Increasingly, the worlds of fashion and technology are becoming intertwined—from wristbands that track your heart rate to responsive fabrics that adjust to your temperature. And just like you can sew together different pieces of fabric to make a dress, or choose different items from your closet to create an unexpected outfit, you can also put together code to make something that’s never existed before.

Today, as New York’s Fashion Week kicks off, fashion and technology are coming together in a new way. Made with Code and ZAC Zac Posen are teaming up to show how computer science can push the boundaries of what’s possible in the world of fashion. A dress designed by Zac Posen and with designs coded online by teen girls will debut as the finale look of Zac’s show—and hopefully inspire young girls who have an interest in fashion to see what code can help them create.

Made with Code started with the mission of inspiring girls to try coding and to see it as a means to pursue their dream careers—regardless of what field those careers are in. For this project, girls from organizations like Black Girls Code, the Flatiron School, Girls Who Code and Lower East Side Girls Club, coded designs for an LED dress using an introductory coding project online. Fashion engineer and Made with Code mentor,Maddy Maxey, coded and fabricated the LED technology of the dress, working alongside Zac as he designed. When the dress goes down the runway, it will displays girls’ patterns in 500 LED lights, using a micro controller specially tuned to match Zac’s Spring Summer 2016 runway collection—from Catalina Blue to Acid Yellow. Meanwhile, 50 girls will get seats at the show to see their designs light up the runway.

In the past year, we’ve seen many encouraging signs that more girls are exploring computer science. More than 5 million coding projects have been tried since Made with Code began a year ago. And Googlers, teen girls and partners like Girls Inc, Technovation and Girl Scouts have thrown 300+ Made with Code parties across the U.S., reaching tens of thousands teen girls in person. But with less than one percent of high school girls still expressing interest in computer science, it’s obvious we have so much more work to do—so, let’s start now. After today, girls all over the country can also head to madewithcode.com to create their own design. We hope the digital dress inspires more teens to discover what they can make with code.

House Republicans pull Confederate flag vote

 U.S. House Republican leaders have yanked a controversial vote on keeping Confederate battle flags in national parks, following a reversal and a firestorm.

The vote would have put Southern lawmakers, in particular, in a tough spot, on record as to whether they support allowing the flag to be placed by graves in some limited. House leaders decided today to cancel all votes on a spending bill for the Interior Department and other agencies.

“That bill is going to sit in abeyance until we come to some resolution on it,” House Speaker John Boehner said at a news conference.

Democrats had spent the morning bashing the GOP. Rep. David Scott, D-Atlanta, told us the vote was “a shocking development.” He added:

“Hopefully at the end of today this mess will be cleaned up here and we’ll be able to take the knife out of the wound.”

Rep. Jody Hice, R-Monroe, said this morning he planned to support the amendment:

“From what I understand at this point the amendment that’s coming to the floor now simply codifies existing law that’s been in place for five years, which allows the states to recognize the historical significance on dates of their choosing, while at the same time recognizing sensitivities that many people have with the flag.

“I’m just glad that Georgia dealt with this issue [with the state flag] years ago and in the right way, and so you know this law, this amendment would allow Georgia and the states to dictate it. And Georgia’s handled it right.”

A series of voice votes Tuesday night had added language to the spending bill banning all Confederate flags at National Park Service cemeteries. That went too far in the minds of many Southerners, according to a GOP aide, and they wanted an up-or-down vote on the issue and could have sunk the whole spending bill if their concerns were not addressed.

The controversial amendment would have kept the limitations on Confederate memorabilia at gift shops mandated by the Obama administration, but would have allowed small Confederate battle flag displays at certain times at graves — consistent with current policy, but overturning the earlier vote to ban them completely.

After the political firestorm erupted, House leaders decided to scrap the vote and regroup.

Fireworks cause a toxic brew of unhealthy air

The thousands of Fourth of July fireworks celebrations across the nation bring a toxic brew of air pollution to our atmosphere, according to a recent study from federal scientists.

The exploding fireworks unleash tiny particles — about 1/30th the diameter of a typical human hair — that can affect health because they travel deep into a person's respiratory tract, entering the lungs.

The tiny particles are known as "particulate matter" and include dust, dirt, soot, smoke and liquid droplets and are measured in micrometers, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. A micrometer is one-millionth of a meter.

The fine particulate matter in this study — which was led by scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — were 2.5 micrometers in size.

Both long- and short-term exposures to fine particles are linked to a range of health effects — from coughing, wheezing and shortness of breath, to asthma attacks, heart attack and stroke, to even premature death in people with heart or lung disease, according to the study.

On average, the air is at its worst from 9 p.m. to 10 p.m. on the holiday, the study found. But levels drop back down by noon on July 5.

"These results will help improve air quality predictions, which currently don't account for fireworks as a source of air pollution," said NOAA scientist Dian Seidel and study lead author.

"The study is also another wake-up call for those who may be particularly sensitive to the effects of fine particulate matter," she said.

Real Estate Investing, It Isn't just for boys anymore

Dean Graziosi.

Real Estate Investing, It Isn't Just for the Boys Anymore

When 51 year old stay-at-home mom and part time piano teacher Gena H. from Washington State woke her husband up at 1:15 AM and said "I want to be a real estate investor," he patted her on the shoulder and said, "that's nice dear." In the morning he shared all the reasons he believed it could not work for her. Fast-forward a few years and Gena, who obviously didn't listen to the husband she adores, is a successful and very profitable investor. She has in her words "dramatically changed the financial course for me and my entire family."

Stories like these are coming to my attention at a rate like I've never seen in my well over 20 years of investing. I've been fortunate to watch countless people go from real estate observer to successful real estate investor. But never before has there been such a massive wave of women taking ownership of the household finances using real estate.

In watching this transition, I believe it's due to a couple of primary factors. First, we all know that the real estate market peaked like never before around 2006, and then the bubble burst and the market crashed. It reminded me of flying down Space Mountain in Disneyland. However, after the bottom comes the inevitable shift in the market, when it begins trending back up as we are seeing now. This is truly a magical time for investors.

Second, I think we are heading into the years of more empowerment of women. I could be criticized for saying this, but I think it's less about women's liberation, as that was yesterday's news. I see it as more that women are just losing any hesitation at all to do anything they want. I think it's a very positive trend for our country. I watched my single Mom struggle to support my sister and me growing up, so I'm always cheering for the ladies. I think we are entering a whole new era of advancing equality. But that's for another story.

Jen G., a single Mom, was working in an accounting office with no windows and too little pay each month to support her and her son. Frustrated, stressed and wanting a new path in life, she decided to reinvent herself through real estate investing. Friends and family told her real estate investing was for people with money and experience. Some even expressed resentment and actively discouraged her. Recently, Jen called to tell me: "Just six months after starting, I got to walk into my office and tell my boss I no longer needed her services!" Jen quit her job and has done more than 185 real estate transactions so far and feels she is being the Mom she always wanted to be.

Tammy R. lives in a crazy fast moving market in CA. This is a market where even seasoned investors are afraid to take the plunge. However, this determined Mom of four, who was homeschooling her children when she started investing, refused to yield to her fears. She didn't listen to her husband who said "it won't work for you." Like Jen, she didn't have a ton of money to start, but researched a method called "wholesaling." Wholesaling is matching up monied investors with good deals, and making money in the middle. On one transaction alone she made more then she did the prior two years, and she is currently working on her 23rd deal. "You just can't let the naysayers spoil your dreams" she said when asked about the secret of her success.

Whether you're in a strongly rebounding large urban market like Tammy, a more rural and smaller city in Alabama that's coming back at a slower pace like Jen, or somewhere in the middle like Gena in Washington State, it doesn't matter. The current state of all of these markets is opening up endless opportunities for investors to gain the knowledge to profit and who aren't afraid to go for it.

Real estate is my life, and with over 20 years of non-stop investing I've personally experienced that there is always a profitable strategy that fits the current market cycle. However, the massive spike in real estate, followed by the inevitable and dramatic crash, is setting up a solid rebound. I truly believe this is the greatest time for everyone who would like to secure a better future to get educated, learn from those who are doing it, and jump into real estate investing.

I'm currently doing 30 to 50 deals every month all around the country, in 9 states actually. I'm working with women like Gena, Jen and Tammy, as well as a slew of others who are crushing todays shifting real estate market rather then complaining about it.

Maybe real estate investing is cooler and more possible then you think. All I can say is that the boys better 

 step up.

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