Daniel House launched his career during the earliest days of the Seattle grunge phenomenon, quickly developing the skills that would take him beyond music to the forward-thinking Web initiatives that distinguish his work today. He’s launched enterprise-level web communities, developed brands on the Web and for mobile applications, and demonstrated an intuitive understanding of social-media marketing well before the term “social media” had entered common parlance.
House was a founding member of, and bassist for, the band Skin Yard (1985-1991), an outfit that shared stages with the likes of Nirvana, Soundgarden, the Flaming Lips, the Goo Goo Dolls, Bad Religion, Faith No More, the Butthole Surfers, the Meat Puppets, Melvins and Redd Kross.
House left his imprint on the business side of making music as well. During his 15-year tenure as president and owner of C/Z Records, he was responsible for releasing some of the earliest material from Nirvana, Soundgarden, Melvins, Built to Spill, Presidents of the United States of America, and 7 Year Bitch. He built C/Z – a regional, independent label – into a well-oiled operation enjoying international recognition, overseeing marketing, creative direction, talent acquisition and business development. In 1996, C/Z’s 11th year, he negotiated a joint venture with Zoo, a division of BMG Entertainment.
House entered the online-media arena when he accepted a position at the pioneering RealNetworks. This was in 1998, a period marked by the entertainment industry’s initial transition from a traditional business model to the new, Internet-focused paradigm. While working in online-content acquisition and development, House became hooked on “new media” and the potential of Web technologies to deliver entertainment and other products.
In 2003, House relocated from Seattle—his home for two-plus decades—to Los Angeles, where he became Sr. Director of Development and Label Relations for the groundbreaking online destination DownloadPunk, the first genre-specific music-download service. In this capacity he formulated and documented functional specifications, developed user-experience and information architecture, and oversaw the development and construction of the DownloadPunk website, a site that has sadly gone by the wayside.
By 2005 House had progressed to the burgeoning mobile-content space, taking a post at GoTV Networks, one of the first companies to deliver streaming mobile video via handheld devices. He drove branding there for two original mobile channels, offerings of GoTV’s subscription service. He also developed a highly successful nationwide Web/print campaign boosting awareness of GoTV’s products at Sprint stores and produced numerous video presentations for wireless conferences.
House next lent his expertise to entertainment purveyor Shout! Factory, building the ShoutFactory.com Web portal and store. The site boasted a robust multi-channel media player; streaming video; message boards; audio and video podcasts; games; and contests, as well as a fully integrated e-commerce engine.
Having knocked that out of the park, he once again exercised his entrepreneurial spirit, introducing RocknRollDating, a free, ad-supported dating site aimed at singles for whom compatibility in musical taste is an important piece of the relationship puzzle. This endeavor showcases the full range and scope of his capabilities, from the site’s feature set to the tone and style of its messaging, to its overall look and feel. Of course he handled marketing, too.
RocknRollDating was well in hand when House signed on to wrangle development of Peer², the first digital platform allowing users to earn points toward rewards by deploying an embeddable flash widget to the social networking sites they frequent. As such, Peer2 challenged traditional online advertising by incentivizing its members to actively share and promote branded content. Peer² is now in the midst of a complete makeover as they received an infusion of investment capital, and Daniel has since moved to a new frontier, leaving entertainment related endeavors behind and is now doing similar work in the healthcare arena.
With more than 20 years’ experience in marketing, business development, traditional and interactive media, and Web technologies – the bulk of which has been spent promoting entertainment and new-media convergence – House continues to seek out like-minded entrepreneurs and creative thinkers to explore the possibilities that exist on the Web.
