Planet Hip-Hop
Down the road in Calgary, serial entrepreneur Jon Lam of Ph03nix New Media is set to launch TRZZonline.com, an innovative gaming environment wrapped in the guise of the Internet’s first hip-hop-themed virtual world. Lam’s thing is finding unique opportunities at the crossroads of culture and technology. A few years ago, he brought Curse of the Pharaoh to market, bridging the divide between the gaming experience and historical realism of ancient Egyptian society. Curse of the Pharaoh was one of North America’s top gaming titles in 2008, garnering several awards and a No. 2 ranking on the prestigious bigfishgames.com website. With TRZZonline.com, Ph03nix is angling to fill a major gap that exists between online gaming, one of the Internet’s largest and most secure industries, and the cultural revolution of hip-hop.
But while hip-hop is huge, hot and pervasive, it’s also very one-sided. The vast majority of content out there is produced and influenced by just a small handful of people as compared to the genre’s enormous international fan base. With TRZZonline.com, users will have their first immersive opportunity to generate, share, discuss and distribute their own content, pushing back against traditional top-down media models and providing users with a fun and unprecedented tool for influencing hip-hop culture.
The technology is cool, the market is massive and, thanks to our friends at venture capital outfit AVAC Ltd., Ph03nix New Media has a nice marketing war chest to work with. Lam has been to the top of the mountain before. TW says it’s a virtual lock that he’ll be making a return trip.
I wish I had skin in the company.
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