Paul Myers
Born1967 (age 55–56)
Plaistow, London, England
Occupation(s)Author, businessman, record producer, DJ
Years active1980s–present

Paul Myers (born 1967 in Plaistow, London, England) is a British author and businessman and was formerly a record producer. He was the CEO and founder of pioneering online music store Wippit.[1][2] Myers now heads application developer Bappz and independent podcast production company Playback Media.

Music industry

During the 1980s, Myers was a club DJ, and was resident at the Hippodrome in London at the age of 18.[3] From 1989 to 1995 he was a songwriter and record producer working for Polydor Records, Warner Brothers Recordings, Rhythm King Records, and Sony Music. He contributed to the movie soundtrack to A Rage in Harlem. In 1991 he was awarded a platinum disc for his production work on the Betty Boo's album Boomania including the single 24 Hours which was also written and co-vocaled by Myers.[4] His songs have been remixed and produced by Fat Boy Slim, William Orbit, Vince Clarke and David Morales.[5]

Internet businesses

Among his early Internet ventures from 1994 were the web design agency Nethead and the search portal G.O.D.

In 1998 he launched a free Internet access company, The X-Stream Network, the first Free ISP in the UK.[6] This company is now part of TalkTalk following the sale of X-Stream to French owned LibertySurf for $75m in 2000.

In 2000, he founded Wippit, a legal P2P music subscription service and created online music stores for Associated Newspapers, Express Newspapers and EasyGroup. Wippit was the biggest UK-based MP3 online music and movies store and in terms of sales became the second biggest digital media service, after the UK branch of the iTunes Music Store.[7] From 15 March 2007 Wippit produced "The All Day Breakfast Show", a podcast by award-winning radio presenter Danny Baker described in The Guardian newspaper as the 'Future of Radio'[8] as well as Sports related podcasts including The Spurs Show, Stop! Hammer Time, Baker and Kelly and specials for comedian Tim Vine and BBC Radio 2 celebrity gardener Terry Walton.

The New York Times said of Myers, "Whether you see Myers as a marketing maestro or madman, he is still a pioneer in the digital music market"[9] when Wippit announced the arrival of The Beatles downloads following a deal with ITN.

Myers left the business in January 2008 and Wippit closed in September of the same year.[10] Although the company made no claim in its closing statement, media commentators concluded that the music industry never fully co-operated with Wippit or supported it the way it should have.[11]

In May 2008 it was announced that Myers was behind BAPPZ,[12] a company building Facebook and iPhone applications for clients such as Betfair and mothercare[13] and the popular London Tube Map.[14]

Myers continues to produce podcasts with his company, Playback Media[15] producing podcasts for Alan Davies, Phil Cornwell, Mark Webster, Dermot O'Leary and Phil Daniels on their comedic football shows. It's Up For Grabs Now was the highest charting football club specific podcast on iTunes since launch in November 2009.

Bappz developed the[16] iOS app for Air Studios, the London recording studio founded by The Beatles producer George Martin. In September 2012 AirVinyl charted Number 1 on the iTunes App Store in thirty four countries.[17]

Media

In 2006, Myers was nominated for a Netimperative Lifetime Achievement Award.[18] He was a board advisor to UK social networking service, ProfileHeaven and more recently the creator of the Facebook application FriendFolio.[19] He is the author of a travel memoir, What I Did in Cuba.[20] first published in 2007.[21]

References

  1. ↑ "Wippit home page". Archived from the original on 21 December 2018. Retrieved 2 May 2020.
  2. ↑ "Digital music firm demands big-name business boycott". Theregister.com. Retrieved 28 July 2020.
  3. ↑ "The Digital DJ". Time.com. Archived from the original on 24 January 2001. Retrieved 28 July 2020.
  4. ↑ "Betty Boo - Boomania". Discogs.com. Retrieved 28 July 2020.
  5. ↑ "Betty Boo - Catch Me". Discogs.com. Retrieved 28 July 2020.
  6. ↑ "Liberty Surf Buys X-Stream for $68 Million - InternetNews". Internetnews.com. Retrieved 28 July 2020.
  7. ↑ "Wippit brief goes to Team Saatchi". Brandrepublic.com. Retrieved 28 July 2020.
  8. ↑ "Radio Festival - live from Cambridge". The Guardian. 10 July 2007. Retrieved 28 July 2020.
  9. ↑ Shannon, Victoria (28 March 2007). "The End User: Accidental publicist, What he meant was". The New York Times.
  10. ↑ "Wippit put out of its misery; pioneering legal P2P service dies". The Guardian. 4 September 2008. Retrieved 28 July 2020.
  11. ↑ "UK digital media service Wippit shuts shop | Distorted-Loop.com". distorted-loop.com. Archived from the original on 23 December 2008. Retrieved 17 January 2022.
  12. ↑ "Bappz | Bappz builds apps - Since 2008". Bappz.com. Retrieved 28 July 2020.
  13. ↑ Wippit Founder in iPhone and Facebook move Archived 5 January 2009 at the Wayback Machine
  14. ↑ "London Tube Map app does 65,000 downloads a month | Mobile Entertainment News". Archived from the original on 3 December 2010. Retrieved 4 December 2010.
  15. ↑ "Playback Media – the UK's Premier Independent Podcast Producers". Playbackmedia.co.uk. Retrieved 28 July 2020.
  16. ↑ "AirVinyl". Archived from the original on 26 August 2012. Retrieved 20 January 2021.
  17. ↑ "AirVinyl Back to Black". Bappz.com. Retrieved 28 July 2020.
  18. ↑
  19. ↑ "Log into Facebook". Facebook.com. Retrieved 28 July 2020. {{cite web}}: Cite uses generic title (help)
  20. ↑ "Lulu". Whatididonmyholidays.net. Retrieved 28 July 2020.
  21. ↑ What I Did in Cuba – Amazon listing, paperback, ISBN 978-1-84799-485-1, 3 March 2008
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