Three Sixty
Top Artists
View All
Top Charts
Hot 100 Songs
Billboard 200
View All
Top Videos
DMX's Family Shut Down Rumors That Jay-Z & Beyoncé Bought His Master Recordings | Billboard News
Blackpink Becomes Second Most-Subscribed YouTube Channel With 60M | Billboard News
View All
Top Articles
Did Taylor Swift Tease the Rerecorded Release of '1989': Swifties Think So
Taylor Swift Is Obsessed With Stephen Colbert In Hilarious ‘Late Show’ Segment
View All
Watch Now
Business

Alex Hofmann, Former musical.ly North America President, Joins Emoticast as Lead Advisor: Exclusive

By Colin Stutz
4/16/2018
By Colin Stutz
4/16/2018
Alex Hofmann
Andrew Toth/Getty Images for WSJ. Magazine 2017 Innovator Awards

Alex Hofmann of musical.ly attends the WSJ. Magazine 2017 Innovator Awards at MOMA on Nov. 1, 2017 in New York City.  

He will help grow the company's TuneMoji platform, which combines GIFs with sound for hyper compressed looping videos called SoundGIFs.

Former musical.ly North America president Alex Hofmann is joining London-based tech company Emoticast -- which combines GIFs with sound for hyper compressed looping videos called SoundGIFs via its TuneMoji platform -- as a lead advisor. 

Hofmann will help Emoticast grow its TuneMoji community of users and content creators, which has exploded this year from 300,000 monthly active users in January 2018 to over 6 million currently. It has daily users in 216 territories, supporting search translation in over 100 languages, working with popular social platforms FB Messenger, WhatsApp, iMessage, Viber, Skype and others. 

TuneMoji currently operates with licenses with labels Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group and publishers Sony ATV, Warner Chappell, Universal Publishing and Impel/PRS. 

Hofmann helped build musical.ly's global user base to more than 400 million installs, before leaving the company earlier this year following its merger with Chinese tech giant Bytedance. 

"Hofmann's leadership experience in closing huge partnerships with Apple Music, Viacom, NBCU, Hearst Digital, major labels and publishers will play a pivotal role at TuneMoji as we look to expand further upon closing the next round of funding," said Emoticast founder and CEO James Fabricant in a statement. 

Emoticast has already raised funding from such notable backers as Sean Parker, Will.i.am and Jorg Mohaupt of Access Industries. 

Added Hofmann: "I am excited to join Emoticast's Advisory Board. Since my departure from musical.ly, I remain incredibly motivated to help build products that can bring joy to millions of people. James and team have built something forward-looking, and it will be great to help it grow into a larger giant."

By Colin Stutz
4/16/2018

Watch Now