with reporters kim mcnicholas and drew onob of tech crunch. this week on "press here." >> good morning, let's talk about a website called reddit. we have the cofounder. a really interesting story about what he's doing to change history. before we talk about that. we need to convince those of you not familiar with reddit.

what a big deal it is. >> reddit doesn't seem much like first glance. if anything the website is like the oldtime bulletin boards you see in the days of compuserve or usenet. but in fact, reddit is so big, president obama is a reddit user. the site, part of the conde naft publishing empire. one posting a down on his luck musician, holding an appeal for help inspired reddit users to take action. they're raising funds to help blues man lester chambers who said he was cheated by the record companies go back into the studio to record a new album. ♪ >> the driving force behind that effort is reddit cofounder alexis ohanian.

an outspoken critic. business insider called him one of the superheroes of the internet. all of a sudden, i see reddit everywhere. the growth kev must be tremendous four. >> it has been pretty significant. but it hasn't been that sort of hockey stick growth. it's been really steady. it grows every week. >> it's not brand-new. a lot of people think it is. >> that was a big day for us. you notice all of the people just now learning about it, are probably getting a lot less productive. we have been around slowly eating away at the whole world. >> that control situation, was there a lot of backlash because of that? >> you know, not a lot in the sense that i think what most people realize now, on the internet, whether it's really

any social media platform, when you're giving a stage for someone to comment, submit links, do whatever it takes, deather on twitter, reddit, facebook, tumbler. there's the opportunity for jerks to abuse it. 99% of the traffic is either benign or actually really good. most people can separate the vast majority of users from the minority. >> what we appreciate about reddit. is it's not a pretty designed site. that's the best part of it. what do you guys do when you started it that you wanted to make sure people could be who they are and be themselves? i see reddit as one of the main heart and souls of the internet. >> thank you. the reason it looks that way. neither steve huffman, my cofounder or i, had any design experience. >> i call it the bulletin board

of compuserve. >> or usenet. >> it's very simple. >> we just graduated from college. and we knew that we wanted to create a place, a platform for online communities where people can share links and have discussions. it's important for us at a time when facebook was still in colleges, to allow sued anymores. this ability to logon, it allows for a certain amount of candor xg we can't always get whe we're attaching ourselves to it. when i see communities"o0hñ lik$ rlgbt that have users coming on, feeling contractible about talking about problems they're having because they know their dad isn't reading it. >> per sub sections of reddit. >> as someone can create a twitter account whether kim kardashian or news organization and tweet things. but someone can create a sub reddit. >> san francisco 49ers. >> there's a great my little

phony sub reddit. >> or fear the beard. >> you give certain users the power to create those sub reddits and monitor them. >> you can create a sub reddit about your own beard if you had one. >> where do you draw the line? how do you make you don't have explicit content or it's inappropriate. it is part of the rules and regulations. you have a responsibility as the site to actually lease it. >> i'm not sure you and i are looking at the same reddit. >> you're looking at a different reddit. >> i'm not looking at them. >> she's not looking at them. >> you don't have a specific context -- >> reddit. here's an interesting point. this is an interesting point. you know, look at a similar social media forum like twitter.

the entire west borough baptist church uses platform about hate. they use this platform with the freedom that it offers in the postings, as offensive and repellant as they are. twitter and all of us in social media companies have decided to let it stand as long as it's legal. if it's legal, it's a no-brainer, we shut it down. >> i want to interrupt. i hear the phrases, social media and platform. we talk about human beings. if i go to the mall. there's kids hanging out front smoking cigarettes, tossing into people. when you put it on a platform where it's all together.do and people get scare, it's everywhere anyways. >> right. >> so, i mean, that's got to be a double-edged sword. >> it is. and the hope is that we all -- i

mean, there are repellant things in our society regardless. we can't put our heads in the stand but we need to challenge them and sign up to the mass people, to people. the advantage that gives some kid in the middle ofzñ the country, the platform to speak about the problems he's dealing with as a gay kid in the community that doesn't support it on sub reddit like lgbt. outweigh the cost of a troll from the baptist church spouting out about craziness. >> that's a good moment of transition. tell me about lester chamber, tell me the story about how you got involved in helping the musician we talked about in the beginning of the show. >> sure. he and his son took the initiative by posting the photo earlier on the facebook page. one of the sub reddits. our music, a community of music lovers posted that photo.

it was posted up to the number one spot and millions of people saw it. it spread like wildfire across the internet. i like them saw it. and thought this is the exact thing we're fighting for when we said open internet will make things better for artists. we came off a stunning success months earlier. terrible legislation written by the entertainment industry to purely serve their own needs. here's an example of an individual robbed and cheated from the very industry trying to rob and cheat the open internet. a lot of project, it sort of bubbled up and down the to-do list. and we got an opportunity to try reaching out and thought, man, what are the odds this soul legend will respond as some random dude from the internet. sure enough, it happened. >> what are you going to do for him? >> i want to be clear. this isn't like -- >> i know it's not just you. lester, you know, posted this as we showed this record that said,

you know, that i have been living below my means, because of what happened back in the '60s in the recording industry and you, and the rest of the internet are doing what? >> well, i had approached lester with the simple proposition, there are so many platforms now that let artists go directly to their fans, kick starter being the most prominent. let me help i connect the dots on doing a kick start campaign. i have a friend that can choose the video. >> it's online now so he can record his next album. >> the proposition was we'll get your album funded by your fans. there will be no middleman and good news you'll own all of the content you create. when one of the songs is used in a movie, you actually get paid. when one of your songs is downloaded on itune, you'll actually get paid. which is something that never happened for him for decades. >> alexis ohanian,

congratulations for all that you're doing with reddit. >> we will actually be hearing from lester chambers, the musici musician, right after the break. back in a minute.

♪ it's the chambers brothers in the 1968 hit song "time has come drtogether." as we were discussing. artist lester chambers posted a picture of his old record with the note, i am the former lead singer of a '60s band, i did not

squander my money on drugs or a fancy home. i have never seen royalties from ten albums i recorded. i'm 72 living on $1200 a month. the man who wrote that note joins us now, lester chambers chaired the stage with jimmy hendricks, janice job pin and the doors. he was homeless until his friend, yoko paid the rent. let me assume that your friend's last name is ono? >> correct. >> fantastic. you have good friends in high places. >> absolutely. >> let me ask you the hardest question first. that is, convince me that what did you do wrong, and i realize record companies did wrong too, as a young man, as an adult. what did you do wrong that you ended up in the place you are? >> we agreed and listened to record companies tell us, oh, don't worry about it. we will takes it later. >> but, i mean. once you#óu(ut figured it out, maybe after the second album or

third album when they're not paying you, you still continued to do four, five, six, seven -- >> when you have a hit record like timewise, playing every day, everywhere you go, you're working, you got these great jobs and you're earning this money, you're not monitoring the record companies. >> and artists create. you were trying to create the next hit and next hit. >> and we were writing, they said don't worry about it, stay in the studio. just keep writing. >> also, reflecting on ourselves, i trust my boss. i know your boss.dc if your boss said trust me, we'll work it out. >> i'd say yes, we're all in this together. >> how did you live every single day? what did you use as money to pay the rent? >> when we were working, it was no problem. >> we were on the road seven days a week. boom, boom. and sometimes twice a day out of that seven. >> got you. >> looking at the spectacular wealth of artists today, do you

later? >> no. because i wish i was born -- i was born at the right time, because now i know how to take care and do my son -- >> yes. >> he's not in my band, he has his own band, the midnight transit. >> fantastic. >> and i'm doing all of the things for him that didn't get done for me. >> speaking of bands, you're going to do a song for us. what song is it? >> "let's get funky." >> old on a second. i'm going introduce this song in my own way. here i go. >> ed sullivan and i have two things in common, we both hosted tv shows, his "the ed sullivan show" had slightly more viewers. we also had the same musical guest. ed in january 1969, me, today, is bluesman lester chambers.

♪ ♪ ♪ mama's in her kitchen ♪ she's stirrin' in a pot ♪ daddy's sittin' waiting to see what she's got ♪ ♪ he's sitting by the fireplace with his hands on his knees ♪ ♪ he looked around at mama said hey you better come see about me ♪ ♪ let's get funky yeah get it on

yia yia yia yia ♪ ♪ now every time i see you ♪ you know you're lookin' cool ♪ you're lookin' like you want to do this ♪ ♪ but you ain't got the tools ♪ i wanna teach you something that's not from the golden rule ♪ ♪ but this is something momma that you can't learn at school ♪ ♪ let's get funky yeah goetz it on ♪ ♪ yeah yeah ♪ let's get funky yeah baby get it on ♪ ♪ da da da da ♪ da da da da da da da da da

yeah ♪ ♪ i you had your trip down da da da da da da da da da da da da ♪ ♪ da da da da da da da da da da da da da ♪ ♪ i know you had your trip down on funky broadway street ♪ ♪ but thiscy different rent?tñ thing with a whole different meaning ♪ ♪ it matter not where you been ♪ but where you wanna go ♪ if the music moves you just get on the floor ♪ ♪ let's get funky yeah

♪ get it on yeah yeah yeah ♪ let's get funky yeah get it on yeah let's get funky yeah get it onp?÷d da da da da da da da daa da da da da da ♪ ♪ da da da da da da da da da whoo ♪ [ applause ] you're smiling. >> thank you. >> lester chambers and the mud stompers. lester's fund-raiser on kick starter has nearly 2,000 supporters, now this drive ends wednesday. go to kick starter.com and

search for lester chambers. also he is on facebook as well. lester chambers "press here" we'll be right back.

welcome back to "press here." if you hear the song "call me maybe" on the radio. carly ray jeffson gets a small royalty. and she should. but jenson actually gets a bigger "f" a substantial fee. they are fine with that. pandora, not so much. it's been lobbying congress to change the rules so it can stay less. >> nobody understands this more

than mike agovino. his company, triton digital. he's been named one from the 40 efs most powerful people in radio. i pick the song "call me maybe" because you hear it on radio, itunes. if i download it on radio, on satellite. on itunes, there's a bunch of different fee structures, sway that? >> there's a bunch of different free structures that look at music. a.m./fm broadcast of music has been exempt from a performance royalty for decades and decades. satellite pay ace percentage of revenue royalty that's around 8% of their revenue, and then depending on the webcast, whether you're webcasting in

broadcast mode or personalizing, it's different structures, again. so, the legislation you refer to, the proposed legislation that pandora and i would point out a bunch of broadcasters as well, are all supporting including our company triton digital, is really a community of publishers, coming together to suggest that standards needed. and -- >> the satellite -- >> the user is a user. >> satellite shouldn't be looked at different than a stream of a radio station, pandora, spotfy, a slacker of a song. this it point all forms. at this points it ate consumer deciding when, where and how they're going to access something and why should all of the models be different? >> do you think they're different in terms of pandora in

terms of a.m./fm radio? pandora is really climbing up there in terms of audience. you told us earlier, it is the second largest audience in terms of -- >> one of the things it does is measure online audience, we don't do that through surveys or panels. we do that through a technology that actually looks at connections to content made by o consumer, so their audience measured online, would be --l]o would rank second overall in nerms of all audience -- >> how has mobile changed it? i know pandora was pretty much, multiple times almost ready to pack it in, because they were running out of money and then the iphone came along. >> which you blue tooth to your stereo in your car. >> all of a sudden, it's multiple things. not only has proliferation of smart phone and tablets, grown pandora's audience and others

exponentially, but also about that same time, there was -- pandora went to court, there was a settlement where the current rates that pandora operates under came out of those proceedings, so -- but, you know, for pandora and for the -- the broadcasters, that are delivering content online, the expense of the ruleties at this point, exceed the revenue that can be generated off of the audience, and so it's -- it's not a profitable business for anyone, including the company that's the largest market share which iswwe(h pandora. >> is it possible with internet radio, because you can track it that maybe the artist would be treated more fairly even if it were a lower rate? a radio station is impossible to track the number of viewers or listeners. you don't know how many are listening, you can sample size, that kind of thing.

with internet you know specifically that many people heard that song. >> sure and one from the pieces of technology we provide to publishers is royalty reporting technology where we're looking at how many people are listening, when a song plays, and we're providing monthly calculations that allow thome report back to sound exchange. so it's tracked very close. >> with awful these new technologies, pandora, spotify, i guess i wouldn't call them new. but they're new compared to a.m./fm radio then there is iheart radio, trying to possibly save radio with that app. do you think it will have an impact or is it having an impact? >> is iheart specifically having an impact on radio? >> right. now you have access to all of the different radio stations. >> scott pointed out there's very different measurements over the years versus online. the estimates produced over the air and precise measurement

online is difficult to combine those two sets of data and come out with any clear conclusions. i would say that terrestrial radio is still enjoying a, you know, 90-plus percent listenership on a weekly basis from the population. it's just that over time, the amount of time each individual has available to devote to over the air radio has been fraction allized as really the internet has come of age. >> that's changing too. you buy a car, you're getting cars that have devices in them. pandora has done deals where they are built into vehicles. >> and your pai pod, and -- >> and iheart, and many others. but it's going take, i think the average auto, is 11 years old, sitting in driveways across the country. so it will take a while before em side of things really reaches any kind of major scale.

wheat happening out there now is more like for us when we were rolling around with our sony cd player hoping the road would smooth -- >> i got an 8-track. >> it's more aftermarket stuff right now that's -- and blue tooth, that's enabling the in-car piece. certainly we see in-office listenership moving in droves to -- migrating to the onlineside. >> mike agovino thank you for briefing us on this. i know congress is not real excited about this. hopefully they'll get to it after fiscal cliff. and thank you for being with us this morning. >> thank you i3zlñguys. >> we'll be back in just a minute.

that's our show for this week. if you enjoyed last yearester's

performance we posted it online. you can also enjoy lester's new album on kick start. thank you for joining us us this sunday morning.