Family Learning Center

Posts Tagged ‘Imeem’

CODE Advisors Absolutely, Definitely Not Working With MySpace On A Spinoff

Lots of scuttlebutt around Silicon Valley that new investment bank CODE Advisors is out pitching a MySpace spinoff to potential buyers and investors. Sources include people who’ve actually been pitched.

CODE Advisor partner Quincy Smith says “We have not been engaged by News Corp. or MySpace on a sale of the company.” MySpace also contacted us to deny the rumor – “The story is false.” – although we hadn’t actually gotten around to asking them yet. Word travels fast, it seems.

MySpace does confirm that they have an ongoing relationship with CODE Advisors to look for companies that they may want to buy, particularly in the music space (they’ve bought two music startups, iMeem and iLike, in the last year). CODE Advisors partner Fred Davis is leading that effort.

But any effort to spin off MySpace from News Corp. – something we’ve argued must be done for the company to have any chance to thrive – is being done unofficially. And perhaps without the knowledge of News Corp. execs.

Are MySpace execs testing the waters to see if there’s a way to spin themselves off of the politics-driven News Corp.? That’s being flatly denied. But it sure would makes a lot of sense. And, like we said, the pitches are happening, whether everyone denies it or not.

Read the whole story…

MySpace Grew By 7 Percent Last Month, But Was Imeem’s Loss Their Only Gain?

Over the weekend at the MidemNet music event in Cannes, MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta took the stage to talk about the current status of the struggling company. During his keynote interview with Billboard editorial director Bill Werde, Van Natta stated that MySpace was showing an increase in unique visitors for the first time since the middle of last year. In fact, Van Natta said that according to comScore data, MySpace visitors grew by 7 percent between November and December. That may sound like great news for the site, but it may be misleading: many of these new users may have simply been redirected users of Imeem.

MySpace completed its acquisition of Imeem on December 8, and the music service was promptly shut down (Imeem was out of money and its music licenses were expiring). As soon as Imeem shut down, MySpace redirected all of its traffic to its own music site.  Now, we can’t tell exactly how many users MySpace gained from these redirects, but according to comScore MySpace saw a jump in 4.7 million unique visitors in December, which is about the same as what comScore was measuring for Imeem in previous months (it had 4.6M in October and 4.4M in November).  Again, we can’t definitively say how much of MySpace’s growth was due to Imeem, but it’s likely that it represented a substantial portion of it.

To be fair, Van Natta and MySpace aren’t exactly out boasting about their improved traffic stats — Van Natta’s comment was in response to a question that was posed to him on stage, and he followed it up by saying, “We don’t want to get ahead of ourselves here but it’s good that the numbers have stabilized and we hope this will continue”.

It’s worth pointing out that while MySpace’s uniques have stabilized after big drops last spring and summer, it’s unclear if the number of page views the site receives has stabilized (see the comScore graph below).

Read the whole story…

MySpace Music Resurrects Imeem Playlists

Last month, MySpace finally completed its deal to acquire troubled music startup Imeem. Unfortunately for imeem fans, the service shut down as soon as the deal was completed, redirecting them to a MySpace Music splash screen. MySpace was subsequently trashed by outraged users who wanted their playlists back. Today, they’re getting what they asked for: MySpace has just sent out an Email to imeem users, informing them that they’ll be able to restore their playlists using a new import tool. We’ve confirmed with MySpace that the feature is now live.

The process is simple: users enter their imeem Email address, hit “Import Playlists”, and will find their imeem playlists restored under the “My Music” section of MySpace Music. The playlists will behave as normal MySpace playlists do, but will be labeled to indicate that they originated from imeem. The process should be seamless for most users, but there are a few caveats: MySpace won’t be able to restore songs where there are differences between the imeem and MySpace music license catalogs. MySpace says this won’t be an issue for most songs, but didn’t have an exact percentage for how much of the catalogs overlap.

It’s worth pointing out again that MySpace didn’t really have anything to do with the shutdown of imeem — it would have shut down anyway as its licences expired and money ran out. We’re hearing this actually took quite a bit of work from MySpace’s end, as they had to pair up thousands of songs to prepare for the import process.

Here’s the Email message being sent to imeem users:

We’re happy to share that we’ve recreated your imeem playlists on MySpace Music. We spent a lot of time and effort to make a home for your music on our platform. Beginning today you’ll be able to access your playlists. Here’s how:

1) Access your playlist by clicking here: http://www.myspace.com/music/import-playlists. You will need to be logged into MySpace. Click here to login or signup for MySpace.

2) Enter your imeem e-mail address.

3) Click import and we will retrieve your playlists.

4) Upon completion, your playlists will be stored in “My Music,” our playlist management tool. All playlists can be identified by the name “import_[yourplaylistname]”

This process isn’t perfect and while we expect most of your content to have migrated from imeem to MySpace Music, we appreciate your understanding if any discrepancies between the two music catalogs affected your individual playlists.

If you have questions, please visit http://faq.myspace.com/app/home.

Thanks,
The MySpace Music Team

Crunch Network: CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware.

Read the whole story…

5 o’clock round-up: Genachowski spams, Google blogs, Wikipedia rounds up donations

Here’s the last action of this decade:

The FCC chairman spams his Facebook friends. Julius Genachowski, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, sent a cryptic Facebook message to all of his friends this morning, saying “Adam got me started making money with this.” It contained a broken link. Facebook suspended the account and said Genachowski will have to go through a “remediation process” and “learn security best practices” to reactivate his account.

MySpace replaces Imeem’s embedded playlists with advertising. The Imeem acquisition fiasco continues. After MySpace pulled the plug on developer access to Imeem song streams without warning, it gives users another unpleasant surprise. Ads now show up in place of embedded Imeem playlists, according to Wired. MySpace tells the magazine that they’re looking into this “asap”. Uh huh.

Google celebrates its fifth year of corporate blogging. The company’s official blog attracted north of 14 million visitors this year, with top billing going to the posts on Chrome OS, Wave and Google Voice. Twitter becomes the top non-Google referrer of traffic to the site, signaling the networks growing power in pushing traffic around the web.

Chrome OS also topped Techmeme as the biggest tech story of the year: Second place went to the death of Michael Arrington’s much anticipated tablet computer, the Crunchpad, amid legal disputes. Third went to Steve Jobs’ letter, outlining his health problems. But as we learned out later, he was not all that forthcoming, blaming a “hormone imbalance” when he actually received a liver transplant later in the year.

Wikipedia reached its fundraising goal of $7.5 million Because the online encyclopedia isn’t a commercial operation, founder Jimmy Wales asked the public for donations to sustain it. On the first day alone, 13,000 people donated $430,000.

Read the whole story…

MySpace Music buys, crushes Imeem

In a ferocious display of anti social behavior, News Corp.-owned MySpace Music bought its competitor Imeem today and tore it down. Imeem.com, imeem content embedded in other sites and the Imeem plug-in itself have all been, for lack of a better word, killed.

Imeem was bought for an undisclosed sum though most speculation centers around $8 to 10 million. The site now redirects to a MySpace page explaining that MySpace is working to transfer Imeem profiles and playlists to MySpace. No time line is given.

Given that Imeem seems to have been destroyed, with MySpace choosing not to retain its technology or web site, the purchase and subsequent actions can only be seen as hostile. Even if Imeem.com’s users switch to Pandora or Mog, developer Lee Martin thinks there is a hole to fill. Martin developed twt.fm — an application that reached 1.5 users by enabling streaming music through twitter. On his blog, Martin says “…Myspace shows up to pull one of the best API platforms out from developers’ feet without warning…We [API developers] need a new streaming API partner or our services will die.”

This move follows weeks of speculation that MySpace would be purchasing Imeem. Imeem had been in financial distress for some time, even going so far as to lay off 25 percent of its staff in October 2008. I’m assuming the remaining 75 percent to be unemployed as well after today’s buyout / annihilation.

Read the whole story…

MySpace Kills Streaming Music Apps Powered by iMeem’s API

In a move of ninja swiftness, MySpace has acquired and subsequently shuttered iMeem in its entirety, even trashing the streaming/sharing music startup’s API, which had heretofore supplied much-needed resources to a small but vibrant ecosystem of apps.

The acquisition was announced just yesterday, and developers were given no warning that their creations would become useless digital paperweights overnight. Among the detrius of the deal is twt.fm, a popular Twitter music-sharing app created by web dev Lee Martin, who tipped us off to his plight today in a blog post.

UPDATE: Users are also reporting problems with blip.fm, a popular music-streaming site that integrated results from iMeem.

Sponsor

Calling iMeem “one of the best API platforms,” Martin, who works primarily in the music space, said that the startup was also “leagues ahead” of similar sites and services in terms of technology and openness.

“They represented the music business of the future. Now they are a forced hyperlink to a… MySpace landing page making false promises and giving no guidance or help for the developer community they just destroyed.

“Maybe MySpace will return my open streaming API platform… Until then, I’ll be brushing the dust off my 1999 Dell computer and getting ready to program music websites like I did 10 years ago.”

If indeed MySpace doesn’t give developers back their iMeem API, will another streaming music service step in to fill that void? Pandora CEO Tim Westergren revealed in a recent interview that because of licensing issues, Pandora is nowhere close to releasing an open API. Last.fm has an API that allows for web, desktop and mobile development – and it’s ironic that Last might have the last API for music mashup developers.

While we wait for comment from MySpace HQ, let us know in the comments what you think of this news, especially if you’re a developer who has been using iMeem’s API.

Discuss

Read the whole story…

Apple buys Lala. Can any music startup eke out a return for investors?

So Apple did the deed. It bought streaming music startup Lala.

AllThingsD’s Peter Kafka says it was done at a valuation reflecting Warner Music Group’s writedown earlier this spring, which means investors are lucky to get 50 cents on the dollar. The New York Times also reported that the sale was prompted by realization that Lala’s prospects for profitability in the near future were dim. This makes Lala the third music startup this fall to be acquired at a breakeven or loss to investors, after iLike and Imeem were bought by MySpace.

What gives? Music is extraordinarily difficult. The going rate for streaming is around a half-cent per play and any startup eager to break into the space must confront the four major record labels in the U.S., who demand a pound of flesh usually in equity and an upfront payment worth millions of dollars. This means you too, Spotify. (Hence, the much-ballyhooed Swedish startup’s $50 million round involving Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing this fall.)

So what does Apple get out of the deal? Lala’s streaming contracts expire in the event of an acquisition, so scratch that off the list. They could buy it to kill an emerging competitor, or to use Lala’s engineering talent to build some streaming functionality into iTunes. Or they could be buying it to keep it out of the hands of another mobile operator or manufacturer like Nokia, that would want to offer streaming content to customers.

The normally chatty founder Bill Nguyen and his team aren’t talking to the public. He spoke publicly earlier this fall when Lala secured a deal with Facebook to offer song streaming on the social network in the form of virtual gifts. Lala has scored a few promising deals this fall including Google’s music search service.

Read the whole story…

Future of Music Coalition’s Brian Zisk: The Do’s of Streaming Music

In 2008 the idea of another subscription-only music service was enough to get your knickers in a torrent. Sure Rhapsody was doing well, but they’d been around for forever and in 2008, freemium was the music model du jour. With a year to reflect, co-founder of the Future of Music Coalition and longtime San Fran Music Tech Summit organizer Brian Zisk tells us what it takes to survive in today’s music environment.

Sponsor

In August 2008 ReadWriteWeb asked What Would the Perfect Streaming Music Service Look Like? While Pandora, Imeem and Muxtape were mentioned, services like MOG’s All Access, Spotify and Rdio hadn’t even been hatched. Given what appears to be a major shift in the industry, we asked Zisk to weigh in on some of these upcoming features:

RWW: A number of companies are offering cheap all-you-can-eat music services where users pay a set price for unlimited playback and streams. How important is price in this instance?
While price and large catalogues are important, having full songs goes without saying as the most important feature. People will pay for convenience and I personally am not interested in a service that only lets me play the entirety of a few songs and then forces me to listen to 30 second clips.

RWW:The killer mobile music application appears to offer offline caching of streams. Is this a make or break feature for streaming music services?
It’s important to have a killer mobile app or device integration, but as connectivity improves, I’m not sure just how important offline caching will be.

RWW: While some services offer a community curation feature, it’s a select few (Hype Machine being one of them) that manage to maintain a sense of cool. How important is curated discovery?
I don’t think this will be the most important feature of a service, but I could be wrong. I mean, how many folks would listen to the Village Voice Annual Picks or the Amoeba Records picks even if they were available online?

RWW: If not through editors, then how do you like to discover new music?
One of the features that I love is the ability to drill down into the music any way you want. For example, with Spotify you can search on a band and find their albums, and then start listening to their body of work chronologically. From there, you can choose whatever song you like, listen to it again and again, and then pivot on that song to hear versions from the other folks who have played that same song.

RWW:And what about social features?
Zisk:Lala’s feature where you see what your friends are listening to is cool, but I think the social aspect or the curated aspect is more important to others than it is to me. While I think it matters on a favorites level as in “You have to hear this band”, I don’t know how deep it actually reaches. I wonder if folks don’t already feel like they hear what they want from a radio station or recommendation-based radio like Pandora.

Zisk is hosting a SF Music Tech mixer tonight as a precursor to his Dec 7 San Fran Music Tech Summit. To register for the event visit sfmtsmixer.eventbrite.com.

Photo Credit: Rossina Bossio Bossa

Discuss

Read the whole story…