imeem

Om Malik over at GigaOm advanced the story about MySpace's efforts to acquire Imeem on Wednesday.

The news that Rupert Murdoch's MySpace was in talks to buy Imeem, a long struggling social-networking site focused on music, generated a lot of headlines on Tuesday.

Judging from the glut of media coverage but relatively few reader comments at some of the sites covering the story, this is one of those events that journalists care more about than the public (don't know what it's like at other sites, but MySpace stories don't generate big readership numbers).

Be that … Read more

Multiple sources are reporting that MySpace is in talks to acquire Imeem, the social-networking music service that has struggled with financial problems for some time.

Peter Kafka at All Things Digital is reporting that negotiations are in the late stages and that MySpace is making the deal to acquire some of Imeem's talent and technology. News of the talks was first reported by TechCrunch.

Here's my contribution to the news: two sources with knowledge of Imeem say CEO Dalton Caldwell was in New York recently looking for new investors. Imeem was again running short of cash after coming … Read more

How far we've come in such a short time. When I began this blog in 2007, finding a particular song online was an exercise in frustration. You could subscribe to an all-you-can-eat service like Rhapsody, but cheapskates and occasional music listeners either had to dig deep, engage with a questionably legal file-trading service, or settle for 30-second previews from iTunes or one of its Web-based competitors.

Since then, as readers of this blog know, dozens of sites offering free streaming music have emerged, from the dead-simple like Songerize and its successor Songite (enter a song title to play it … Read more

The first free on-demand music service I ever encountered was Songerize. The page was a simple white box on a red background. Enter the name of a song, and it would scour the Seeqpod database of user-posted content, find the song, and begin streaming it immediately.

There were no fancy playlist features like Grooveshark, no social-networking features like Imeem, no embedded player or song locker like LaLa, just instant gratification. Unfortunately, Seeqpod declared bankruptcy and around the same time, Songerize became useless.

Now, Songerize creator Will Johnson is back with a second take on the same concept: Songite. The interface … Read more

Facebook most's popular music application comes from iLike, and soon the company will try to turn that social-networking cachet into song sales.

Seattle-based iLike, a social music service, is expected to launch a music download store in coming days, perhaps as soon as Thursday, according to two sources with knowledge of the deal. Last month, CNET News reported that iLike was in talks with the top four recording companies about securing licenses for downloads.

The new store will debut as a beta version and will feature songs from at least three of the four top major recording companies, according … Read more

Three years ago this month, the Financial Times and The New York Times chronicled the emergence of an untried but promising new digital-music service: SpiralFrog.

The start-up would offer music free of charge to consumers and attempt to hand the bill to advertisers. Since then, we've seen a dozen companies make names for themselves by offering their own twist on the ad-supported music model, including MySpace Music, Imeem, and Pandora. But regardless of how anyone has tweaked it, not a single service in the still-nascent sector has proven that it knows how to offer consumers a compelling free-music service … Read more

Imeem, a social networking service centered around music, released an update to its free Android app this month and a new VIP service.

With the update, users can now add a widget to their desktop that includes play, pause, and skip controls. What's more, tapping the song title will now launch the full application.

Imeem is also encouraging mobile users to sign up for a new VIP subscription service that will offer expanded storage space. While a free account lets you store only 100 songs in the clouds, the VIP service raises the limit to 1,000 songs with … Read more

I've been checking out a new social-networking site called SuperFan, and I think it could eventually become an interesting resource for music fans. But only if they make it easier to post and share content about favorite bands.

If you've used Facebook, MySpace, Imeem, or any of the other countless social-networking sites out there, the drill will be familiar: enter your information to create a profile (here's mine), invite your friends, then engage in various activities like updating your status and uploading video and photos.

The key difference is that SuperFan is organized around the stuff you … Read more

You know that old maxim about something being too good to be true? I wondered how my new favorite on-demand music-streaming service, Grooveshark, was able to avoid the record industry lawsuits that plagued its predecessors, such as Seeqpod and Imeem.

Turns out, it isn't immune. Grooveshark contacted me earlier this week to let me know that its negotiations with EMI were on the verge of breaking down. (You can read Grooveshark's official statement here.)

Yesterday evening, Peter Kafka at All Things Digital uncovered the fact that EMI had actually sued Grooveshark back in May--talk about tough negotiation tactics! … Read more