MySpace Buys and Then Takes Down Imeem

Conchobair was one of several users letting us know that Myspace has snapped up free music streaming site imeem. Visitors to the imeem site are being sent to a MySpace redirect page, which states that they are "working to migrate your imeem playlist to MySpace Music." Currently there is no way to access imeem music or playlists or to make use of imeem apps on Android or iPhone. The AP reports that the deal was done for less than $1M — not bad for 16M subscribers — noting that the music startup was running out of cash. PC Mag notes: "Last week it was announced that Apple had purchased Lala, and now MySpace snaps up imeem. Are Pandora and Rhapsody next?"

Comments

Re:who streams music?

[Beelzebud]

You'd be surprised. I know a few people that use Pandora constantly, even though they have their own large mp3 collections. A couple of others I know that uses streaming music do it because they're not computer literate enough to rip their cd's to mp3 and set everything up properly.

This Sucks

[Conchobair]

I work behind a firewall and I can't install or upload music files. This was my wonderful go to on a shitty day of work, that I could listen to anything from Nirvana to Ennio Morricone, from NWA to Neil Young.. for the love of god someone, do you have something that is just as good?

Yet another free business going bust

[AcidPenguin9873]

Business charges $0 for its product, runs out of cash due to lack of viable revenue. Details at 11.

Unless you're Google and can sell tons of ads, "free" is not going to survive.

Re:who streams music?

[NoPantsJim]

I hate listening to the radio, so for awhile I tended to miss out on most new stuff. A couple of times, my absolute favorite bands released a cd without me even knowing because I wasn't paying attention.

Pandora fixed everything I hate about normal radio. Now I enter in all my stuff, and still get recommendations on new music. If I don't like a new song, I just skip it. Pandora has introduced me to many new bands which I love.

And yes, I have a massive cd collection, all ripped to mp3 and carried on my iPhone, so streaming does make sense for people with a large collection.

isn't that a bit sketchy?

[Trepidity]

Clearly MySpace+Imeem doesn't form a monopoly in the area, so I can see why there'd be no reason to block the purchase. But don't companies that purchase their competitors have to at least pretend to be doing it for some reason other than simply to shut down and thereby get rid of a competitor? If the sole reason for buying a competitor is to get rid of them, isn't that roughly equivalent to paying them to leave a particular market, which would be illegal?