Imeem
The online service imeem was a social media website where users interacted with each other by streaming, uploading and sharing music and music videos. It operated from 2003 until 2009 when it was shut down after being acquired by MySpace.
The company was founded in 2003 by Dalton Caldwell and Jan Jannink, and many of its core engineering team came from the original Napster file-sharing service. The company takes its name from "meme", a term coined by biologist Richard Dawkins to describe the ideas and cultural phenomena that spread as if they had a life of their own.
Helping to pioneer the free, advertising-supported model for online music, imeem permitted consumers to legally upload, stream and share music and music playlists for free with the costs supported by advertising. In 2007, imeem became the first-ever online music site to secure licenses from all four U.S. major music labels to offer their music catalogs for free streaming and sharing on the web.
The company also created the web's first embeddable music and video playlists. People could use imeem's widgets to embed songs and playlists from imeem virtually anywhere on the web, including on their MySpace and Facebook profiles or on their personal blogs.
Headquartered in San Francisco's South of Market district, imeem had additional offices in New York City and Los Angeles. The company's investors included Morgenthaler Ventures and Warner Music Group.
On December 8, 2009, imeem was bought out by MySpace Music in a firesale for an undisclosed amount. However, it is stated to have been less than US$1 million.
Business model
Revenue generation at imeem was through a combination of direct and indirect advertising sales, sales of MP3 downloads, ringtones and concert tickets, and subscription revenue from premium services. The bulk of its revenue came from advertising; advertisers who ran direct campaigns with imeem included TheTruth.com/American Legacy Foundation, Kia Motors, and Dr Pepper, among others.The company was one of the pioneers of the ad-supported streaming music model. In 2007, imeem became the first-ever online music site to secure licenses from all four major music labels to offer their music catalogs for free streaming and sharing on the web.
Under this model, artists and labels were paid a share of imeem's ad revenue in proportion to the popularity of their music on imeem, and had the right to register their content and determine how that content is available on the site or through its embeddable widgets.
This business model was made possible by imeem's proprietary content fingerprinting and digital registry technology. Initially, imeem licensed this technology from SNOCAP, the digital rights and content management startup founded by Napster creator Shawn Fanning. In 2008, imeem acquired SNOCAP and its technology outright. imeem continued to operate the SNOCAP digital registry, and used the technology acquired from SNOCAP to power its ad-supported streaming music service.
Products
The company provided two main services: imeem.com, where people could discover, stream and share music and music videos for free, and imeem Mobile, an Internet radio service for mobile devices. In addition, the company offered a premium service, imeem VIP, that gave people access to additional features on the imeem site.imeem.com
Registered users of the site could stream and share millions of songs and tens of thousands of music videos free of charge, with the costs for licensing and streaming supported by advertising on the site and on imeem Mobile.One of imeem's key features was the playlist. Users could create personal playlists, via a "Create Music Playlist" page, with music they had uploaded themselves or with music and video already available on the site. They could publish and share these playlists on imeem, where they could be played by, shared with, commented on, or tagged by other users.
Visitors could also share music, videos and playlists beyond imeem, either by embedding imeem players into external sites.
imeem Mobile
With the free cell phone application imeem Mobile, users could discover, purchase and enjoy music on their mobile device. It was available as a free download to users on the Android and iPhone/iPod Touch platforms.Users could create custom Internet radio stations based on their favorite artists, discover new music through personalized recommendations and buy DRM-free MP3 downloads directly onto their mobile device (on Android, downloads are from the Amazon MP3 application; on the iPhone and iPod Touch, downloads are from the iTunes Store.
The app also enabled people to browse and stream their personal imeem music libraries to their mobile device. People could upload up to 20,000 songs of the music they own directly to imeem.com, and then access that music through their mobile devices. To upload more than 100 songs, users had to subscribe to one of imeem's premium services.
The company introduced imeem Mobile on the Android platform in October 2008, and launched it for iPhone and iPod Touch users in May 2009. At launch, it was the only streaming music application on the Android platform, which in turn led to it being one of the most popular applications installed on Android devices. In June 2009, imeem Mobile crossed a milestone of over 1 million installs on the Android and iPhone platforms.
The application received several awards, including a 2009 Crunchie Award for Best Mobile Application, the Editor's Choice award from the blog AndroidGuys, and an award for 'Best Streaming Music App' in the 2009 Android Network Awards.
imeem VIP
In 2008, imeem launched a premium imeem VIP service that gave subscribers access to additional site features, most prominently the ability to upload more music, and to watch videos up to 1080p in resolution. There were three imeem VIP subscription tiers. * The imeem "VIP" plans started at $$9.99 per year for the "VIP Lite" plan, which gave subscribers access to streaming songs through the VIP Player, and 480p video. The "VIP" subscription option allowed uploading of up to 1,000 songs and viewing of 720p video, for $29.99 per year. And the "VIP Plus" subscription allowed uploading of up to 20,000 songs and viewing of 1080p video, for $99.99 per yearHistory
Early history: 20032005
The imeem service has changed drastically since its original inception as a messaging application that let people communicate by online chat, blogging, instant messaging and file sharing. The service was billed as a "distributed, peer-to-peer, social network".Founder Dalton Caldwell began working on what would become the imeem messaging application during Thanksgiving weekend in 2003. Initially, he worked on the software from his home. In 2004, imeem moved into offices in downtown Palo Alto's 285 Hamilton building, with Caldwell, Jannink and a small team of engineers continuing work on the software.
The company first unveiled its software in February 2005 at the DEMO conference and formally launched it that August.
When imeem first launched, to use the service, users were required to download and install the desktop messaging and file-sharing software; the imeem Web site merely existed as a means for users to register and download the client. Though originally designed for messaging, it was the file-sharing function that took off. The client software supported the service's distributed database model: Every imeem client on the network had a database that would generate and store references to media content shared on the network; this system would accelerate access to content deemed to be close to the user. The service's media-sharing was peer-to-peer - if a user shared photos or a podcast, then the data would only exist on the client database network; users who wanted to view the actual content would access it by peering directly with the publisher.
2006
In March 2006, imeem re-launched at the South by Southwest conference in Austin, Texas, with a new focus on enabling people to interact through the imeem.com website, using media to express their personalities and interests. Timed to coincide with the re-launch, imeem introduced new features enabling users to upload and play music and video on the site.In September 2006, imeem introduced embeddable Adobe Flash-based playlists that gave people the ability to take music and video playlists they created on the site and embed them virtually anywhere on the web. The company's players quickly became popular with consumers using MySpace and other social networks, giving them a way to customize and personalize their profiles with music.
As a result, imeem quickly gained traction, with the site's traffic growing to 10 million unique monthly users by the end of 2006. By March 2007, imeem's monthly traffic reached over 16 million unique monthly users.
2007
In February 2007, MySpace took steps to limit the posting of imeem content on its site: any updates or comments with "imeem" even mentioned in them were removed upon posting. However, MySpace stopped blocking imeem in 2008.In March 2007, imeem announced it was partnering with SNOCAP, the digital rights and content management startup founded by Napster creator Shawn Fanning, to enable legal uploading, streaming and sharing of music on imeem, utilizing SNOCAP's content fingerprinting and digital registry technology. The goal was to provide a way for consumers to upload and share music with their friends, for free, and to do so in a way where label and artists can both make money and have greater control over where and how their music was available.
The partnership marked imeem's move to an ad-supported model, in which consumers could freely stream and share music and video content with the costs supported by advertising. Under this model, artists and labels are paid a share of the site's ad revenue in proportion to the popularity of their music on imeem, and have the right to register their content and determine whether that content is available on the site or through its embeddable widgets.
Ultimately, the imeem messaging and file-sharing application had proven to be something of a resource hog for power-users, since the database could grow to large proportions just by associating with a few individuals who were sharing a lot of content. This messaging product was ultimately phased out; the site became entirely Web-based beginning in June 2007. While this distributed model was interesting and received positive press, it proved to be difficult to attract many users since the only way to participate was to download the imeem client software. Over time, imeem integrated many of the client's features into its website and the innovative distributed database model was centralized.
Throughout the first half of 2007, imeem had negotiated with the major labels to secure licenses for this new model. Warner Music Group and imeem announced a licensing agreement for imeem's new Web-based service in July 2007, followed by Sony Music Entertainment and EMI Music in September. In December 2007, imeem signed a licensing agreement with Universal Music Group, becoming the first online music service to partner with all four major music labels to let people legally stream and share music for free online.