| Acquired by | MySpace |
| Price | $1M |
| Date | 11/09 |
| Terms | Cash |
| Website | imeem.com |
| Blog | blog.imeem.com |
| Category | Games, Video and Entertainment |
| Employees | 55 |
| Founded | 11/03 |
| Description | Social music service |
| Snocap, 2/08 | |
| Anywhere.FM, 1/08 |
| Total | $24.8M |
| Seed, 10/06 First Round Capital Mark Goines Ron Conway Geoff Ralston Sy Fahimi | $750k |
| Series A, 9/04 Sequoia Capital Morgenthaler Ventures | $3M |
| Series B, 4/08 Sequoia Capital | |
| Unattributed, 2008 Warner Bros. | $15M |
| Unattributed, 8/09 Morgenthaler Ventures Warner Music Group Sequoia Capital | $6M |
imeem is an online music service that gives fans instant access to almost any song they want, for free.
The company, founded in 2003 by Dalton Caldwell, takes its name from “meme” - a term coined to describe the ideas that communities, adopt, and express.
imeem started as an instant messaging service that let people communicate through chat, blogging, instant messaging and sharing files. This model didn’t pan out, and in 2006, the company reinvented itself as a social networking site that let people discover, play and share music, music videos, and photos.
In September 2006, imeem introduced embeddable flash playlists that gave people the ability to take music and video playlists they created (or found) on the site and embed them virtually anywhere on the web. imeem’s players quickly became popular with consumers using MySpace and other social networks, giving them a way to customize & personalize their profiles with music.
imeem pioneered the ad-supported streaming music model. In 2007, the company became the first-ever online music site to secure licenses from all 4 major music labels (and thousands of indie labels and artists) to offer their music catalogues for free streaming and sharing on the web.
Under this model, artists and labels are paid a share of the imeem’s ad revenue in proportion to the popularity of their music on imeem, and have the right to register their content and determine how (or whether) that content is available on the site or through its embeddable widgets.
This business model is 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; as part of this acquisition, SNOCAP’s COO, Ali Aydar, joined imeem’s executive team.
Today, imeem is among the most popular streaming music sites, with over 20 million people (approximately half of whom are in the U.S.) visiting the site each month and millions more playing music through its network of embedded players.
imeem is based in San Francisco’s South of Market district, with additional offices in New York and Los Angeles. The company’s investors include Morgenthaler Ventures and Warner Music Group.
| Website | imeem.com |
| Blog | blog.imeem.com |
| Stage | Live |
| Tags | music, video, music-promotion, social-music, ad-supported-music, digital-music, online-music, playlists, mixtapes, music-sharing |
imeem is the world’s largest social music community. On imeem, people can stream unlimited music and videos for free, express themselves with music and video playlists, and find friends with similar tastes – all for free.
To build playlists on imeem, people can legally upload their own music or choose from the millions of songs and videos already available. People can easily share favorite songs and playlists with friends on imeem, Twitter, Facebook and MySpace, and buy downloads directly from imeem or from its affiliate partners, iTunes and Amazon MP3.
You can also upload your music to the site. Each uploaded song is checked by SNOCAP’s digital fingerprinting software against their library of millions of tracks and allowed for full streaming on the site if the artist has opted in.
imeem was the first online music service to partner directly with all four major music labels to let people legally stream and share music for free online. imeem also works with thousands of independent labels and musicians.
Over 20 million people visit imeem each month; millions more reach imeem through its network of embedded music and video playlists.
| Website | imeem.com/mobile |
| Launch Date | October 21, 2008 |
| Tags | mobile, mobile-music, social-music, imeem, dalton-caldwell, android, iphone, iphone-apps, free-apps |
imeem Mobile is a free mobile application people can use to discover, enjoy and purchase music on their mobile device. It is available as a free download to users on the Android and iPhone/iPod touch platforms.
imeem Mobile users can 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.
imeem Mobile also enables people to browse and stream their personal imeem music libraries to their mobile device. People can upload up to 20,000 songs of the music they own directly to imeem.com, and then access that music on the go whenever they want without taking up additional storage on their mobile device.
imeem introduced imeem Mobile on the Android platform in October 2008, and launched imeem Mobile for iPhone and iPod touch users in May 2009. In June 2009, imeem Mobile crossed a milestone of over 1 million installs on the Android and iPhone platforms.
