imeem

A clarification was made to this story.

Steve Jang has resigned as chief marketing officer at Imeem, the financially troubled social network.

Jang's departure had been planned for some time and was amicable, said Matt Graves, an Imeem spokesman. He added that Jang, who also led the company's business development unit, will remain associated with Imeem as a strategic adviser. Graves said Jang was leaving "to do something new" but would not disclose what that was.

In addition, the company's vice president of Western advertising sales has resigned. She, too, had planned to leave, Graves … Read more

SpiralFrog met its end just days ago, and already, operators of other ad-supported music services are rushing to put distance between their business models and that of the doomed site.

"The concept was good, but the management, board (not all), and execution were poor," wrote Robin Kent, the former CEO of SpiralFrog who went to work as an adviser to Qtrax, one of SpiralFrog's competitors. "It was obvious to anyone...it wouldn't survive."

What might encourage supporters to jump to the defense of ad-supported music services, which don't charge users to listen to … Read more

Correction: This story erred in the description of Lala's sale rate. On average, Lala users who have provided a credit card buy 180 songs for every 1,000 songs they listen to on the site.

A torrent of bad economic news is pouring down on Web 2.0 music sites, just like everywhere else. What's surprising is that even amid the horror story that is our economy, some online record stores have impressed music-industry poobahs, say insiders.

Lala, Google's YouTube, and Last.fm, owned by CBS (parent company of CNET News), are some of the companies that … Read more

Correction: iMeem said it erred in stating some of the financial costs of its new fee structure. The corrected prices are below.

Social-networking site iMeem has always been known as an ad-supported service, which means visitors have never had to pay for anything. That appears to be changing.

For iMeem users who once uploaded hundreds or even thousands of songs, videos, and photos to the site without paying a dime, iMeem has quietly rolled out a new fee structure. And that has irked some people.

Founded in October 2004, iMeem is a social-networking site that focuses on music and enables … Read more

Personality tests are fun nonsense, in line with horoscopes and fortune tellers. I've taken a bunch of them over the years, both online and offline, and never learned anything consistent or surprising about myself.

The results are always in vague, yet flattering, language that's impossible to dispute: Hmm, I guess I do like being with people, and I enjoy parties. And yet, I also enjoy quiet time to myself, as well as contemplating the nature of the universe. Oh, and I love taking personality tests!

Signal Patterns offers a twist on the "know yourself" personality test … Read more

eMusic users awoke Friday to a redesign of the subscription-based download site, which specializes in music from independent artists. The main feature is a recommendation engine provided by MediaUnbound, which uses a combination of computer algorithms and real live music fans to duplicate the services of that one friend of yours who always seems to know about the new bands first. MediaUnbound CEO Michael Papish had this funny exchange with TechCrunch in which he explained why his company's technology is better than Pandora and other recommendation engines, although the TechCrunch reviewer remained unconvinced.

It sounds intriguing, and I'm … Read more

Update, 5:00 p.m.: The GnR MySpace page now has full-length versions of 6 songs available. Earlier today, five of them were only 90 seconds long. The change, alas, makes at least part of my post irrelevant. Still, Imeem has songs available that the GnR MySpace page does not.

I never even considered buying this album. I never loved the band, and I've managed to ignore the hype completely until now. Then Chuck Klosterman's review made me curious. I like Klosterman's books. We're about the same age. His musical tastes in high school would have … Read more

Social music service Imeem launched a mobile-advertising platform on Monday that enables advertisers to target consumers through "Imeem for Android," the company's Android-based application.

Imeem said it has already signed up Kia Motors as an advertiser. According to the company, the carmaker will have a branded display presence across Imeem for Android's interface, as well as a Kia-branded radio station on the application. The deal will also see Kia ads placed on media-streaming Imeem pages.

In tandem with its advertising platform, Imeem also released a new version of Imeem for Android that will include location-based streaming … Read more

File this one as improbable, but it's interesting that this rumor continues to crop up. Project Playlist, a little known start-up with 9 million monthly visitors, is supposedly kicking the tires on social media site iMeem, according to music industry sources.

The alleged acquiree, iMeem, which has 20 million monthly visitors, denied the rumors are true. "Project Playlist buying us is like us buying Apple. This is just not accurate," said Matt Graves, iMeem's spokesman and a longtime straight shooter.

So why is this acquisition scenario still being passed around the music industry?

Beverly Hills, Calif.… Read more