Bay Area Net Music Company Directory
Note: This list from the early-2000s is completely out of date. It remains here for historical reference only. See archive.org for earlier versions.
It's already a cliche to say that music downloading and streaming is revolutionary. This week it's fascinating like fireworks, last week it was fascinating like a trainwreck. Here's a list of "who's who," followed by "who's gone". This only covers the Bay Area.
If you're looking for a job, check out jobs boards at Yahoo and my employment links. Also check out the Silent Way Directory: Audio Streaming Development section and my guide to the best streams at TastyCast.com. If you get a job from all the info I've listed here, please let me know - I want to hear about your gig and make a new contact.
For a bit more history, check out good side-by-side comparisons of the various online music services as of and 2003 and now. See the bottom of this page for a recap of the (pre-iTunes) Pressplay vs MusicNet era.
| Company (jobs page) |
Location | Who Owns It? | What they do... | Notes, News |
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345 Park Avenue |
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Flash, Dreamweaver, Premiere, dozens more. |
Also has an office in San Francisco. Macromedia was bought by Adobe in 2005. |
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333 Bush St 44 Montgomery St., 19th Fl. |
AOL |
AOL has a bunch of music sites, and their net radio has its roots in Radio@Netscape, formerly Spinner.com. More than 150 streaming stations. Owns WinAmp, also see Shoutcast. |
8/2002 AOL scraps the Spinner brand name and rolls it into Netscape. 6/99 AOL aquired Spinner. Main HQ in VA, with an office in SF. Also owns Nullsoft, which made Winamp and Gnutella. |
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1 Infinite Loop |
On 4/28/03 Apple announced the iTunes Music Store and the rest is history. |
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Avid |
Avid's Pro Tools is the leader in Digital Audio Workstations. Digidesign was purchased by Avid, and the rebranding was completed in 2010. I dare you to find a major recording studio that doesn't have Pro Tools. While not primarily a "net" music company, Digi is a big player in the music industry. |
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Professional organization for audio engineers. |
Has a Jobs Listing which is available to members, associate members and student members. A limited number of jobs that have been listed in their journal are listed for free on the web. |
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2600 S. El Camino Real |
Plug-in for music-active webpages, "enhanced audio solutions and content for digital devices, games and the web." |
Thomas Dolby is a principle. |
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| CNet (jobs) |
CNET Networks, Inc. 235 Second Street San Francisco, CA 94105 |
CBS Interactive | Their music.download.com was the new face of mp3.com. They are now a part of CBS Interactive's collection of popular online entities. | |
| Clear Channel Communications (jobs) |
Clear Channel Communications, Inc. 200 East Basse Road San Antonio, Texas 78209 210 822 2828 |
Owns many stations and divisions: "approximately 1,170 U.S. radio stations in 47 of top 50 markets. Approximately 240 radio stations outside the U.S.," 19 television stations. (Stats out of date.)
Has many subsidiaries... Radio: Clear Channel Radio. Entertainment: SFX. Television: Clear Channel Television. Interactive: Clear Channel Interactive. Outdoor: Eller Media Company. Also: Premiere Radio Networks, The Adshel Centre, and Katz Media Group. ...give or take a few. |
Clear Channel is listed here because most radio stations also have a stream. Plus they are huge and a serious force. | |
| Dolby Laboratories (jobs) |
Multiple offices in San Francisco, Brisbane, Los Angeles, New York, U.K., China, Japan and Hong Kong. | Privately held until it went public in early 2005. | Develops and licences audio signal processing systems. Also manufactures equipment for film, broadcasting, and music recording industries. | |
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ECast, Inc. |
St. Paul Venture Capital, Oak Investment Partners, DCM, El Dorado Ventures. |
Net-connected jukeboxes for bars, restaurants etc. "Ecast provides the first universal platform for delivery and management of broadband content to out-of-home distribution channels." |
10/16/02: Merged with Rioport. 10/16/02: Received $14M in another round of funding co-led by Oak Investment Partners & DCM. 9/28/01: Got $12.4 million in funding led by St. Paul VC. Office in San Diego too. |
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San Francisco |
A+R department of the net, running contests, $250,000 recording contract "prize." |
Jerry Harrison is a principle. |
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2000 Powell Street, Suite 1380 |
Gracenote owns the CDDB, a massive database of album song titles. CDDB-equipped players can look up the titles online for a CD in your drive. CDDB is populated by user submissions and record companies have special access. |
Look for this company to be pulled further into the digital distribution space, as a means of identifying music. Formerly CDDB. |
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| IODA (jobs) |
Independent Online Distribution Alliance 250 4th Street San Francisco, CA 94103 415.777.4632 |
Aggregator of music files and metadata on behalf of independent labels, publishers, musicians and songwriters for delivery to the major online music outlets. For these indies, they provide one-stop-shopping delivery to all the outlets in their required format, negotiate contracts and manage payments for a cut. | This new role is equivalent to what distributors do in the physical world, getting CDs into retail stores. | |
| IRIS Distribution | 1195 Tennesee Street San Francisco, CA 94107 415.995.2355 |
Independent Recording Industry Services acts as a liaison between independent labels and digital music retailers, by providing legal, technical and marketing assistance as well as collective bargaining power for the labels. | ||
| Infinity Broadcasting (jobs) |
Infinity Broadcasting 40 West 57th Street, 14th Fl. New York, NY 10019 212.314.9200 Infinity Radio 10220 River Road Potomac, MD 20854-4916 301.983.5400 |
Infinity owns "approximately 180 radio stations located in 22 states in the nation's largest markets." | The jobs page shows all the jobs in the west, listed by city and station. | |
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1991 Broadway St. 2nd Floor |
EMusic Network, Dimensional Associates LLC |
Internet Underground Music Archive was the orginal upload site for self-released music. |
3/2006: Site dead? Emusic aquired by CNET? Aquired by EMusic 5/99 |
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| JamBase 1 Zoe St. San Francisco, CA 94107 415.543.7000 |
Covers live concert listings across the country. Their origin is with "jam band" coverage, but JamBase's focus has expanded to cover venues instead of just bands, so more types of music are included. They also now sell tickets. | |||
| Launch / Yahoo (jobs) |
701 First Avenue Sunnyvale CA 94089 |
Yahoo's music portal. Also see platinum.yahoo.com: "Yahoo!'s premier streaming video and audio content is now available through two premium packages -- SBC Yahoo! DSL and the new Yahoo! Plus." | Their music operations are managed out of LA. | |
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Liquid Digital Media |
Anderson Media. Pre IPO investors included Intel, MediaOne, Paul Allen's Vulcan Ventures, Metromedia and Hummer Winblad. |
Liquid has always been about secure music delivery, which hurt them at first but is now paying off. Liquid Audio was one of the first feasible secure formats back in 1996. Now, they use Windows Media. |
12/2003: Runs WalMart.com's online music store. late 2003: Liquid Audio renamed Liquid Digital Media. 1/2003: acquired by wholesaler Anderson Media, the music distributor for Wal-Mart. Fall 2001: received offer to be bought by Steel Partners. Summer 2001: Laid off 40% of staff. |
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2012 16th Street |
Was privately held before beign bought by RealNetworks, early funding from the big 5 record companies. |
Rhapsody paid music service/player. Formerly, Listen searched the Web for legal MP3 files and reviewed them. Pointed to "more than 200,000 artists in 500 genres and links to their work on more than 1,200 Web sites." The big five major record labels are partners, so Listen is a major player. Yet with all their savvy and clout, they still doesn't support Macs. |
4/2003: Announced acquisition by RealNetworks 12/01: Released Rhapsody digital music service, soon after added catalogs from Sony, Warner Music Group, Sub Pop, EMI, BMG, dozens more... Aquired Tuneto.com. Aquired wiredplanet.com 9/00. |
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Live365.com |
Nanocosm, Inc. |
Hosts personal Internet radio stations + features a directory of playlists and the software necessary for anyone to build their own online radio station. Create your own Internet radio station and listen to thousands of other users' stations. Provides bandwidth for tens of thousands of stations, which is an expensive proposition, but has the ability to aggregate advertising demographics across such a wide base of streams that it may survive the shakeout. If only the advertisers would think outside the box! |
7/2/01: lost funding, laid off 22 of 80 employees, 58 remain. 2001: $1000 signing bonus for referrer and for new employee. |
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Skywalker Sound is the audio production division of Lucasfilm. Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) is the digital and visual effects division. LucasArts is the video game division. Not technically a "net" musoic cpmpany, but a major player. |
Opening a the new Letterman Digital Arts center in San Francisco's Presidio in 2005. |
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500 Third Street, Suite 310 |
Music portal. Headquartered in Waltham MA, with offices in SF, Mountain View, LA, Pittsburgh PA, Miami, NY and Chicago. Part of the Lycos Network: Lycos.com, Tripod, WhoWhere, Angelfire, MailCity, HotBot, HotWired, Wired News, Webmonkey, Suck.com, Animation Express, Sonique, Quote.com, Gamesville, and Lycos Zone. |
6/2002: Announced partnership with Listen.com to offer Rhapsody. 7/3/01 Parent company Terra Lycos lays off most of the Sonique staff, but plans to continue using the software and name. 8/99: Lycos bought Sonique from Internet Music Distribution (formerly Mediascience). |
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| CNET Networks, Inc. 235 Second Street San Francisco, CA 94105 |
CNet | Reborn in 2004 as music.download.com, based out of San Francisco. Formerly based in San Diego. See also CNet. | Late 2003: Shut down completely, bought by CNet.
Bought by Vivendi Universal 5/2001. |
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135 Mississippi St., 3rd Floor |
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Mondo MiniShows- Syndicated animated shorts. |
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| MoodLogic, Inc. 350 Brannan St., 3rd Floor San Francisco, CA 94107-1305 415.284.1601 |
With the MoodLogic Music Browser, choose the parameters that describe the kind of music you're in the mood for (mellow/aggressive, vocal/instrumental, fast/slow etc), and you'll be given choices to listen to. | Repositioning itself as a music network technology provider. Owns Jaboom.com, a music rating service. | ||
| Yahoo! Inc. 701 First Avenue Sunnyvale, California 94089 |
Yahoo! | Acquired by Yahoo! in October 2004. HQ is in San Diego, but Yahoo HQ is in Sunnyvale (Bay Area). Yahoo's music operations are managed out of LA. | ||
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Sonic Solutions / Roxio |
Roxio, Inc., a division of Sonic Solutions |
Sonic Solutions 101 Rowland Way Novato, CA 94945 415.893.8000 |
Sonic was well known in recording studios for audio mastering hardware and software. They later moved into DVD authoring. Through aquisitions, they have now diversified into more related fields. |
Sonic aquired Roxio in 2004. More history. |
| Savage Beast Technologies, Inc 360 22nd Street, Suite 390 Oakland CA 94612 510.451.4100 |
(Formerly Savage Beast) "The Music Genome Project is a comprehensive song database designed to be the most powerful taxonomy of music ever created. Savage Beast musicologists break down each musical selection into several hundred musical characteristics, or 'genes,' that together compose the musical DNA of the piece. ...Music Hunter... identifies and recommends music to consumers by drawing on information contained in the Music Genome Project database." | Summer 2005: Changes name from Savage Beast Technologies to Pandora.
2/26/03: AOL picks Savage Beast |
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AOL |
SHOUTcast is Nullsoft's Free Winamp-based distributed streaming audio system for do-it-yourself Internet radio stations. Nullsoft's Winamp is the music player for Windows 95/98/NT. |
Despite many dire predictions, Winamp is still being updated as of 3/2006. Winamp and SHOUTcast were acquired by AOL 5/1999, and merged with Spinner.com. All three brands are part of AOL's Interactive Properties Group. Original team put Gnutella, founder Justin Frankel's serverless version of Napster, up for download one day before AOL pulled the plug. |
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| YouTube.com (jobs) |
San Mateo | Sequoia Capital | Video sharing site. |
Those That Have Passed On to the Great Celestial Jukebox in the Sky, moved away, or are just sleeping...
| Company | Former location | Who got stuck with it? | What they used to do... | Notes, News, when they folded |
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Activate.net |
1130 Rainier Ave South |
5/2004: Now part of Loudeye.com. Headquarters in Seattle with office in New York and Toronto. might have SF office (corporate webcasts?) |
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AltaVista Radio |
AltaVista Company |
More of a search engine with a streaming station than an "audio company." |
5/2004: This seems to have disappeared. offices in San Mateo, Irvine CA, Chicago IL, New York NY |
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Angry Coffee |
Greenrocket |
Cool resources, tutorials for encoding streaming audio. Checkout the listserv email lists for the scoop on web music development. No mention of jobs, though. |
5/2004 The site has grown stale- syndicated content is the only new thing in years. Might be in stasis. | |
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10900 Wilshire Blvd |
Formerly DownloadsDirect, Web's largest secure download site, with licensed tracks. Might no longer have a Bay Area presence. No downloads for Macs. |
Doesn't seem to have an SF office anymore. LA-based parent company owns ubl.com, iMusic, and DOWNLOADSdirect. Aquired Mjuice.com? |
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ArtistOne.com |
461 2nd Street, Suite 133 |
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Multiformat music provider includes custom compact discs. Clearinghouse for artist sites + downloads -Radiohead, Tori Amos, Lou Reed. Licenced by BMI and ASCAP. "integrates 'real-world' and 'online' business models to enable recording artists and recording labels to produce, market, distribute and promote music" |
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| Audio Alley™ | Brian Webster brian@brianwebster.com 415.243.8900 PR questions: |
Audio Alley™ is a trademark of Marino Inc. It is a small team which produces local industry events and mixers for Bay Area net-music companies, artists and sponsors. Sign up on the list at the site. The Audio Alley™ production group consists of Marino Inc. and Brian Webster and Associates. |
2003: Started events again... a good sign! But only one in 03 and none in 04. 2001: They shelved events during the dot-bomb fallout. |
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AudioBase |
AudioBase, Inc. |
Audio add-on for commercial websites. Java-based, turnkey clips that they host so the client's site doesn't need streaming. |
5/2004: domain dead Big layoffs 1/01 and 6/01. Offices in Sausalito and New York. |
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AudioBasket |
AudioBasket.com |
AudioBasket was a turnkey application for Websites that provides users with personalized audio news and information that can be listened to from a computer, PDA, MP3 player or wireless phone. |
5/2004: domain dead Absorbed by eMotion 10/2001. eMotion is HQ in SF, also office in VA. |
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| Audio Feast | 82 Pioneer Way Suite 101 Mountain View, CA 94041 |
"the first portable internet radio service for MP3 players." Tivo for net radio? | 7/2005: Closed. | |
| AudioMill | Audio Mill, Inc. 207 McPherson St., Suite F Santa Cruz, CA 95060 831.426.7595 |
Chance Technologies | BitBop interactive net radio tuner. | 5/2004: website empty |
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1960 Bryant St |
Tracks digital copyrights on the Web. Signed to report to ASCAP. |
5/2004: US .com site dead, UK site still active. Presumedly the same company. 2000: HQ in Geneva, Switzerland, sales offices in London and Munich. |
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c/o Network Syndicate |
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Small company. no job info on site. They are still active, but not hiring. |
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| CDNow.com | (sales office only) 175 Bluxome Suite 230 San Francisco, CA 94107 |
Bertelsmann | Music retailer. One of the first online CD stores. "CDNOW is part of Bertelsmann eCommerce Group (BeCG)." | Swallowed by Amazon.com.
Sales office in SF, main office in PA. BUT, reportedly laid off entire sales force 1/31/01. |
| CommunityMusician | 1245 9th Ave Suite A San Francisco, CA 94122 800.644.9616 |
CD duplication and community for musicians. HQ in SF with outlets all over the place. | 5/2004: Website partially offline | |
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DigaCast/BigRadio |
300 Brannan Street |
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"DigaCast has developed the BigRadio player for audio that works upstream of the streaming format: whether it’s MP3, Windows Media, or Real, that displays synchronized banner advertisements, generating a higher range of CPMs." |
3/2004: Sites are still dead, surely they have folded. 1/2003: The sites seem to be gone. Perhaps they have folded. |
| Digital Rights Agency | Digital Rights Agency LLC 1539(a) Folsom Street San Francisco, CA 94103 415.648.4737 |
The Orchard | Aggregator of music files and metadata on behalf of independent labels for delivery to the major online music outlets. For indies, they provide one-stop-shopping delivery to all the outlets in their required format, negotiate contracts and manage payments for a cut. This new role is equivalent to what distributors do in the physical world, getting CDs into retail stores. | Was acquired by The Orchard in November 2007. |
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Earjam.com |
55 Almaden Boulevard |
"universal" player, universal burner application |
3/2006: dead.
5/2004: Website dead? |
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Epitonic.com |
Aquired by Sputnik7 1/3/01 CNET was one earlier investor |
VERY cool collection of downloadable tunes and opinion. Knowledgable, hip editors call cuts for every genre. Try the "Genre Walkthroughs" and the option to "stream this page." An excellent, unique site with lots of on-the-money description and examples to back it up. |
5/2004: It appears that Epitonic has moved to NY. Epitonic matches the new definition of filter: "If you liked that, try this..." |
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| Friskit.com | "Friskit is a San Francisco-based technology licensing company focused on enabling consumers to conveniently find, personalize, and play streaming media over a network." | 7/2004: Appears to be in stasis. Technology is available for licensing. | ||
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Gigabeat.com |
345 California Avenue |
"Gigabeat is a comprehensive music gateway that allows music lovers to easily find, download, purchase, sample and listen to their favorite music and discover new music that matches their personal tastes." |
Bought by Napster 4/2001. |
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ICast |
iCAST Corporation |
iCast was shut down 11/00. |
11/2000: shut down MA / NY / SF offices. |
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| IM Networks | iM Networks, Inc. 305 W. Evelyn Ave. Mountain View, CA 94041 650.967.4842 |
Develops standalone hardware devices to tune in to online streaming media. ie "Internet tuning solutions for consumer electronics." iM Tuner is their software app to tune in to either their iM channels or any webcast. The Sonicbox is a hardware iM player. | 5/2004: No newer press releases than 2002. In stasis?
(formerly Sonicbox) Owns trademark on iM. "There's AM and FM - and now, iM." This hardware is also sold by Acer as the iRhythm. |
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5429 Telegraph Avenue |
Live webcast facility with a stage, dancefloor, audio and video recording studio designed to webcast a live show. |
2006: Seems to be closed, looking for a new home | ||
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Kerbango.com |
Kerbango, Inc. 21771 Stevens Creek Blvd. #100 Cupertino, CA 95014 408.257.1400 A Division of: |
A division of 3Com (jobs) (Aquired 7/31/00) |
A directory of streaming stations, with the details on around 30,000 stations (including 25,000 live365 streams). The Kerbango Radio was a standalone streaming audio receiver unit that needs no computer, just a broadband connection.
"...the world's first, standalone Internet Radio. Kerbango.com is our companion Web service that is today the finest collection of quality audio streams on the Internet." (1/01:) "...the Kerbango Internet Radio is based on the Real Networks G2 Player, and plays Real Audio G2, 5, 4, and 3 files as well as streaming MP3. We expect to support the new RealAudio 8 format announced by Real and Sony in the near future. [It] can receive automatic field upgrades via the internet, we expect to deliver new audio CODECs in the future..." ie. no WMP stations. |
9/01: 3Com shut down the site. 4/2001: Announced that they are shutting down the hardware idea. Will the directory of stations continue? Announced non-exclusive deal to list live365's 25,000 stations in the Kerbango directory (1/08/01). Made deals to provide long lists of station presets to players such as SoundJam and Apple's iTunes (which is derived from SoundJam). |
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Kick.com |
Kick.com, Inc. 1121 Mission Street San Francisco, CA 94103 415.552.8846 |
"... the Kick.com Music Companion, which knows what fans like based on how they listen and delivers personalized music-related content such as album art, discographies, news, concert information, and more. Compatible with all major playback software, the Kick.com Music Companion is accessible to anyone who listens to music on a PC." Macs are not supported. |
3/2002: Website is dead. Heard it was bought by Sony. "Kick.com has established partnerships with content providers, e-tailers, and music distributors... offers a co-branded version that can be easily integrated into existing third-party offerings to create highly personalized e-commerce and content services." |
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Musicbank |
Musicbank, Incorporated |
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2006: Domain seems to have been repurchased. 2004: Website is an "under construction" placeholder graphic. Sometime 2001-3: folded. |
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Music Buddha |
MuBu.com |
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Music Buddha, Song Sonar, and Def Clip Nine music research and categorization methods. Music Buddha can "...monitor and analyze each listener's reaction to a series of sound clips and make ultra-personalized recommendations based on their responses." |
5/2004: Website dead Webnoize and F***edCompany report (9/25/01) that MuBu ran out of cash and laid off all employees. Additional office: 410 Jessie, Fifth Floor, SF CA |
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MyPlay.com |
1600 Bridge Parkway |
Markets to businesses as a platform. Stores files in a digital music Locker™ on a remote server. AOL Time Warner's Winamp was a client. |
4/25/03 Website dead from f***edcompany.com: 10/10/00 "laid off part of its editorial and marketing staff as it moves away from creating original content for its site." |
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(Napster has offices in London, Los Angeles, San Diego, and New York. No longer in the Bay Area.) |
If you don't know what Napster did, then you have a lot of catching up to do... (Insert lawsuit here.) Shawn Fanning is laughing all the way to the bank. |
2003: Napster returns in name only with a new service and new owners. 6/3/02 Declared bankruptcy. 3/11/02 Laid off a bunch of employees. Bought GigaBeat.com 4/2001. (See separate listing.) Too many developments to list. Go anywhere to find coverage such as Salon.com. |
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NBC Internet |
GE/NBC |
Was in the Bay Area, and had original content but they shut down. Now it's just NBC's portal. |
4/9/01 Parent company NBC pulled the plug. 1/21/01 layoffs. Formerly Snap.com. |
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San Francisco |
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Small company. no job info on site. Hasn't been active in the last few years. |
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OrangeAlley.com |
3288 21st Street, Box #200 |
August Nelson, Inc. |
buy a "BootlegAl" license ($.99 for a song, $5.99 for a whole album - and the artist gets the lion's share of the money) which lets you download the music and listen to it anytime you want. |
Also owned the (also now dead) PayLars.com, a site which mocked Metallica for suing Napster. |
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RadioCentral.com |
RadioCentral 336 Harriet Street San Francisco, CA 94103 415.934.9700 |
RadioCentral "provides customized audio programming" for websites. | 5/6/04: URL dead. | |
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343 Sansome Street |
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Shows delivered over LookSmart's, AltaVista's and Sony Music Entertainment's Internet network, and third-party sites. Partnership with Public Radio International (PRI), shows jointly distributed across the Redband Network and the 660 PRI affiliate stations that reach 11 million listeners weekly. |
3/2006: website is just a placeholder graphic logo. 5/6/04: website is just a placeholder graphic logo. mission: "create exclusive news, talk and entertainment programs; deliver them online and on air, combining the explosive range of the Internet with proven on-air reach." Originally looksmartradio.com. |
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Riffage |
2627 Hanover Street |
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Riffage shut down all operations 12/8/00. Another victim of the net-shakeout... |
12/8/00 Shut down and will sell GAMH off... 5/31/00: bought the Great American Music Hall, SF's coolest venue. |
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Rocket Network |
448 Bryant St. |
Avid (20%) and others, see list to the right... |
"An Internet infrastructure provider enabling a network of collaboration spaces for audio production." Rocket adds online collaboration functions to audio recording studio software and provides remote collaborative space, such as DigiProNet. This will have a major impact on recording studios once broadband connections become prevalent enough to make their vision viable. A side note: I invented Rocket's concept in 1992, but never did anything with the brainstorm. whoops. |
5/2004: rocketnetwork.com domain still dead. Digidesign has launched DigiDelivery, based on Rocket technology. 4/4/03: Avid/Digidesign aquires Rocket, shuts it down. Will relaunch in a different form? "In April 1998, Vulcan Ventures, Paul G. Allen's investment entity, made an initial investment of $8 Million in Rocket Network. The Company recently closed an additional $15 Million round of funding led by Weston Presidio Capital, with participation from Avid Technology Inc, Chase Capital Entertainment Partners, Jonathan Bulkeley and a further investment from Vulcan Ventures." |
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375 Alabama St. Suite 480 |
Music clearinghouse; news, reviews, downloads, streams, e-tail, links to artist sites. |
Seems to just be a pointer to VH1.com now. 9/2000: Big layoffs at MTVi: Around 105 jobs cut from 140... 6/2000: MTVi folded Addicted To Noise (addict.com) into SonicNet. imagineradio.com became radio.sonicnet. |
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sonicity.com |
190 9th Street, 3rd Floor |
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5/2004: domain dead. |
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TuneTo.com |
TuneTo.com, Inc. |
Webcast creator with proprietary receiver app that allows for aggregate user "ratings" (thumbs up/down) to customize shared playlists. No Mac version, requires harddrive space to buffer for smooth playback. |
Aquired by Listen.com. | |
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Unicycle Records |
1201 Mariposa St |
Web "Morning After Singles," as recorded live at Bottom of the Hill and other venues. |
5/2004: domain dead. Possibly related to a fire that hit the studio at BotH? Small company. |
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Vitaminic USA, Inc. |
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12/2005 "See you soon with the new site… Existing Vitaminic subscribers can connect to the Vitaminic Music Club." 5/2004: Is not in SF phonebook. Seems to be treading water. Based in Europe, but has office in SF. |
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Wired Planet |
Wired Planet, Inc. |
Partnership with i-drive.com, combines a Napster-like music-locating system with streaming MP3. One of the first "legal'' responses to Napster. Listeners can collect tracks and create their own WP stations from WP's library of rights-cleared, high-quality music. Made me crash? |
Aquired by Listen.com 9/00. |
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Yack.com |
Yack (San Francisco) |
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Topical guide to online events and content. Has a music section. |
5/2004: domain is dead. NY and Emeryville offices. |
During first big battle of the net music era, two alliances emerged: Pressplay and MusicNet. But then things started taking off again; New players entered the space, pressplay rebranded as the reborn Napster, and Apple stepped in the the void. Here's how the alliances were a few years back:
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pressplay
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MusicNet
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| Roxio (bought Pressplay, rebranded it as Napster) Microsoft/ MSN Music Universal/Vivendi Sony's Music Club Yahoo EMusic MP3.com LaunchMedia/LaunchCast MP4.com |
AOL/Time Warner Real Networks EMI Bertelsmann/BMG MyPlay BeMusic CDNow |
Also check out these old articles, which are way out of date but interesting:
"The New Kids On the Block: Online music innovators of S.F.'s Audio Alley work and play hard"
"Dot-Com Hipster Haven: After long days music types find time to be happy"
"Where the Internet Sings and Swings" (all 4/23/2000, SF Chronicle)
"Bay Area Changes Music, Again: Local Companies Struggle to Define Next Revolution" (8/6/1999, SF Gate)
Don't forget the Silent Way Directory: Employment Links, and the Silent Way Directory: Audio Streaming Development and Legality Issues.
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