Devoted to branding and building and protecting brands

One of our associates, Arshad Samplewala, who runs our shop’s interactive practice, had this to say last week about the “imeem” phenomenon:  

“Imeem is like digital/internet radio.  Analog radio enables a user to stream limitless audio content off of an FM/AM signal.  Imeem is similar in that it allows the user to stream limitless audio and  
other types of content off of an ISDN signal.

“So what does this mean to social media or to online web properties?  It’s simply another method for people to make popular multimedia content.  Years ago, users would listen to radio for a new song, then go buy the recording.  Sometimes, they would buy the whole album.

Sometimes users would share a new song with their friends. All this would cause an increase in record or CD sales, meaning that a band was popular.  Imeem allows for users to now share their interest faster and wider.

So how should the music industry react?  First, they should be very pleased.  It will enable their properties to grow bigger and faster.

It seems that Imeem has won over the support of the major labels.  So what does this say about the reality of the music market? Are record labels finally understanding the nature of online social media?  It sure seems so.  Why else would you grant licenses?

“Imeem's ‘musicians’ feature seems to have copied MySpace music.  Their "directors" feature seems to have copied YouTube. "Photographers" copied Flickr and "Groups" copied Yahoo Interests.   

“So, imeem seems to have taken the best of all the social networks and combined it into one place with a rich database of content.  And this seems to have copied the richness of iTunes.”