MySpace today announced it has purchased music service Imeem, acquiring most of the company's assets.
MySpace Music, a joint venture between select music labels and MySpace, will give the service a stronger internal infrastructure as it battles other online music services. A possible acquisition was first announced last month, but the deal couldn't be closed due to several hangups MySpace had to take care of.
"MySpace Music and Imeem share a common vision and commitment to further enabling the socialization of content across the Web," said MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta, in a statement. "This deal will allow us to leverage Imeem’s industry-leading technology and, over time, meaningfully integrate their products into the MySpace Music experience."
The deal is reportedly worth less than $1 million, and gives MySpace access to Imeem's 16 million global users, who will now become MySpace Music members. Furthermore, MySpace Music should be able to find a larger presence in the mobile space, as Imeem has support for Google Android-powered phones and the Apple iPhone.
MySpace, the No. 2 social networking site in the world, has been unable to overtake No. 1 Facebook, but has had success focusing on music. MySpace officials haven't outlined additional acquisitions that may take place, though they have said it's possible the social networking site will further expand in 2010.
Imeem's CEO, chief technical officer and two other high-level executives have been invited to join MySpace, but other employees are unsure of their future.
It seems to be a perfect, low-cost, high-reward acquisition for MySpace Music, and I’m glad they closed the deal. Imeem, despite its popularity, flew under the radar since it launched, yet had 16 million users. I'm sure that Myspace will be extremely happy to integrate these users and the iMeem mobile services into Myspace Music.
