Couple of months back, MingleBox announced the launch of it’s music service (with a tagline “Connecting people and music“), which enabled users to create/share playlist with their friends, scrap a song as well as listen to music while browsing the site. The service was shutdown before the mega launch and any PR.
Reason?
MingleBox sourced it’s music from SoundBuzz, which was later acquired by Motorola. Though the reason for MingeBox’s music service shutdown is not known, I believe that the SoundBuzz agreement doesn’t allow one to create/share playlists?
Maybe, I am just shooting in the dark. Anybody knows about this? Please share.
PS: I couldn’t find a mention of MB’s music service on the site (and elsewhere), so went to waybackmachine and got the screenshots. Click on the pic to see the archived page.
tags: minglebox
hey ashish,
minglebox still has music on their site. check this:
http://www.minglebox.com/channel/films.do
I am not down with the SNS “movement”, but the site in question seems to be in Alpha.
Here is the inside scoop. The licensing cost of music for a service where the user can request a song and get it streamed is very high compared to the cost of streaming internet radio (where the songs played are not requested). Minglebox Apparently they were threatened with legal action from the Music association and they decided to pull the plug on the music service rather than support the service and bleed.
THanks Himanshu! Thats a good info!
Do you know more details about the licensing agreement – internet radio vs. streaming music? in the Indian context?
Hi Ashish,
It would be great to have a periodic review of sector-specific startups and to know what they are upto. For example, for online music: Soundbuzz, tempostand, radioverve come to mind.
Nilesh – Here is the review I did a few months back
http://www.pluggd.in/2007/09/indian-startups-for-the-independent-musiciansartists-tempostandradioverve-and-muziboo
Products that were reviewed: Tempostand, radioverve, muziboo
I am planning to do another review in the next few days..
I am not sure, but someone said it was 7cents vs .1 cent that makes it a whooping 70 times. It would be a good idea if you could dig it out for us readers.
On a side note, newspapers are suddenly carrying stories on music piracy in India. (Makes me wonder who is planting them)
What do they expect? Consumers want convenience and the Indian music industry just doesnt believe in making it convenient for users to buy mp3s legally. More than 50% of the revenues come from ringtones and caller tunes sales. If not for the telecom revolution, I guess Indian music industry would already be dead…
http://www.orkut.com/Agent.aspx?uid=7289213474309087942&docid=e9cfbb0cee3a03ea&action=qp&application=mobius
Hi Ashish,
It’s Melissa from Soundbuzz. I have liaised with our team in India to clarify our relationship with MingleBox to assist you and your readers. The only role that Soundbuzz has played was to produce media files for MingleBox for which we were paid. There is no hosting, licensing or content provision agreement with MingleBox, so our association with them has nothing at all to do with the current and future status of their site.
Cheers
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