Puddlegum: Why we chose imeem
Out of respect for the artists that we support, Puddlegum have decided to post music through imeem. Up to this point we have posted Mp3s sent to us via artists, record labels, and agencies. Though we understand that many of our readers enjoy downloading free music, we would rather avoid infringing on the copyrights of the very artists we’re trying to help.
Why did we choose imeem?
imeem is a relatively new social media network that allows members to upload music, video, and photos. Since imeem have worked out undisclosed agreements with all of the major labels and many independent labels, anyone can legally upload songs and share them with their friends.
Songs and videos are played in the Flash-driven imeem player, making it very easy to embed the player in websites, in a similar way as YouTube. This turns each track into a viral marketing tool for the artist. The imeem player provides a link to “download this track”, which gives you a choice of purchasing the song on iTunes or Amazon Mp3.
imeem has networked with Snocap, who audio fingerprints every upload. This gives them the ability to know who the artist of the song is, and ad revenue is then shared with the record labels and artists. This is in contrast with other networking sites that pocket the ad revenue at the expense of the artist’s hard work. Artists also benefit by being able to create artist pages that put Myspace pages to shame.
According to imeem statistics, 65,000 new users register with them every day. By becoming a member of imeem you can create playlists or a QuickMix and embed them on your blog, even if you weren’t the person that uploaded the song. You can comment, tag, rate, create photo montages with songs, or post song battles. Members can also blog, send messages to other members, and view stats on the content they upload.
We have started a Puddlegum group on imeem (we’ll continue to tweak with the design and layout of the page). Feel free to upload songs and videos to the Puddlegum group, and discuss music in the forums. We want this to be a place where you can interact with other Puddlegum readers.
Our featured music playlist will comprise of songs that we have posted on Puddlegum. We’ll upload additional songs to the Puddlegum group; we receive large amounts of music submissions and this is one way we can share music with you in a legal fashion.