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Published September 8, 2008 at 12:02 PM
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 Last Thursday's SF New Tech event at Mighty in San Francisco was tailored specifically for music startups, and co-organized by Future of Music Coalition co-founder Brian Zisk. Five startups each made five-minute demonstrations, followed by question-and-answer sessions. Presenting were:
- Blip.fm, a Twitter-type music service, which I've written about before. Created by the folks behind Fuzz.com, Blip asks, "What are you listening to?," finds the songs wherever they're lying around on the Web and creates a playlist. CEO Jeff Yasuda says Fuzz is concentrating more of its efforts behind Blip and plans to raise more money beyond its three existing angel rounds.
- ArtistForce Inc., the evening's only industry play. Primarily a marketplace for live entertainment venues, talent buyers, promoters, agents and artists, ArtistForce also functions as a customer relationship management application. CEO Jonathan Romley says the company is already making money and plans to raise a $3 million Series A round on top of a series of angel fundings worth about $1.4 million.
- "JamLegend," an online music game that doesn't just resemble "Guitar Hero," but also uses the same guitar-shaped controller from the console game. "JamLegend" allows anyone to upload his own music to the site, after which its own software creates the dancing-dot pattern with which music gamers have become familiar. Created by Foo Brew Inc., a startup launched in Washington but moving to San Francisco, "Jam Legend" isn't affiliated with its console-based inspiration, but then again, neither is "Tap Tap Revenge." JamLegend is seeking its first external funding.
- Project Playlist Inc., a song-sharing site that already claims 34 million users, who can create their own playlists of favorite songs, then share them, most frequently on social networks. "Content maven" Brenda Walker focused her presentation on the company's Facebook application and commented in passing that Playlist is "the fastest-growing site on the Web," according to Comscore. Project Playlist faces a lawsuit from three of the four major labels, but Walker says negotiations with the plantiffs continue.
- ImTheMusic.com, a user-generated music reviews site with a Digg-like model that allows readers to rate the site's best reviews and reviewers. The company launched last week within Facebook and plans to expand to other social networks and enhance its own site soon, according to founder Roseanne Wincek. ImTheMusic remains bootstrapped but plans to raise external capital soon.
Zisk, who organized the evening's events alongside MylerMedia, will host the third SanFran MusicTech Summit conference on Oct. 20. Readers of The Note can obtain a 10% discount on tickets for that event by entering "thedeal" as a discount code when buying tickets online here. I wrote about one of the second MusicTech Summit's many provocative panels here. - Paul Bonanos
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