Pulse2 Technology and Social Media News » Amie Street

Amazon.com Buys Amie Street

Amit Chowdhry — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 17:45:44 +0000

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) has acquired Amie Street, an online music store specialized for indie music. Amazon plans to absorb the retail operations and shut down the service. Amazon.com was one of Amie Street’s investors as of four years ago.

Amie Street’s offices will remain open in New York and will continue to run independently. The Amie Street team will focus on Songza, a company that Amie Street acquired last year. Amie Street grew in popularity when Ashley Alexandra Dupré, Eliot Spitzer’s mistress, uploaded music to the online music store.

Below is a letter that Amie Street sent to their users:

Amie Street is Moving to Amazon

Dear Amie Street Community,

As of September 22, 2010, all AmieStreet.com pages will be forwarded to Amazon.com and you will no longer be able to use AmieStreet.com or any of its services.

The folks at Amazon have been our advisers since they invested in Amie Street almost four years ago, and as a small thank you for your loyalty and support we’re giving you a $5 promotional code* to spend at the Amazon MP3 store. Simply click here (http://www.amazon.com/mp3credit) and enter this %%code%%. The promotional code must be redeemed by December 1, 2010.

Regarding your Amie Street account, please make sure you download all of your purchased music by September 22, 2010 (the music you have previously downloaded will continue to play normally). If you have credit in your AmieStreet.com account, please make sure you spend your remaining balance before September 22, 2010 as it will not transfer over to Amazon.com.

If you have any questions, concerns or thoughts you’d like to share with us, please don’t hesitate to contact us at feedback@amiestreet.com and one of us will answer you personally.

We believe we’ve found a great home for AmieStreet.com and are committed to making this transition as smooth as possible for you, our fantastic customers.

We want to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for all of your support, help, patience and enthusiasm, and we sincerely hope you’ll continue with us on our journey with the new Songza.com.

Thanks for an incredible four years!

-Elias, Elliott, Eric, Josh and Peter

AmieStreet.com

*Restrictions apply. See www.amazon.com/mp3credit for terms & conditions. Service available only to customers in the United States and is subject to the Amazon MP3 Music Service Terms of Use.

[AllThingsD]

The 20 Best Music Social Networks

Amit Chowdhry — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 08:28:51 +0000

Music is universally one of the most powerful forms of entertainment. People that capitalize on this form of entertainment have a strong sense of what sounds pleasing to consumers. Consumers themselves have also been forming their own music communities in the form of social networks since the beginning of the digital age. Below is a list of the top 20 these music social networks:

20. May Contain Music

May Contain Music is a small music social network that hosts music, event information, venue information, and videos.

Amie Street Raises $3.9 Milllion In Series B Funding

Amit Chowdhry — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 18:44:00 +0000

Amie Street is a music website made for indie artists. The company has recently raised $3.9 million in Series B funding, led by Deep Fork Capital. This investment includes the conversion of a bridge note from Deep Fork. According to TechCrunch, three other undisclosed venture capital firms were involved in this round of funding.

This new round of funding will be used for new product development said CEO Joshua Boltuch. The company also recently made a licensing deal with Sony Music. There are over 1.5 million songs available for download on Amie Street as of right now. Amie Street’s first round of funding was provided by Amazon.com.

Amie Street initially has songs available for free and then the price increases in price when more people download them. About a year ago Amie Street acquired a music search engine called Songza.

Greylock Partners Leads $4 Million Series A Investment In Payoneer

Amit Chowdhry — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 21:35:53 +0000

Â
Greylock Partners announced today that they would be investing $4 million in New York City based company, Payoneer.Â Payoneer is a company that allows companies and business partners to pay each other via MasterCard online.Â Payoneer is a private company that markets and manages prepaid MasterCard cards and works with the Royal Bank of Scotland and the First Bank of Delaware to process card transactions.

Upon realizing the importance of developing strong partnerships with Web 2.0 companies, Payoneer currently works with selected business allies such as Metacafe, Amie St., oDesk, and BitWine.Â Using such a service could also be very beneficial for Web 2.0 start-ups with only a few employees that share office expenses.

“The Internet payout space may well become a killer application in the next few years as Internet companies transition to smarter ways to pay out their partners around the globe,” stated Moshe Mor, a partner at Greylock Partners. “Payoneer’s team has deep payments experience, and an already impressive track rate of customer adoption and solutions. We’re delighted to work in partnership with Payoneer to fuel the company’s expanded market presence.”Â

“Web-driven businesses have the unique opportunity to use payments as a retention tool, not just a cost line-item,” stated Yuval Tal, theÂ CEO and founder of Payoneer. “With our additional funding on board, we’ll be adding to our team, expanding our service offerings, and working aggressively to win new accounts during this exciting high-growth time in our market.”Â

Payoneer was founded in 2005 and maintains a research and development facility in Tel Aviv, Israel.Â Â Â The co-branded MasterCards provided by Payoneer can be used anywhere whether it is in any store, online, or ATMs that MasterCards are accepted.

Proven Model Cases:
Citigroup Inc./eCount Inc.
“The prepaid card market is experiencing high growth, and is currently estimated at more than $2 trillion worldwide, as corporations and consumers continue to move from paper checks to electronic-based payment methods” states a Citibank press release announcement of the fairly recent eCount Inc. acquisition.

eBay Inc./PayPal
Another proven model is the legendary $1.5 billion acquisition of PayPal.Â In July 2002 eBay acquired PayPal for $1.5 billion in stock.Â PayPal now has 114 million customers as of October 2006 over 103 markets and 17 different currencies.

It is expected that with this round of funding that Payoneer will become hypercompetitive amongst some of the major aforementioned players out there.Â I have no doubt in my mind that we’ll start seeing the Payoneer logo quite a bit more as we shop online.

[Information Source: E-mail from PR Representative for Greylock Partners]