iLike: Music Investment
by
on December 22, 2006,
iLike is a very young project: it only turns 2 month old tomorrow. Nevertheless, it has already managed to attract investors: a successful online tickets agency TicketMaster has just bought 25% of iLike stake for US $ 13.3 million.
TicketMaster president and chief operating officer Sean Moriarty said: “With our investment in iLike.com, we look forward to a series of integrations that will introduce live events and ticket-purchase opportunities within the iLike music discovery process.” Actual implication of this vague enough statement is not quite clear yet but what is obvious already is that iLike users are now considered as potential buyers of tickets from TicketMaster.
It is no wonder that iLike attracts attention. The service is truly useful for those who can not live their lives without music. iLike is actually intended for iTunes users, but some of the features of the website (like getting music recommendations) are available to anyone.
But actually iTunes users can benefit from iLike the most by installing a special iLike sidebar. This plug-in recommends you new music based on your own music preferences, those of your friends and on some other factors.
It is interesting that iLike is mostly directed towards free music, unlike similar services provided by Last.fm and MyStrands.
Hopefully, the users will only benefit from this new strategic partnership and iLike will not turn into a usual advertising platforms with ads and “Book a ticket now!” buttons everywhere.
