BY PAUL MALONEY
Live365.com let go 22 staff members on Monday, a move which
initiated a flurry of rumor and speculation about the company's
health and future. E-mails from several
RAIN readers, as
well as postings on various Internet message boards, indicated
that the Foster City, CA-based company was going out of business.
Senior VP/Communications Alan Wallace confirmed to
RAIN
publisher
Kurt Hanson late
Tuesday
that the company had indeed reduced staff to 58 in a cost-cutting
measure, but denied that the company's demise is imminent. The
layoffs were spread across several departments and levels.
As word of the layoffs first surfaced, a rumor that the
company was, in fact, closing its doors began to spread, apparently
fueled by a mass-e-mailed letter allegedly written by former VP/Strategic
Development and Label Relations and layoff victim John Schenk.
In the e-mail, reportedly sent to business contacts on
Tuesday, Schenk wrote, "Much to my dismay, Live365 is closing
it's doors. In an unfortunate surprise, our investors have chosen
to discontinue funding our operations. Because of grim market
conditions and negative stereotypes affecting online music companies,
the possibilities for attaining funding from elsewhere have also
proved fruitless. (Not a big surprise to most)."
Wallace insisted to RAIN that Live365.com was neither shutting
down nor losing its funding. "Costs forced us to let go of
22 people," Wallace said. "We hope to be able to hire
21 of them back."
CTO Peter Rothman, also a victim of the staff reduction,
wrote in a post to the Live365 community message board, "As
of yesterday evening I was told that I would no longer be part
of Live365, and that the direction of the company would be changing...I
have to apologize for some of the recent changes such as the addition
of pop up ads which I have always opposed. I failed all of you
by not fighting harder against some of these 'necessary evils'
which are in the end just plain evil."
It's not difficult to imagine that the message boards at
F***edCompany.com
were buzzing shortly after news of the downsizing leaked. Keeping
in mind that postings in such forums can range from coherent and
thoughtful to mindless ranting, we culled what we thought were
a few appropriate points. Regardless of whether Live365.com is
really in trouble, certain critiques of the company's business
model and approach warrant consideration:
Does anyone know of ANYONE who's
making money doing live radio on the net? Anyone?
The problems are that (a) it's too easy to do (I
could broadcast a radio station with MP3's from my house
in about an hour) and (b) there are too many choices now
(not only online radio but also traditional radio, MP3's,
etc., etc.).
Oh yeah, and, one reason people might not have visited
their site is these ads. For example, I'm just parked on
their site right now checking it out and already three pop-up
ads have popped up while doing nothing. Desperation. |
This is the one rare site that I don't mind paying
a monthly fee for. No worrys of illegal copyright violations,
no hassle in finding good broadcasts on any genere, and
best of all, easy to do live feeds. The site is easy to
navigate and their service is stable.
Usually, I'd find what I want to listen to and have
it stream through Winamp. Then, close my live365 browser
window and just listen as I surf other sites. By closing
the browser, I don't get bothered with adds and I can still
hear the music stream becuase I was using Winamp instead
of the Java player launched in the browser window.
Offer something useful and you can make money, its
that simple...assuming of couse you ask people to actually
pay you for the service you just spent half a billion dollars
building... |
They were so into the music they
missed the entire market, you know the type.
The concept of giving people unlimited, free choice
in music assumes that people want that -- they don't. CD
players were invented for that purpose and any music junkie
worth their salt has a burner and produces their own mixes
which are also portable. |
They didn't spend anytime developing
simple solutions to generate revenue, they just kept boasting
how cool they were while they provided really nothing to
the streaming community...
Essentially in the real world their are broadcasters
and listeners. Those who broadcast are committed because
they want to spend money doing what they love and invest
in their achievements. But when a listener sees how easy
it is, he becomes a broadcaster and stops being a listener
-- no revenue for Live365, and no revenue for someone who
actually spent money setting up a mixer and hooking into
his computer. |
See below for more Live365.com news.
From TheStandard.com's "Beat Sheet": "With
Yahoo's agreement
last week to buy
Launch Media
for $12 million, there's not much room left for the little guys
in the digital-music arena.
"If you're looking for a sign of the times that
screams 'Boom Over! Everything Must Go!' the
bargain-basement
price that Yahoo agreed to pay for Launch Media last week will
do nicely. For a measly $12 million -- which would have been
considered chump change not all that long ago -- Yahoo will
take Launch into the corporate fold and get instant access to
the online music service's 6.4 million registered users, along
with goodies such as LaunchCast, its music-streaming service.
"What a difference a few years make. Just 30 months
ago, Yahoo announced it would acquire Launch's one-time Santa
Monica, California neighbor, the Web-based community toolmaker
GeoCities, for
about $4.5 billion. Yes, that's billion with a 'b...'
"Ellen Siminoff, Yahoo's senior VP of entertainment
and small business, told one reporter that the jury's
still out on whether there'll be more job cuts among Launch's
175 employees...
"Perhaps the main implication of last week's deal is
that there is less and less room for the little guys in the
digital music arena. 'The industry is going through consolidation,'
(digital media analyst Phil) Leigh says flatly. 'The online
music business is about a $40 billion business worldwide, and
the stakes are very large.'
"And when it comes down to it, the new digital-music
boss is starting to look an awful lot like the old recording-industry
one."
Read the entire article, go
here
and click the "Beat Sheet" link.
during the typical day users
often become sidetracked and do not take the time to access Live365
to listen to their favorite stations,' said Alan Wallace, Senior
Vice President of Communications for Live365."
