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Exfm and Soundtracking join Rhapsody
By Andy Malt | Published on Tuesday 5 August 2014
The people behind music discovery set-ups Exfm and Soundtracking have announced that they are joining up with Rhapsody, presumably to help the streaming music company extend its discovery and curation tools. Most of the streaming music firms are building or buying discovery tooss at the moment, in the desperate hope that having the best curation facilities is the route to long-term success.
Originally launched as a browser extension, scanning websites for MP3 files and then collating them into an easy to navigate library, over four years Exfm expanded to scan services like SoundCloud and Bandcamp, and built a website and mobile apps around the set up.
However, in December last year, the company announced that the financial, technical and legal challenges of continued expansion were proving too much of a strain on the company. Plans to shut down the service in January were delayed while new options were pursued, but the service was eventually taken offline in May.
In a new blog post yesterday, the core team of Dan Kantor, Marshall Jones, and Jason Culler said: “For the past few months, we’ve been hinting that we had some big plans for the future. Well, we are very happy to announce that Exfm is joining Rhapsody! … By teaming up, we can build the ultimate music service with an amazing social discovery engine backed by Rhapsody’s catalogue of over 30 million songs. The idea of combining the best of Exfm with the best of Rhapsody has us all extremely excited!”
A spokesperson for Rhapsody told CMU: “The Exfm team have done a great job of helping people discover more music to enjoy across the web. We’re thrilled to have them join Rhapsody, and put that product, design and technology expertise to work on the things we’re building here. Together, we’ll help music fans explore, play and love more music”.
Shortly after Exfm announced its news, Soundtracking – which allows users to share the song they’re currently listening to in an Instagram-like mobile app – posted a very similar update to its own blog. It announced that the team from the company behind the service, Schematic Labs, is joining Rhapsody, though assured users that they “will continue to offer the ability to share the soundtrack to your life” via the stand alone app.
The statement adds: “We’re already busy cooking up exciting new features to take advantage of Rhapsody’s 30 million track global streaming catalogue, so stay tuned for future exciting integration opportunities of SoundTracking within Rhapsody!”
Rhapsody’s spokesperson said: “It’s true – the Schematic Labs team has joined Rhapsody. With Soundtracking, they created an entirely new way for people to express themselves by sharing their musical moments. We’re excited to incorporate that creativity and community focus within Rhapsody’s suite of music services”.
Although both teams seem confident about keeping their own apps alive (though Exfm is slightly more vague on that), the main reason for the deals for Rhapsody seems to be hiring staff, with both teams also working on Rhapsody products – Exfm’s Dan Kantor has already been named Rhapsody’s Vice President Of Product.
