Archive for: buyout

Sellaband Bankrupt But Bailed Out

In a flurry of activity over the week, Sellaband was attacked by pundits for failing to help Public Enemy fund a new album, put its site offline for ‘maintenance’, declared bankruptcy, was bought out, bailed out and replaced its CEO with the German entrepreneur heading up the purchase of the business.

Johan Vosmeijer (left) stepped down as Chief Exec yesterday, ceding the big chair to Michael Bogatzi (right), with a post on their blog saying that he’d been right all along, despite the difficulties his site has had:

There is no doubt in my mind that ‘crowdfunding’, as they call it, is a blessing for artists in the 21st century and that this concept has the potential to cure what’s been ailing the traditional music industry for so long. SellaBand is and will always be the first of its kind. I am proud to have been part of this very exciting journey from day one and because SellaBand will always be dear to me, I will stay active as a ‘Believer’ on the website and have offered to be on stand-by in case my assistance is needed. I am also very excited to announce that the man who has been standing side by side with me in those past 4 years, Dagmar Heijmans, will continue to be part of the new team and will work closely together with Michael Bogatzki, the new CEO of SellaBand GmbH.

All in all, today is a day of joy. Some other time perhaps, I will take a moment to look back and share my story with the outside world. Right now I only want to look ahead and hope you will all join me in giving the new team a warm welcome and find out what bright future still lies ahead for SellaBand.

Avoiding bankruptcy must be a pretty big relief… Bogatzki was similarly positive but more terse.

Dear Artists and Believers

We will continue to advance this fantastic platform while acting in the spirit of the SellaBand community and its founders. We are thankful for the exceptional work of Johan Vosmeijer and his team.

Starting from today we proceed with this unique concept and maximize the potential of SellaBand with the trust and faith of all Artists and Believers. In personal I am proud to be part of this idea and I am aware of my responsibility for done work and successes. I will take care about the community and spirit of sellaband.com with your help and confidence.

Best regards,

Michael Bogatzki

Myspace slow off the blocks integrating new tech from Imeem.

Myspace’s efforts to update their site’s music functionality by integrating technology purchased with their buyout of Imeem are plodding slowly ahead. There’s been no evidence of an update on site, but this email went out to Imeem users:

The MySpace Music team is working around the clock to duplicate your imeem playlists and make them available to you on myspacemusic.com as soon as possible. In the coming weeks, we will be emailing you with instructions on how to claim your playlists on MySpace Music, using your MySpace login. If you don’t have a MySpace account you can sign up for one here.

If you have questions about MySpace, please visit http://faq.myspace.com/app/home.

Thanks for your patience. We will be in touch soon.

- MySpace Music Team

How a net business with hundreds of millions of dollars of annual revenue can allow so much time to slip by in a market where they’re losing ground every day is hard to fathom – small as Imeem’s fire-sale purchase price may have been compared to Myspace’s turnover, their tech contribution was substantial, and constitutes a big opportunity for Myspace to catch back up to it’s competitors. One can only assume that Imeem were playing harball and not releasing anything before the lawyers had all shaken hands and inked the contracts, and are not particularly motivated by the Murdoch lash. I can see that having your company fail under you and being bought out by Darth Rupert might be disheartening.