The Gulf Coast Dispatch

MySpace Shafts Imeem Users

Just like that, Imeem was gone. I hit refresh a few times and waited for the playlists to pop up (here on The Wednesday Review). Nothing doing. Then it struck me, MySpace was buying Imeem. But that couldn’t be it, could it? I just uploaded a featured list, checked it, cleaned up some stray tunes… They wouldn’t just…

They would, and they did.

News Corp., parent company of MySpace, literally shut down Imeem while I was working on a review! My suspicions were confirmed only after I “Googled it.”

I landed on this post from All Things Digital, and blew my stack.

News Corp. had time to better handle this. If not in the days leading up to the acquisition, then certainly for some reasonable period thereafter. An explanatory email with a time window for transition should have been sent to Imeem account holders. Baring that, the site should have been supported until MySpace had some inkling of what to do with it.

Right now, my Imeem bookmark lands on a page that reads like a ransom note: “We have your playlists. No harm will come to them if you join our old, bloated, irrelevant cult. Resistance is futile. Wait for further instructions.”

Well guess what, News Corp. You oughta kiss folks before you fuck 'em. It's just good business.

My lists are gone, and I’m moving on. I have an old MySpace account, and I’m deleting it today. I encourage anyone who possibly can to jump ship. Drop MySpace, especially if you haven’t built your life or your band around it.

JH