Snocap
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
SnoCap was a digital-music company founded by Napster creator Shawn Fanning with Napster's chief architect Jordan Mendelson and investor Ron Conway. It aspired to be a legitimate marketplace for digital media: a copyright-management and filtering technology that let rights owners place music onto P2P networks and retail sites with DRM. It signed deals with Universal, Sony BMG and EMI, and its biggest deal was powering a digital music store for MySpace in September 2006.
02 / Snocap FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
Partners and the public did not respond well: customer support was poor and technical issues were numerous—one major partner, CD Baby, published a scathing account of the relationship. Commentary at the time blamed leadership and engineering mismanagement, and structurally the company was trying to please a reluctant music industry with DRM at a moment consumers were frustrated with it, while Apple's iTunes dominated distribution. In late 2007 SnoCap laid off 60% of its workforce and put itself on the market for an asset sale; in 2008 imeem acquired it in a fire sale.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Founded
Shawn Fanning founds SnoCap with Jordan Mendelson and Ron Conway to build a legitimate digital-media marketplace (sources cite 2002–2003).
- Biggest deal
SnoCap powers a digital music store for MySpace; deals with Universal, Sony BMG, EMI signed.
- Meltdown
In October 2007 SnoCap lays off 60% of its staff and seeks an asset sale; Fanning moves on to Rupture.
- Fire sale
imeem acquires SnoCap in a fire sale.
04 / CONTEMPORARY REBUILD ASSESSMENT
Difficulty of rebuilding this project today
Material for this section is being gathered and checked. It will appear here once ready.
Overall assessment: Not completed
05 / CAUSAL CHAIN
How the factors connect
- 01
October 2007: ~60% of staff laid off; company seeks buyer.
- 02
2008: acquired by imeem in a fire sale.
- 03
No reliable company-level loss figure disclosed.