pluggedin
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
PluggedIn was a Santa Monica music-video startup founded by Xdrive veterans Brett O'Brien and Jeff Somers, pitched as 'a Hulu for music videos.' Launched in April 2008, it offered more than 11,000 licensed HD music videos from Universal, Sony BMG and EMI, over a million dynamically generated artist profiles, and social features — profiles, playlists and an Adobe AIR app — wrapped in a Hulu-like interface. It raised $2 million, including backing from Will Smith's Overbrook Entertainment, and employed 12 people.
02 / pluggedin FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
PluggedIn never took off: despite the HD pitch, entrenched competitors like MySpace Music and YouTube already had the audiences and the same videos, and most users didn't care enough about video quality to switch. Requiring the Move Networks streaming plugin raised the entry barrier further. When negotiations for a $2.5 million Series B collapsed at the last minute in early 2009, the company simply ran out of money — co-founder Brett O'Brien put the technology and team up for sale for about $3 million instead.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Launch
PluggedIn launches in April 2008 with $2 million raised, 11,000+ licensed HD music videos and label deals with Universal, Sony BMG and EMI.
- Shutdown
In March 2009, PluggedIn closes after a $2.5 million Series B falls apart; the founders seek buyers for the technology and team for ~$3 million.
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 / AFTERMATH
Aftermath
PluggedIn's assets were shopped to potential buyers — a major label was floated as a possibility — but the 'Hulu for music videos' thesis died with it. The episode became a textbook case of the 2008-2009 music-startup shakeout: HD quality was a nice perk, but not a moat, against incumbents with millions of users.