blip.fm
The business, the turning points, and the decisions behind them.
01 / WHAT IT BUILT
What the company did
Blip.fm was a social music site dubbed the 'Twitter for music': users posted short 'blips' of what they were listening to and followed other users' playlists. It launched in May 2008 as a spin-off of Fuzz.com, the music social network run by CEO Jeff Yasuda, which raised an undisclosed angel round in February 2008 and killed Fuzz.com to focus entirely on Blip.fm. Blip.fm grew to about half a million monthly uniques by April 2009, got its own API, and its catalog was streamed to the iPhone via an app called Boombox. Most of its music was sourced from SeeqPod. Years later, with thousands of loyal users still active, a 2015 crowdfunding campaign tried to revive and maintain it.
02 / blip.fm FAILURE REASONS
Failure reasons
The company behind Blip.fm, Fuzz, died of the music-licensing trap. In February 2009 it shut down its original site Fuzz.com, citing 'increasing operating costs and flat revenues'. Then Blip.fm hit the same wall: its catalog depended on SeeqPod, a third-party music source that was itself in deep trouble, and CEO Jeff Yasuda spent 2009 in talks with lawyers, artists, labels and aggregators to keep the service alive. Licensing made the cost base uncontrollable for a 4-person startup. Fuzz.com died in February 2009; Blip.fm survived as a zombie - unmaintained but loved by a few thousand die-hards for years. The lesson: if your product is someone else's licensed catalog, you rent your existence.
03 / EVENT HISTORY
Events in the structured record
- Launch
Blip.fm launched in May 2008 as a spin-off of Fuzz.com ('Twitter for music'); Fuzz raised an undisclosed angel round in February 2008.
- Fuzz.com shutdown; Blip.fm troubles
Fuzz.com shut down on Feb 13, 2009 citing rising operating costs and flat revenues; Blip.fm remained open but faced licensing trouble as its catalog provider SeeqPod faltered. Blip.fm later faded into an unmaintained community site.
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
Licensed catalogs are rented existence: Blip.fm lived or died by SeeqPod's fortunes.
- 02
Kill your darlings early: Fuzz killed Fuzz.com to focus on Blip.fm - the right instinct, too late.
- 03
Talk to labels before you need them: Yasuda's 2009 lawyer tour should have happened in 2007.
- 04
Zombie survival is not success: thousands of loyal users can't pay the licensing bill.
- 05
Follow-based feeds punish variety: the founders later learned followers wanted predictable stations, not eclectic DJs.