iLike + ticketmaster
Techcrunch is reporting that Ticketmaster is pouring over 13 million dollars into iLike for a 25% stake in the music discovery venture. That puts the value of iLike at 52 million dollars which is not bad considering that the iLike site has only been live for a few months. I have no idea how many users iLike has, but I don't think they've acquired a huge number in the last couple of months. Right now iLike is telling me that there are about 250 iLike users that are online or 'listening now!'. If that is one percent of the total active listeners that gives iLike 25,000 active users. If we use $38 per pair of eyeballs as a metric for what a site is worth - the 13 million dollar investment means that Ticketmaster thinks that iLike will be growing that set of 25K users to 1.4 million users in the near future. Maybe so - but if so, it can't be because of iLike's recommendations - I continue to be underwhelmed by them - they are continuing to recommend 'the chipmunk song' - they don't tell me why they recommend it - but it has been there since day one. Today's new recommendation is 'in the name of love' by U2 - not exactly a fresh new track to add to my collection. iLike's strengths are their deep pockets (which just got deeper) that lets them launch an effective marketing campaign, a sticky iTunes plugin that keeps users 'visiting' the iLike site every time they use iTunes, and their extensive Silicon Valley connections that give them good press in sites like TechCrunch.