Silicon Valley and Music 2.0
Silicon Valley has always been the hot bed of new startups.
There's something about the area south of San Francisco, with its
Venture Capitalists, Stanford and perpetual good weather. Apple,
HP, Sun, Google and Yahoo all started there years ago.
Anyone who's been paying attention to the music discovery space realizes that there's a whole new generation of 'music 2.0' companies out there. These are companies that are building systems to help you explore and download music. Of course, leading the field is Silicon Valley's Apple, with its iTunes and iPod. But, surprisingly, they are one of the few Music 2.0 companies that is based in Silicon Valley. I've made a list of the first 20 or so music 2.0 companies that I could think of along with their locations. As you can see Silicon Valley is under-represented. So, even though Silicon Valley may be the center of the world for Web 2.0, it certainly is not the center of the Music 2.0 world.
(Yes, I have missed lots of companies, especially the European music 2.0 companies. I'm happy to add them to the list if you send me an email reminder - Paul.Lamere AT sun.com Update- Oscar sent me a nice list of extra companies that I've added, but I'm haven't time yet to figure out where they all are - if you see one, and you know where it is based ... send me a note.)
Anyone who's been paying attention to the music discovery space realizes that there's a whole new generation of 'music 2.0' companies out there. These are companies that are building systems to help you explore and download music. Of course, leading the field is Silicon Valley's Apple, with its iTunes and iPod. But, surprisingly, they are one of the few Music 2.0 companies that is based in Silicon Valley. I've made a list of the first 20 or so music 2.0 companies that I could think of along with their locations. As you can see Silicon Valley is under-represented. So, even though Silicon Valley may be the center of the world for Web 2.0, it certainly is not the center of the Music 2.0 world.
| Audiobaba | Vancouver BC |
| MyStrands |
Corvalis Oregon |
| Pandora | Oakland CA |
| Last.fm | London UK |
| QLoud | Washington DC |
| iLike | Seattle Washington + Silicon Valley |
| SoundFlavor | San Francisco CA |
| MusicMobs | Washington State + Berlin, Germany |
| MusicIP | Monrovia CA |
| Echonest | Somerville Massachusetts |
| Mp3tunes | San Diego, CA |
| Napster | San Diego CA |
| Rhapsody | Seattle, Washington |
| Sleevenotez | UK |
| Yahoo Music | Santa Monica, CA |
| Polyphonic HMI | Barcelona, Spain |
| Double V3 | Montreal QC, Canada |
| Goomba | Portland Maine |
| Apple | Silicon Valley |
| bmat | Barcelona Spain |
| Urge | Redmond? |
| Audiri | |
| Mercora | Silicon Valley |
| irateradio.com | |
| gnoosic.com | |
| muiso.com | |
| mog | |
| sonicbreakdown | |
| clinko.com | |
| indiscover | |
| audioradar | |
| AllMusic | |
| Gracenote | |
| Genielab | |
| Musiclens | |
| Mediaunbound |
(Yes, I have missed lots of companies, especially the European music 2.0 companies. I'm happy to add them to the list if you send me an email reminder - Paul.Lamere AT sun.com Update- Oscar sent me a nice list of extra companies that I've added, but I'm haven't time yet to figure out where they all are - if you see one, and you know where it is based ... send me a note.)