Mercora
Encyclopedia
- This article is about the music network; for the fictional species, see Mercora (Animorphs)Mercora (Animorphs)The Mercora are a fictional race of aliens in the Animorphs books by K.A. Applegate first seen in Megamorphs #2: In the Time of Dinosaurs. They resemble giant crabs with very asymmetrical bodies. On one side of the body is a large pincer and on the other are two human-like arms. They also had seven...
.
Social.FM was a free social music network
Social network
A social network is a social structure made up of individuals called "nodes", which are tied by one or more specific types of interdependency, such as friendship, kinship, common interest, financial exchange, dislike, sexual relationships, or relationships of beliefs, knowledge or prestige.Social...
run by Mercora that was shut down in August 2008. Social.FM allowed Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
users to search and listen to a digital radio network
Internet radio
Internet radio is an audio service transmitted via the Internet...
of over three million songs, express their musical identity via a customizable profile page, and webcast
Webcast
A webcast is a media presentation distributed over the Internet using streaming media technology to distribute a single content source to many simultaneous listeners/viewers. A webcast may either be distributed live or on demand...
music to other Social.FM users.
Social.FM's mission was to catalogue and organize the world's music and make it universally searchable and legally listenable.
Social.FM's catalogue contained over three million unique songs by over 200,000 individual artists across all music genres. The songs were available only through streaming media
Streaming media
Streaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a streaming provider.The term "presented" is used in this article in a general sense that includes audio or video playback. The name refers to the delivery method of the medium rather...
, and were free.
Company history
Social.FM (at the time known as Mercora) was co-founded in 2003 by Srivats Sampath, president and CEO. Before founding Social.FM, Sampath was the co-founder and president of McAfee.comMcAfee
McAfee, Inc. is a computer security company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, USA. It markets software and services to home users, businesses and the public sector. On August 19, 2010, electronics company Intel agreed to purchase McAfee for $7.68 billion...
, vice-president of server product marketing at Netscape, and president and CEO of Discussions Corporation.
How Social.FM worked
To listen to music, a user could search the Social.FM network via a web browserWeb browser
A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...
and click a song link. Alternatively, a Social.FM user could download a free software client
Client (computing)
A client is an application or system that accesses a service made available by a server. The server is often on another computer system, in which case the client accesses the service by way of a network....
that webcast
Webcast
A webcast is a media presentation distributed over the Internet using streaming media technology to distribute a single content source to many simultaneous listeners/viewers. A webcast may either be distributed live or on demand...
s music from his personal music collection to other Social.FM users worldwide.
Musical self-expression and discovery
Social.FM allowed music lovers to express their musical identity to others via a customizable profile page. Users could create musical profiles, upload digital pictures, and listen to and webcast their favorite artists.A Social.FM user could discover new music by viewing recent searches, listening to webcasts, exploring mixes, or browsing the profiles and collections of other Social.FM users. A user could also search for artist biographies
Biography
A biography is a detailed description or account of someone's life. More than a list of basic facts , biography also portrays the subject's experience of those events...
, discographies
Discography
Discography is the study and listing of the details concerning sound recordings, often by specified artists or within identified musical genres...
, review
Review
A review is an evaluation of a publication, a product or a service, such as a movie , video game, musical composition , book ; a piece of hardware like a car, home appliance, or computer; or an event or performance, such as a live music concert, a play, musical theater show or dance show...
s, image
Image
An image is an artifact, for example a two-dimensional picture, that has a similar appearance to some subject—usually a physical object or a person.-Characteristics:...
s, and podcast
Podcast
A podcast is a series of digital media files that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication...
s. Social.FM users could also communicate and share their musical tastes via chart
Chart
A chart is a graphical representation of data, in which "the data is represented by symbols, such as bars in a bar chart, lines in a line chart, or slices in a pie chart"...
s, messaging
Email
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
, and chat
Instant messaging
Instant Messaging is a form of real-time direct text-based chatting communication in push mode between two or more people using personal computers or other devices, along with shared clients. The user's text is conveyed over a network, such as the Internet...
.
Social.FM Mobile
The Social.FM Mobile music service provided users with wirelessWireless
Wireless telecommunications is the transfer of information between two or more points that are not physically connected. Distances can be short, such as a few meters for television remote control, or as far as thousands or even millions of kilometers for deep-space radio communications...
access to the Social.FM network. Social.FM users could search and listen to a digital radio network of over three million unique songs and 200,000 individual artists. Social.FM Mobile also provided:
- 100,000 channels of digital radio
- Over-the-air access to the music library on the PC
- Access to friends' music collections
- StreamingStreaming mediaStreaming media is multimedia that is constantly received by and presented to an end-user while being delivered by a streaming provider.The term "presented" is used in this article in a general sense that includes audio or video playback. The name refers to the delivery method of the medium rather...
podcastPodcastA podcast is a series of digital media files that are released episodically and often downloaded through web syndication...
s from leading media services - StereoSTEREOSTEREO is a solar observation mission. Two nearly identical spacecraft were launched into orbits that cause them to respectively pull farther ahead of and fall gradually behind the Earth...
BluetoothBluetoothBluetooth is a proprietary open wireless technology standard for exchanging data over short distances from fixed and mobile devices, creating personal area networks with high levels of security...
support via A2DP profiles
Social.FM Mobile offered support for any Windows Mobile
Windows Mobile
Windows Mobile is a mobile operating system developed by Microsoft that was used in smartphones and Pocket PCs, but by 2011 was rarely supplied on new phones. The last version is "Windows Mobile 6.5.5"; it is superseded by Windows Phone, which does not run Windows Mobile software.Windows Mobile is...
5.0-based Smartphone
Smartphone
A smartphone is a high-end mobile phone built on a mobile computing platform, with more advanced computing ability and connectivity than a contemporary feature phone. The first smartphones were devices that mainly combined the functions of a personal digital assistant and a mobile phone or camera...
or Pocket PC
Pocket PC
A Pocket PC is also known by Microsoft as a 'Windows Mobile Classic device'. It is a hardware specification for a handheld-sized computer, personal digital assistant , that runs the Microsoft 'Windows Mobile Classic' operating system...
phone with Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi
Wi-Fi or Wifi, is a mechanism for wirelessly connecting electronic devices. A device enabled with Wi-Fi, such as a personal computer, video game console, smartphone, or digital audio player, can connect to the Internet via a wireless network access point. An access point has a range of about 20...
, GSM or GPRS (3G
3G
3G or 3rd generation mobile telecommunications is a generation of standards for mobile phones and mobile telecommunication services fulfilling the International Mobile Telecommunications-2000 specifications by the International Telecommunication Union...
) connectivity. Windows Mobile 5.0-certified devices include the Motorola
Motorola
Motorola, Inc. was an American multinational telecommunications company based in Schaumburg, Illinois, which was eventually divided into two independent public companies, Motorola Mobility and Motorola Solutions on January 4, 2011, after losing $4.3 billion from 2007 to 2009...
Q, Palm
Palm (PDA)
Palm handhelds were Personal Digital Assistants which ran the Palm OS. Palm devices have evolved from handhelds to smartphones which run Palm OS, WebOS, and Windows Mobile...
Treo
Treo
The Palm Treo is a line of smartphones originally developed by Handspring, which was bought by Palm, Inc. They are now manufactured and maintained by Palm, Inc. Treos have a number of integrated features such as the ability to check the calendar while talking on the phone, dial directly from a...
700w and Smartphone and Pocket PC phones by Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...
, HTC, i-mate
I-mate
i-mate was a company selling Windows Mobile-powered devices. The Group was launched by Jim Morrison, who began his telecoms career at sea with Cable & Wireless and was later involved in the team at O2 that designed the first O2 Xda Pocket PC phone...
, Siemens
Siemens AG
Siemens AG is a German multinational conglomerate company headquartered in Munich, Germany. It is the largest Europe-based electronics and electrical engineering company....
, Samsung
Samsung
The Samsung Group is a South Korean multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea...
, and Audiovox
Audiovox
Audiovox Corporation is an American consumer electronics company founded in 1965 and headquartered in Hauppauge, New York.Among the domestic brands now owned by Audiovox are: Acoustic Research, Advent, Code Alarm, Invision, Jensen, Prestige, RCA, and Terk. The international brands they own include...
.
IM Artist Program
The Social.FM IM Artist Program was intended for independent artists and bands that want to increase promotion and publicity for their music. As members of the IM Artist Program, participating artists received:- Five music channels webcasting to social.fm users worldwide
- A "Now Playing" profile with artist pictures, biography, and discography
- Website links to purchase CDs, merchandise, tickets, and more
- The ability to communicate with fans and listeners via artist forums and chat
The IM Artist program was in beta and free.
Social.FM Madwords
Social.FM Madwords was a contextual advertisingContextual advertising
Contextual advertising is a form of targeted advertising for advertisements appearing on websites or other media, such as content displayed in mobile browsers...
system that enabled advertisers to target text placements by artist or music genre
Genre
Genre , Greek: genos, γένος) is the term for any category of literature or other forms of art or culture, e.g. music, and in general, any type of discourse, whether written or spoken, audial or visual, based on some set of stylistic criteria. Genres are formed by conventions that change over time...
. The text placements were displayed in the "Sponsored Links" section of a webpage upon a search for artist or genre (such as "Coldplay
Coldplay
Coldplay are a British alternative rock band formed in 1996 by lead vocalist Chris Martin and lead guitarist Jonny Buckland at University College London. After they formed Pectoralz, Guy Berryman joined the group as a bassist and they changed their name to Starfish. Will Champion joined as a...
" or "Alternative"). In some ways, this system was similar to Google AdWords
AdWords
Google AdWords is Google's main advertising product and main source of revenue. Google's total advertising revenues were USD$28 billion in 2010. AdWords offers pay-per-click advertising, cost-per-thousand advertising, and site-targeted advertising for text, banner, and rich-media ads. The AdWords...
.
Madwords enabled advertisers to sign up directly via a credit card and was priced on a pay per click
Pay per click
Pay per click is an Internet advertising model used to direct traffic to websites, where advertisers pay the publisher when the ad is clicked. With search engines, advertisers typically bid on keyword phrases relevant to their target market...
(PPC) basis. Advertisers could create and upload their text ads, select their targeting criteria, set their budget and PPCs, and view statistics and reports via a password-protected webpage.
Search boxes
Social.FM search boxesWeb search engine
A web search engine is designed to search for information on the World Wide Web and FTP servers. The search results are generally presented in a list of results often referred to as SERPS, or "search engine results pages". The information may consist of web pages, images, information and other...
enabled consumers to search and listen to music from websites and blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
s. Website and blog operators could customize the search box to incorporate their desired color scheme, size, logo, and preferred artists. Consumers could search for artists and listen through a separate browser window.
Music iFrames
Social.FM Music iFrames enabled consumers to view a subset of songs available from a particular artist and click a song to listen. The list of songs was dynamically generated and updated every 60 seconds. There was also a 'more' option if the consumer desired to listen to a song that was not currently displayed within the Music iFrame. Clicking the 'more' button displayed a full list of songs available from a particular artist.Similar to Social.FM search boxes, website and blog operators could customize the Music iFrame to incorporate their desired color scheme, size, logo, and preferred artists.
System requirements
Social.FM required Windows 2000Windows 2000
Windows 2000 is a line of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, business desktops, laptops, and servers. Windows 2000 was released to manufacturing on 15 December 1999 and launched to retail on 17 February 2000. It is the successor to Windows NT 4.0, and is the...
/XP
Windows XP
Windows XP is an operating system produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops and media centers. First released to computer manufacturers on August 24, 2001, it is the second most popular version of Windows, based on installed user base...
/2003 Server and a broadband
Broadband
The term broadband refers to a telecommunications signal or device of greater bandwidth, in some sense, than another standard or usual signal or device . Different criteria for "broad" have been applied in different contexts and at different times...
Internet connection. To support webcasting, audio files must be in Vorbis
Vorbis
Vorbis is a free software / open source project headed by the Xiph.Org Foundation . The project produces an audio format specification and software implementation for lossy audio compression...
, MP3
MP3
MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 Audio Layer III, more commonly referred to as MP3, is a patented digital audio encoding format using a form of lossy data compression...
, or WMA
Windows Media Audio
Windows Media Audio is an audio data compression technology developed by Microsoft. The name can be used to refer to its audio file format or its audio codecs. It is a proprietary technology that forms part of the Windows Media framework. WMA consists of four distinct codecs...
formats. In 2006, Social.FM expected to migrate to a browser-based model which would enable support for the Mac and Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
platforms.
See also
- AOL RadioAOLAOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...
, a similar service by Time-Warner. - LAUNCHcastLAUNCHcastYahoo! Music Radio is an Internet radio service offered by CBS Radio through Yahoo! Music. The service, formerly offered by LAUNCH Media, and originally developed by Todd Beaupré and Jeff Boulter, debuted on November 11, 1999, and was purchased by Yahoo! in October, 2001...
, a similar service by Yahoo! MusicYahoo!Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,...
. - MySpaceMySpaceMyspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
, a social network by News CorporationNews CorporationNews Corporation or News Corp. is an American multinational media conglomerate. It is the world's second-largest media conglomerate as of 2011 in terms of revenue, and the world's third largest in entertainment as of 2009, although the BBC remains the world's largest broadcaster...
. - Last.FMLast.fmLast.fm is a music website, founded in the United Kingdom in 2002. It has claimed 30 million active users in March 2009. On 30 May 2007, CBS Interactive acquired Last.fm for UK£140m ....
, a similar service by CBS CorporationCBS CorporationCBS Corporation is an American media conglomerate focused on commercial broadcasting, publishing, billboards and television production, with most of its operations in the United States. The President and CEO of the company is Leslie Moonves. Sumner Redstone, owner of National Amusements, is CBS's...
.
Press
- Social.FM is dead, VentureBeat, August 4, 2008
- Social.FM to Debut Mobile Music Service, ABCNews.comABC NewsABC News is the news gathering and broadcasting division of American broadcast television network ABC, a subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company...
, September 26, 2006 - Social.FM, NME Ink Radio Deal, MP3.comMP3.comMP3.com is a web site operated by CNET Networks providing information about digital music and artists, songs, services, community, and technologies. It is probably better known for its original incarnation, as a legal, free music-sharing service, popular with independent musicians for promoting...
, April 26, 2006 - Tiscali Partners with Social.FM to Launch Tiscali Free Jukebox, TransWorldNews, April 26, 2006
- Mercora IMRadio for Google Talk, PC MagazinePC MagazinePC Magazine is a computer magazine published by Ziff Davis Publishing Holdings Inc. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009...
, November 14, 2005