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"For fans of imeem and other third party music services that made use of its API, the future isn't looking too bright. Since announcing the acquisition of the struggling music startup in mid-November, MySpace has apparently seen fit to effectively shut it down completely, according to CNet. The once standalone imeem.com site and personal profiles now all point to MySpace Music, which seems like quick work considering the deal was only finalized earlier today.\nThe free imeem mobile app for iPhone and Android, although still technically available in the iTunes Store and Android Market respectively, is likewise nonfunctional until MySpace pushes out an update. It's \"disabled momentarily\" until MySpace can relaunch the app with their own licenses and features \u2014 which means there's also no telling how long it will take or what changes might accompany the new version.MySpace's press release says they have plans to restore access to the playlists users have created at imeem, and have added material to their FAQ to reflect that goal. You'll need to register a MySpace account with the same e-mail address you used to sign up with imeem, and we assume this would be valid for either new account creations or adding an e-mail address to your existing MySpace account (we've inquired with MySpace for confirmation). Still, it's cold comfort for fans of imeem who had built up a large number of playlists and spent time on their personal profiles. \nDevelopers: No API For You\nReadWriteWeb also notes that third-party services that once made use of imeem's relatively robust API are also in danger. The creator of Twitter music app twt.fm that relied on imeem's API posted on his blog about the unexpected pulling out of the imeem API rug from underneath third-party developers. Some users are reportedly also complaining of problems with blip.fm, another Twitter-like social music DJ platform making use of imeem's API.\nIt's a bit of a given that there can be some attendant fallout during an acquisition. Still, the silent treatment MySpace appears to be giving to the imeem developer community is troublesome. It also creates a deeper cause for concern over the online music space in general, given how wildly successful open API ecosystems have been in other realms around the Web (think Twitter and Flickr, just to name a couple of heavyweights). It's hard to imagine MySpace \u2014 owned ultimately up the food chain by the same man who's threatening to close off his content sites from Google \u2014 wholeheartedly embracing the open ethos and busting out an accessible streaming API. Right now the MySpace Developer Platform is much like Facebook's: Third parties can build apps on top of it, but they exist inside the MySpace ecosystem and aren't independent entities.\nIt will be interesting to see how this will play out both for imeem's user community, developer community and the online music space as a whole. Let us know your predictions in the comments."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2009/12/08/myspace-shuts-down-imeem/>