Video Archives

GarageBand.com

Product Name

Gpal

Market Segment

Consumer service

Funding

Funded by private investors. In negotiations for a $3 million Series C funding by a venture capital firm with aim of closing by DEMO conference.

Competitors

No direct competitors. Related services: MySpace, Odeo, Yahoo Music/LAUNCHcast, Pandora, Last.FM, MusicMobs.

Product Description

Gpal is an indispensable companion for iTunes with three key benefits: (1) it helps you organize your existing music library by auto-creating play lists of similarsounding artists, (2) helps you discover new music by automatically downloading free songs from the hottest GarageBand.com artists that fit your tastes, and (3) lets you share your listening profile online and find people with similar tastes. (Support for other media players coming soon.)

Market Opportunity

Thirty-six million Americans download music off the Internet1 and 85% of 12- to 24-year-olds prefer the Internet for discovering new music2. The installed base of MP3 players or iPods is 22 million1, growing to 66 million by 20103. (1Pew Internet, 2USC Media Lab, 3The Yankee Group)

Demo Says

By monitoring what you listen to, Gpal delivers custom podcasts of new artists customized to your taste in music. The service is great for consumers, but the real advantage goes to GarageBand.com. Because Gpal inserts itself at the intersection of online music and podcasting, it has a tremendous vantage point from which to gauge the tastes and interests of music consumers. One can only imagine how that advantageous position will fuel other business prospects.