Goom Radio Promises to Reinvent Online Radio
By Morelli
The latest New York-based online radio company, Goom Radio, has secured $16 million from various venture capital firms, and is planning to “reinvent radio for the Internet generation”. However, it isn’t readily apparent how they are actually going about that mission.
The press release affirms that they have a “promising business model”, but doesn’t go into details on exactly what that model is, other than it’s ad-based. With free music available through many other similar services like Pandora, Last.fm, Spotify and the recent Free Music Archive, Goom Radio is going to have a difficult time rising above the competition.
Goom radio stations are manned by real DJs and musicians, and the service allows you to create your own station with My Goom, which includes a complete set of programming tools with social networking embedded in their functionality. Goom Radio initially launched in France in the fall of 2008 with success, and by providing better sound quality and professional disc jockeys, the company’s operators are hoping to have the same success in the U.S., having been launched in March.
In spite of the hype, Goom is ad-supported like most similar services, and with the failure of Seeqpod, Ruckus, and Spiralfrog, their business model has been already determined to be an uphill battle. If the only difference is real DJs manning the stations instead of algorithms, how can they guarantee profitability in the current field of tough licensing deals with labels, and stiff competition? Are the existing radio services enough, or do you prefer music played by real people online?
Source: WallStreetJournal
