With the past couple of years seeing such high investments and publicity around the broadband video industry, the bubble was bound to burst for some.
Instant Media (I’M) was a creation from Scott Blum, the man behind buy.com. The idea was to mix ecommerce with free digital media and give content owners an outlet to deliver their videos to a large audience.
Essentially Instant Media was an aggregator of vodcasts, online TV shows and podcasts – it was very similar to the more popular open source Miro.
You simply download the desktop application to subscribe to and download various shows within the Instant Media channel directory. It was much like iTunes but where anyone could get involved.
“Think of us like iTunes, except you can download and watch shows in HD or transfer them to your flat-panel TV,” says Joe Raffetto
But Instant Media looks dead…
What Happened to Instant Media?
There has not been any official announcement to what is happening to Instant Media but I can tell you the following:
- The Instant Media software is no longer working properly. While it loads up you can’t access the Instant Media channel directory (at least I couldn’t).
- You can no longer download the software and the homepage of the im.com simply says “under construction”. It has been like this since at least September 7th (possibly a lot longer).
- Instant Media had an affiliate program with Commission Junction where they paid publishers $0.25 for someone downloading & installing its software that came from the publisher’s site. This affiliate program disappeared from Commission Junction sometime last month.
- Not much has been heard from Instant Media in the last year. The last time any news came from the company was when it reached 750,000 registered users in December 2006.
What Went Wrong?
Back in 2004 when Instant Media had just been founded, PaidContent.org hinted on Scott Blum’s previous failed attempt to mix ecommerce with online media and that he hadn’t learned from his “BuyMusic.com blunder.”
Encouraging media giants to sell video online is enough of a problem for digital download leader iTunes, never mind for the smaller players. Instant Media did manage to strike a deal with Twentieth Century Fox, but these content deals were rare.
Also as an aggregator of web TV shows and Vodcasts Instant Media was up against the open source Miro which has maintained good traction. Miro is able to appeal greatly to the more enthusiastic “technically-aware” audience that can use its variety of advanced features.
Also Miro has been able to create a lot more buzz around its software whereas Instant Media has remained relatively silent in the press.
I think the Alexa graph says it all about Instant Media’s demise:
What’s Next for Instant Media
Instant Media does apparently have at least 750,000 registered users, although the number of active users is probably closer to zero if the software is not working.
There has been no official announcement from Instant Media but this could result in a buyout of the company. Following that the more likely options is that Instant Media will just fold and get buried in the Web 2.0 graveyard.
If anyone knows anything about this be sure to leave a comment.
