Amie Street

History

Founded in early 2006, Amie Street opened to the public with a pre-alpha version on July 4, 2006, and was quickly scooped by Michael Arrington of TechCrunch. It grew and creating partnerships with various record labels including CD Baby, The Orchard, Nettwerk Music Group, and Daptone Records. A beta version was launched on October 4, 2006. On December 11, 2007, Amie Street Japan launched in partnership with Turbolinux.

On August 5, 2007, Amie Street announced a site redesign and, led by Amazon.com, closed their Series A round of venture capital funding.

In an email to Amie Street members on September 8, 2010, the website announced it would be redirecting all customers to Amazon.com starting on September 22, 2010, and ceasing to operate as amiestreet.com. Amie Street members had until September 22 to spend any credit they currently have with Amie Street, as it did not transfer to Amazon. Amazon shut down Amie Street soon after.

Website features

Artists could upload their music directly to the site in MP3 format at whatever quality bit rate they choose, but when a record label or music distributor requires Amie Street to encode the music, they strive to achieve an average bit rate of 256 kbit/s using a variable bitrate. (Other formats such as AAC, FLAC, and Ogg are "on the way.") As users buy songs, the artist is credited quarterly. Artists keep 70% of the proceeds after US$5 in sales for each song. Albums were priced at the current total cost for each individual song on the album, capped at US$8.98 in most cases. or checks were used to make payments to artists.

Amie Street used an algorithm to determine song prices based on demand. The price for a track started at zero when a song was uploaded, then rose according to demand and purchases of the song. The maximum price was 98¢.

A ringtone service was announced on September 17, 2007, with variable pricing.

On May 15, 2007, the web series lonelygirl15 teamed up with Amie Street to sell music featured in episodes of the show.

RECs

Non-artist users could earn credit as well. They did this by RECing a song. When a user finds a song they believe will be a hit, they can REC it. If the song price increased from the moment they REC it, they will receive compensation based on the price increase. For example, if one RECs a song currently at 5¢ and it rises to 95¢, the user will cash out half the just for RECing the song. If a user RECs a song when it is free, they are compensated with the full spread. RECing differentiates more popular music from less, as songs that are believed to be good will be RECed more often. Users get approximately 1 REC for every US$1 of Amie Street credit they purchase.

Social networking

Users could connect with other users through the "friend" feature. RECs were sent out to friends to make it easier to find new music in a music "news feed". There was also a "fan" feature so users can easily connect with bands on the site. All of this information was available as separate RSS web feeds.

Third party integration

Amie Street launched a Facebook Application in October 2007 called Fantasy Record Label. This application allowed Facebook users to create a "record label" with a collection of songs that were linked with an Amie Street account, and post the label on their Facebook profile page. Songs were ranked and as their score changed, each user's label would gain or lose points. These points could be converted into Amie Street credit and could be used to purchase music. Labels were also ranked and users were able to compete against each other for bragging rights.

Download To Make A Difference campaign

On July 16, 2008, Amie Street launched "Download To Make A Difference", a benefit media campaign, donating money to charities for certain downloads. On July 29, 2008, Amie Street expanded the program with the exclusive release of You & Me an album by NYC indie rock band The Walkmen, giving proceeds to Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. During its first week of sales, the album charted at #29 on Billboard's Top Digital Albums.

Press

Amie Street was mentioned in several notable media organizations. These include Rolling Stone, The Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, NPR, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Entertainment Weekly, TechCrunch, Boing Boing, Ars Technica, and Wired.

Ashley Alexandra Dupré

In March 2008, the site received additional attention because of the availability of two singles by Ashley Alexandra Dupré, the call girl at the center of the Eliot Spitzer prostitution scandal. An unsigned singer, her single "Move Ya Body" set a record for how fast it commanded the top price on the site following Dupré's identity as the call girl "Kristen" being revealed by The New York Times on March 12, 2008. While some speculated that she may have earned as much as US$300,000 - US$1.4 million from download sales of her singles on Amie Street, others estimated her earnings to be as low as US$13,720. Official sales numbers have not been released.

References

References

1. [http://amiestreet.com/help/47 Amie Street - Help » FAQ]
2. [http://amiestreet.com/help/95 Amie Street - Help » FAQ]
3. Maki Miyamoto. (2007-12-21). "Fan interest is the price of popular songs and determine "Amie Street"". ITmedia.
4. Gonzalez, Nick. (2007-08-05). "Amie Street Closes Series A Financing Led By Amazon.com". [[TechCrunch]].
5. Pepitone, Julianne. (2011-02-21). "Why I sold to Amazon: 3 startups' stories". CNN.
6. Arrington, Michael. (2006-07-23). "Amie Street: Awesome New Music Model". [[TechCrunch]].
7. Van Buskirk, Eliot. (2007-12-11). "Amie Street Expands into Anime and Manga with Japanese Store". [[Wired (magazine).
8. Chartier, David. (2008-06-25). "Amie Street inks deal with indies, will add 1 million songs".
9. Robinson, Blake. (2006-10-04). "Amie Street Takes Innovative Music Model Into Beta". [[TechCrunch]].
10. Kafka, Peter. (2007-08-06). "Amie Street Has Amazon Money. What's The Plan?". Silicon Alley Insider.
11. [http://amiestreet.com/help/82 Amie Street - Help » FAQ]
12. [http://blog.wired.com/music/2007/02/more_amie_stree.html More Amie Street News. Listening Post from Wired.com]
13. Arrington, Michael. (2007-03-05). "Barenaked Ladies: New Album. Free. No DRM. Now.". [[TechCrunch]].
14. "For Artists". Amie Street.
15. Chowdhry, Amit. (2007-03-27). "Greylock Partners Leads $4 Million Series A Investment In Payoneer". Pulse 2.0.
16. [http://blog.wired.com/music/2007/09/amie-street-to-.html Amie Street To Sell Ringtones with Demand-Based Pricing. Listening Post from Wired.com] {{webarchive. link. (2008-06-15)
17. Van Buskirk, Eliot. (2007-05-15). "LonelyGirl15 Soundtrack Will Use Amie Street Artists". [[Wired (magazine).
18. Asbill, Peter (treetops). (2007-05-22). "LonelyGirl15 featuring Chase Emery". Amie Street Blog.
19. [http://amiestreet.com/dashboard/bank/ Amiestreet.com]
20. Facebook]
21. [http://apps.facebook.com/amiestreet/ Fantasy Record Label. Facebook] {{webarchive. link. (August 21, 2008)
22. The Social Web. ZDNet.com] {{webarchive. link. (October 11, 2007)
23. (2008-07-16). "AmieStreet.com Launches 'Download To Make A Difference' With Creative Visions Foundation". Reuters.
24. [http://www.zibb.com/article/3606145/AmieStreet+com+Launches+Download+To+Make+A+Difference+With+Creative+Visions+Foundation+Peter+Buffett+and+Akon Zibb.com]{{dead link. (October 2016)
25. "Creative Visions : AmieStreet". Creative Visions Foundation.
26. Michaels, Sean. (2008-07-30). "Walkmen album to fight cancer". [[The Guardian]].
27. (2008-07-29). "Amie Street - Featured Music". Amie Street.
28. (2008-07-28). "Get The Walkmen Album Early, Help Charity On Amie Street". [[TechCrunch]].
29. (2008-08-06). "Top Digital Albums".
30. Futterman, Erica. (2007-07-03). "Master P's Latest: So This Is What Profanity-Free Hip-Hop Sounds Like". [[Rolling Stone]].
31. Warren, Jamin. (2006-10-14). "Online: Music At new Web store, many songs sell for a few cents". [[The Wall Street Journal]].
32. Gangemi, Jeffrey. (2006-10-30). "America's Best Young Entrepreneurs". [[BusinessWeek]].
33. Kramer, Melody Joy. (2007-01-11). "Web Sites Making Music for Your Ears". [[National Public Radio.
34. Pegoraro, Rob. (2007-07-06). "Goodbye, AllofMP3.com...". [[The Washington Post]].
35. Healey, Jon. (2007-05-14). "CD or not CD?". [[Los Angeles Times]].
36. Schonberger, Chris. (2007-06-06). "How much is the Game worth to you?". [[Entertainment Weekly]].
37. Arrington, Michael. (July 2006 – August 2007). "Amie Street articles on TechCrunch". [[TechCrunch]].
38. Doctorow, Cory. (2007-01-05). "Online label only charges once songs are popular". [[Boing Boing]].
39. Cheng, Jacqui. (2007-03-07). "Amie Street signs major artists to sell DRM-free music". [[ArsTechnica]].
40. Van Buskirk, Eliot. (2006-11-02). "Amie Street & Include Allow Outlook Access to RSS Feeds of Music Promos... Wha?". [[Wired (magazine).
41. Lemire, Jonathan. (2008-03-15). "Hooker's an online hit - to tune of $200G". [[Daily News (New York).
42. Wee, Gillian. (2008-03-15). "'Kristen,' Linked to Spitzer, Becomes Pop Star on Web (Update1)". [[Bloomberg L.P.]].
43. Sklar, Rachel. (2008-03-14). "Millionaire Call Girl? Spitzer's Hooker Rakes In A Fortune Online From Her Music". [[The Huffington Post]].
44. Kafka, Peter. (2008-03-17). "Ashley Alexandra Dupre: Not Rich Yet. Will She Ever Be?". [[Silicon Alley Insider]].