MySpace Really Likes iLike, & Like Totally Buys iLike

By Contributor Wireless and Mobile News on August 20, 2009 4:49 PM

Here's how a Valley Girl would report this story, "Like you know, MySpace, like, really, really likes, iLike. Like totally for sure. So like, iLike helps you. like, find music that's like music you like. So MySpace buys like, iLike and then they like work on music likes together."

MySpace announced an agreement to acquire iLike, a leading social music discovery service. The acquisition brings together two companies who share a common vision revolving around social discovery and distribution of quality content.

"The iLike acquisition advances our relentless pursuit of innovation and the need to create new distributed social experiences in music and beyond," said Owen Van Natta, Chief Executive Officer of MySpace. "We are deeply committed to bringing world class talent into all areas of the company and this acquisition demonstrates our focus on this objective."

Brothers Ali and Hadi Partovi founded iLike in 2006, and in just two years made it the largest music application across all social networks with 55 million total users and 1.5 billion monthly impressions. The entire iLike team will stay intact including, CEO Ali Partovi, President Hadi Partovi and CTO Nat Brown. All three are seasoned entrepreneurs who've held executive positions at both start-ups and Fortune 100 companies. Prior to iLike, Ali Partovi founded and sold LinkExchange to Microsoft and Hadi Partovi independently co-founded and sold TellMe Networks, also to Microsoft. Hadi Partovi also incubated Start.com (now Live.com). Brown has a deep and respected history as an early architect at Microsoft, and he was involved in the creation the first Xbox, .NET/CLR, and ActiveX/COM/OLE.

"MySpace's strengths have been a long-time source of inspiration for iLike," said Hadi Partovi, President of iLike. "Combining MySpace's existing platform, reach and resources with iLike's syndication network and social discovery tools creates the potential for truly exciting innovation and commerce across any vertical entertainment category -- our combined assets now span all the major social networks. I'm enthusiastic about what this combination will mean for our users, artists, advertisers, and our staff. We are beginning an exciting new journey together."

iLike users and the artist community should expect the iLike experience to be unaffected by the acquisition. iLike will remain headquartered in Seattle.

Financial terms of the acquisition were not released.