GarageBand.com was a large

online community An online community, also called an internet community or web community, is a community whose members interact with each other primarily via the Internet. Members of the community usually share common interests. For many, online communities may fe ...

of independent musicians and music fans, founded in 1999. The site was used by musicians who were seeking greater exposure and critical insight provided by an audience of their peers. The site was also used by music fans to discover new independent artists in the site's vast collection. Some music content was Creative Commons-licensed, as announced in 2004. GarageBand.com closed its doors in June 2010, offering users migration to iLike. After the demise of the original MP3.com in 2003, subsidiary

Trusonic Mood Media North America (formerly consisting of Muzak, LLC, DMX and Trusonic) is a commercial music company and a wholly owned subsidiary of Mood Media Corporation. Founded in 1999 as a small business unit (SBU) of the now defunct MP3.com, Truso ...

, with an inventory of 250,000 artists representing 1.7 million songs, partnered with GarageBand.com in 2004 to revive these artist accounts. Most of the technology and infrastructure developed at MP3.com was retained.

Main features

At the site's introduction in 1999, a monthly contest for a $250,000 record contract was announced. In addition to free MP3 hosting, GarageBand.com offered independent bands the chance to enter into contests in which they compete for a top spot on the GarageBand.com

music charts A record chart, in the music industry, also called a music chart, is a ranking of recorded music according to certain criteria during a given period. Many different criteria are used in worldwide charts, often in combination. These include re ...

for their particular musical genre (e.g. 'Rock', 'Avant Garde'). In 2005, the ''GarageBand Faceoff'' contest offered winners airplay during a weekday afternoon 4-minute broadcast on four large-market FM radio stations, and a grand prize Capitol Records recording contract at the end of the year. Later, the prize for hitting the top of the charts was expanded to inclusion in Clear Channel's "NEW! Discover Music" program, giving exposure across over 400 of the company's FM station websites. Entrance in the contest was either earned through reviewing the music of other members, or by paying a $19.99 per song submission fee. The site uses a sophisticated rating system to generate popularity rankings for each artist, and maintains charts of these rankings. This makes the large music catalog easier to browse for fans. The music industry also uses these charts to find new talent. Several GarageBand.com members who have charted well found subsequent music career success in the form of label deals, licensing and promotional opportunities. Examples include

10 Years 10 Years or Ten Years may refer to: *Decade, a period of ten years Film *10 Years (2011 film), ''10 Years'' (2011 film), a film starring Channing Tatum *Ten Years (2015 film), ''Ten Years'' (2015 film), a Hong Kong film Music *10 Years (band), a ...

(signed to

Universal Records Universal Music Group N.V. (often abbreviated as UMG and referred to as just Universal Music) is a Dutch–American multinational music corporation under Dutch law. UMG's corporate headquarters are located in Hilversum, Netherlands and its ...

) and

American Idol ''American Idol'' is an American singing competition television series created by Simon Fuller, produced by Fremantle North America and 19 Entertainment, and distributed by Fremantle North America. It aired on Fox from June 11, 2002, to Ap ...

finalist

Bo Bice Harold Elwin "Bo" Bice Jr. (born November 1, 1975) is an American singer and musician who was the runner-up against Carrie Underwood in the fourth season of ''American Idol''. Prior to auditioning for ''American Idol'', Bice released a solo alb ...

Licensing and partnerships

In 2004, the company licensed the GarageBand name to Apple for use with its music creation software. Also that year, the company partnered with Microsoft for GarageBand members' music to be linked from

MSN.com MSN (meaning Microsoft Network) is a web portal and related collection of Internet services and apps for Windows and mobile devices, provided by Microsoft and launched on August 24, 1995, alongside the release of Windows 95. The Microsoft Net ...

for download.

Related products

GarageBand.com introduce
Gcast
a

podcasting A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosing ...

platform which integrates the GarageBand.com digital music library, in 2005. The service was created in response to greatly increased traffic to GarageBand.com after its podcasting feature was introduced. It was announced to tie-in with

World AIDS Day World AIDS Day, designated on 1 December every year since 1988, is an international day dedicated to raising awareness of the AIDS pandemic caused by the spread of HIV infection and mourning those who have died of the disease. The acquired imm ...

. In 2006, the company launched iLike, a social music discovery website and iTunes sidebar application that tracks the music you listen to and recommends new music. Recommendations also include links to free downloads from GarageBand.com artists.

History

The site was founded in 1999 by

Jerry Harrison Jeremiah Griffin Harrison (born February 21, 1949) is an American songwriter, musician, producer, and entrepreneur. He began his professional music career as a member of the cult band the Modern Lovers before becoming keyboardist and guitarist ...

, Tom Zito and Amanda Welsh. In February 2002, after the

dot-com crash The dot-com bubble (dot-com boom, tech bubble, or the Internet bubble) was a stock market bubble in the late 1990s, a period of massive growth in the use and adoption of the Internet. Between 1995 and its peak in March 2000, the Nasdaq Compo ...

, the company lost an important record distribution deal. Later that month, the site owners took the website offline for a time, replacing it with a message explaining they did so in order to "preserve cash".

Evolution Artists Inc

In April 2002, a group of employees and site members formed a new corporation, Evolution Artists Inc, to acquire the site's assets. In May 2002, the site was restored and available again.

MP3.com archive

In April 2004, after the demise of the original MP3.com in December 2003,

(formerly an MP3.com division) partnered with GarageBand.com to revive "most" of the original MP3.com archive. An inventory of 250,000 artists representing 1.7 million songs. Using the name "MP3isBack.com", former MP3.com account holders were able recover their music from Trusonic and automatically transfer the music content to GarageBand.com. The MP3isBack.com site expired sometime between May and November 2005.

Microsoft

In 2006, Microsoft started sponsoring GarageBand.com.

Shut down

GarageBand.com closed its doors in June 2010, offering users migration to iLike. As of 2013, the garageband.com domain is owned by

Apple Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, United States. Apple is the largest technology company by revenue (totaling in 2021) and, as of June 2022, is the world's biggest company ...

and redirects to the product page for their music software GarageBand.

"The Final Countdown" (1999-2001) contest winners

The band's listed below were the winners of GarageBand.com's recurring but short-lived contest for a $250,000 recording contract. *November 1999: Boondogs *February 2000: Monovox *April 2000: Headboard *June 2000: Ultraphonic *August 2000: MichelleCross *October 2000: Mercy River *December 2000: Sunfall Festival ("I Walked Away") *March 2001: Brilliant *June 2001: Caser ("Don't Mind") *August 2001: the Szuters ("Antichrist Theme")

Reviewers' Picks awards

To win a Reviewers' Pick award, a band must show growth on the Independent Music Charts by genre, high review ratings and maintain an active profile. Artist were reviewed and awarded weekly.

Reception

In December 2003,

Business Wire Business Wire is an American company that disseminates full-text press releases from thousands of companies and organizations worldwide to news media, financial markets, disclosure systems, investors, information web sites, databases, bloggers, ...

praised GarageBand.com for being the world's "largest online community of independent musicians", and "largest source of legal free music". In a 2006 review in '' PC Magazine'' the site received an "Excellent" editor rating, with 4 (of 5) stars. Bill Machrone summarized, "GarageBand.com demands a lot of work, in the form of music reviews, from participants. But this community of half a million artists and listeners may just be the Web's best source of indie music."

References

{{Reflist, colwidth=30em Defunct online music stores Internet properties established in 1999 Online music stores of the United States Online music and lyrics databases Defunct social networking services 1999 establishments in the United States