iLike was an online service that allowed users to download and share music founded by brothers Ali Partovi and Hadi Partovi. The website made use of a sidebar that is used with Apple's

iTunes iTunes () is a software program that acts as a media player, media library, mobile device management utility, and the client app for the iTunes Store. Developed by Apple Inc., it is used to purchase, play, download, and organize digital mu ...

or Microsoft's

Windows Media Player Windows Media Player (WMP) is the first media player and media library application that was developed by Microsoft for playing audio, video and viewing images on personal computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system, as well as ...

. The program and sidebar are not required in order to use the site but allow for ease in discovering new artists. The site attracted around half a million users in the first four months after it was launched. According to the latest statements by the company, over 60 million consumers registered to use iLike either directly on iLike.com or using the apps built by iLike for third-party social networks such as

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dust ...

. iLike also built a "post-once publish-everywhere" dashboard for artists – major label artists as well as independent artists. In October 2007, iLike announced that it was teaming up with ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large adverti ...

'' to create new charts that display the week's top 25 "most added" songs to personal music libraries. On August 19, 2009, it was announced that MySpace was to acquire iLike. As of February 7, 2012, the iLike website has been closed, and instead redirects users to a special MySpace Music page which displays a banner announcing the closure.

Funding

iLike received private funding from contributors including

Ticketmaster Ticketmaster Entertainment, Inc. is an American ticket sales and distribution company based in Beverly Hills, California with operations in many countries around the world. In 2010, it merged with Live Nation under the name Live Nation Enter ...

Khosla Ventures Khosla Ventures is an American venture capital firm founded by Vinod Khosla, focused on early-stage companies in the Internet, computing, mobile, financial services, agriculture, healthcare and clean technology sectors. Some of its most successf ...

, Bob Pittman as well as various other investors.

Facebook Application

iLike had a free

application which allowed users to play clips of music they like on their profile, show concerts they are going to and play a music trivia quiz. The application had great success after its release, making it one of the most popular applications on the Facebook Platform. As of November 2007, iLike had more than 15 million users. With the launch of Facebook Pages, iLike created pages for bands. A similar feature was also available for the

Bebo Bebo ( ) was an American social networking website that originally operated from 2005 until its bankruptcy in 2013 and relaunched in February 2021. The site relaunched several times after its bankruptcy with a number of short-lived offerings, ...

network. In April 2009, iLike renamed this application to simply "Music" to maintain consistency with other Facebook apps. The website and Facebook app no longer exist.

Acquisition talks by Apple

In 2008, iLike's founders were in talks for Apple to acquire it. Ali Partovi, Hadi Partovi, and Nat Brown from iLike met with

Steve Jobs Steven Paul Jobs (February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011) was an American entrepreneur, industrial designer, media proprietor, and investor. He was the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Apple; the chairman and majority shareholder of Pixar; ...

and Eddy Cue from Apple. Jobs was impressed by the product and team, and offered to buy the company for $50 million. Ali Partovi insisted "I think ... I ''know'' we’re worth three times as much," a deception that Jobs' picked up on and caused negotiations to end. In 2009, iLike sold for a lower valuation to MySpace.

References

External links

iLike Team Blog

Billboard.com iLike Libraries: Most Added

Interview with Ali Partovi, CEO and founder of iLike – Intruders tv
video {{DEFAULTSORT:Ilike Myspace Internet properties established in 2006 Internet properties disestablished in 2012 American music websites Hadi Partovi