Comments on: Soundbuzz music store to shut down on July 15

By: 65Bits Episode 123 : Month of SmartPhones 2 - iPhone 3GS : Singapore Entrepreneurs

Thu, 18 Jun 2009 14:57:36 +0000

[...] issues that dominated the tech landscape last week: [1] Video Games Live Concert in Singapore, [2] Soundbuzz music store to shut down on July 15, [3] Singtel to launch a Music service called AMP, [4] Popular Bookshop website got hacked, [5] [...]

By: 65Bits Episode 123 : Month of SmartPhones 2 - iPhone

65Bits Episode 123 : Month of SmartPhones 2 - iPhone — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 13:12:03 +0000

[...] [2:00]Video Games Live Concert [4:25]Soundbuzz music store to shut down on July 15 [6:00]Singtel to launch a Music service called AMP [7:10]Popular Bookshop website got hacked. [...]

By: r0bZ

r0bZ — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 07:13:55 +0000

I have no sympathy for Soundbuzz. Key decisions on the business were poor – you can’t even access the Web site without Internet Explorer, not platform agnostic, DRM too restrictive, and they did not ever look as if they were considering alternative models like subscription music. They should have folded a long time ago, back when they were just receiving a few thousand a year in revenue.

By: Aaron Tan

Aaron Tan — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 03:20:06 +0000

There is a new music community start-up called Wayango. Seems to focus more on indie music.

By: VeeCee

VeeCee — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 18:55:41 +0000

I was invited to invest in SoundBuzz in 1998 but I did not like their business model.
Too many obstacles for the user to jump over.

Ten years is not bad. They had a very good team, but got tangled up with a messy execution.

By: wheregotfree

wheregotfree — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 15:30:06 +0000

really sad, I was a regular there last time

By: mike

mike — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 17:04:38 +0000

I have tried to buy from Soundbuzz before but got stopped because of browser not supported… I think the DRMed tracks would have been troublesome too. But unavoidable issue then.

Did meet some of the Soundbuzz people years ago and they were pretty nice. Me and a colleague were filming around Keong Saik and they graciously let us in to shoot even if we didn’t setup appointments and all.

Vivamusic.com gone, Soundbuzz going… any other local music-related dot com still around?

By: Chi-Loong

Chi-Loong — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 13:22:07 +0000

Hmmm. Ironic is right, and a little sad as well.

As Alf said, Soundbuzz is one of the nascent pioneers (in Asia, at least) of the digital music industry and was one of the better known homegrown start-ups.

Soundbuzz got lots of publicity during their growth years (around 2004 to 2005). ST/Digital Life interviewed Sudhanshu a couple of times.

They had rough early years in the early 2000s, almost died, and switched to selling ringtones to survive. Then, around 2004-ish onwards the digital music scene matured a bit, and they found partners (e.g. Creative), recording labels to sign on, and new countries to pursue. Things looked good then.

Forward five years, and they’re folding. Ah well. At least they got bought out by Motorola!