Ticketmaster, owned by Barry Diller’s IAC, is making a big play in the music community-commerce space, through a $13.3 million investment in Garageband-spinoff site iLike.com, reports WSJ. Ticketmaster will own 5 percent of the company.
The idea: Ticketmaster hopes to use links to iLike’s site to help ticket buyers learn about new music. ILike, meanwhile, hopes Ticketmaster can help its users find out about coming concerts.
Earlier this year Garageband raised $2.5 million in funding from strategic investors including Vinod Khosla, Bob Pittman and Herb Allen III of Allen & Company. The site was formed in 1999 as a way for aspiring musicians to attract fans and record contracts. It ran out of money in 2002 and briefly stopped operating. Entrepreneur Ali Partovi bought the company’s assets and has changed its focus, from primarily serving musicians to helping consumers find music they like. He recently recruited his twin brother, Hadi Partovi, who ran high-profile operations at Microsoft as COO. The company is now officially called iLike, and moved HQs from Seattle to San Francisco.
Some other services that exist in a similar realm: Mog, MusicMobs, and others. Pandora of course has a heavy music-discovery element built in.