After laying off 60% of its workforce and a long search that turned up no other buyers, Shawn Fanning's startup Snocap is being acquired by social media network imeem for an undisclosed price. This is the second small acquisition in a few months for the company, after buying Anywhere.FM in January.
Imeem, which holds rights to digital material from all four major record labels, has been using Snocap's content identification technology since 2007 to let users legally upload and stream music and videos while managing ad-revenue payments to artists and labels for use of their music - a model many other social networking sites are starting to adopt. The deal will help preserve the company's existing ad-targeting model, while at the same time giving it a competitive advantage over other players in the crowded music social networking scene.