- Moontaxi Media
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Moontaxi Media Inc. was the first company in Canada to offer online music subscription services backed by licensing deals with major record companies in April 2002.[1] In October 2003, the company would be the first to offer licensed music for sale in a digital format through its online store at Puretracks.[2] Apple would launch its iTunes store in Canada a year later in December 2004.[3]
Moontaxi.com: Moontaxi web site as at February 2003.
Founded in 2000, Moontaxi started as an online stream hosting and music production company servicing radio stations such as JazzFM, i95.5, and EDGE 102.1; record companies, such as Universal Music and EMI, and brands such as The Beer Store, Park Hyatt Hotels and Air Canada.[4]
Moontaxi signed its first licensing deal with EMI Canada in December 2001[5] and launched its commercial web site around that time. The site made its channels search-able through the IE radio links as well as at the Windows Media web site and player driving tremendous traffic to its channels.
MyMoontaxi: Moontaxi subscription service as at February 2003.Contents
Rise to Top Ten Online Music network in North America
By 2002 Moontaxi had licensing deals with Universal Music Canada, EMI Canada and Sony Canada to stream their songs on Moontaxi's Internet radio stations[6] and later that year Moontaxi.com had grown to one of North America ’s most popular destination music streaming sites,[7] featuring over 100 Internet music channels across a wide range of music genres.
The Launch of Puretracks
KISS Baby: Puretracks billboard in Toronto.Moontaxi launched the Puretracks music download service in October 2003 accompanied by a national media campaign featuring a baby in KISS make-up. The service included content from all of the major record companies as well as numerous independent labels. The music format was a rights managed Windows Media Audio (WMA) CODEC mostly of 192 kbps compression quality. Prices started at $0.99 per song but would later range from $0.79 to $1.39 per song. Puretracks sold over 1 million songs in its first six months.[8]
By January 2004 Puretracks had opened its first affiliate store for TELUS.[9] Over the next two years it would power online music stores for Bell Sympatico/MSN, AOL, SaskTel, Aliant, and Universal Music and in October 2004 launched in the USA.[10]
In 2006 Moontaxi changed its name to Puretracks and a controlling stake was sold to Bell Canada.[11]
References
- ^ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/on-line-music-services-coming-to-canada/article1032520/
- ^ http://www.canadianbusiness.com/article.jsp?content=20030929_55604_55604
- ^ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/puretracks-versus-itunes/article958272/
- ^ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/race-is-on-for-on-line-music-service/article1001803/
- ^ http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/542571/EMI-Hails-Moontaxi.htm
- ^ http://business.highbeam.com/5274/article-1G1-92284947/space-oddity-moontaxi-hero-labels-exploring-digital
- ^ http://radio.about.com/library/weekly/aa083003a.htm
- ^ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/puretracks-versus-itunes/article958272/
- ^ http://about.telus.com/cgi-bin/news_viewer.cgi?news_id=435&mode=2&news_year=2004
- ^ http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/puretracks-versus-itunes/article958272/
- ^ http://www.bce.ca/en/news/releases/bcinternet/2006/03/01/73399.html
External links
Categories:- Internet companies of Canada
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