Bloom.fm

Bloom.fm was a London-based mobile-focused music service which combined free streaming genre and artist based radios, music discovery tools, a local library player and a catalogue of over 22 million tracks.[3][4] The service allowed users to 'borrow' songs, making them available for offline playback. The maximum number of stored tracks was determined by the subscription level.[5]

Bloom.fm
Developer(s)Digital Distribution Networks Ltd.
Initial release
  • iOS (January 8, 2013 (2013-01-08))
  • Android (September 3, 2013 (2013-09-03))
Stable release
/
  • iOS (September 12, 2013 (2013-09-12))[1]
  • Android (September 13, 2013 (2013-09-13))[2]
Operating systemiOS 4.3 or later; Android 2.3 or later
Size1.6 to 4.5 MB
Available inEnglish
TypeMusic online service
LicenseFreemium
Websitewww.bloom.fm
As ofSeptember 16, 2013

Bloom was only available in the United Kingdom on iOS and Android. A Web version was supposedly in development and originally set for release at some point in 2013,[6] but it was never made available to the general public. On April 30, 2014, the owners of Bloom.fm, Digital Distribution Networks, announced that they were to shut down, due to lack of funding.[7]

History

Bloom.fm was officially launched in January 2013 on iOS, previously being available to several thousand beta testers.[8] The service reached 250,000 registered users in August 2013.[4]

The Android app was released in September 2013.[9]

Features

Catalogue

As of September 2013, approximately 22 million tracks were available on the service, including content from EMI, Sony, Universal, and Merlin (representing over 120,000 independent labels) and various independent labels through aggregators such as TuneCore, IODA, The Orchard, PIAS, AWAL, Ditto, and CD Baby.[10]

Warner Music was the only major label not to have licensed its content to the service.[3]

Radio

The free tier of the service offered over 150 genre-based radios. Additionally, users were able to start a new radio based on most artists on the service.[11]

Borrowing

Bloom.fm referred to the process of caching the track on a device as ‘borrowing’. This allowed offline playback. The tracks were available to a user for the duration of the subscription.[3]

Discovery

The artist discovery interface allowed the user to explore related artists by tapping the icon in the bottom left of the player.

Playlists

Playlists of two types were available to all paying consumers. Normal playlists were created by manually adding borrowed tracks to them and smart playlists were created automatically by borrowing tracks from the predefined radio channels.[12]

Local content

The application supported integration and playback of local music libraries. This feature was available for free on all tiers. The company expressed a desire for the app to become the default music player for all users.[13]

Pricing

The service offered a free tier (Bloom Zero) that gave the user access to streaming genre radio channels as well as artist-based radios.[5]

The service was noted for a low entry price point.[3][8] The subscription tiers determine the number of tracks the users could store on their devices simultaneously. The entry-level £1 subscription allowed the user to borrow and store 20 tracks, the £5 tier had an allowance of 200 tracks and the £10 subscription allowed unlimited streaming and borrowing.

Notably, the subscription prices were different on the website of the service and Apple’s iOS App Store. The company explained the higher prices in the App Store by stating that Apple took a 30% cut of in-app purchases.[3]

Radio Discovery Free of ads Playlist Streaming Borrowing Monthly cost
Bloom Zero Yes Yes No No No No Free
Bloom 20 Yes Yes Yes Yes No 20 tracks £1/£1.49
Bloom 200 Yes Yes Yes Yes No 200 tracks £5/£6.99
Full Bloom Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Unlimited tracks £10/£13.99

Other versions and platforms

According to CEO Oleg Fomenko, several other versions were in active development, including dedicated iPad and web apps.[3]

Third-party service integration and sharing

Bloom.fm allowed the user to use their Facebook account to log into the app. Tracks could be shared to Twitter and Facebook with an option to share via email.[5]

The service also supported scrobbling to Last.fm on the iPhone app.

Partnerships

The company partnered with music events in the UK, including The Liverpool Sound City, Tramlines Festival, and Toddla T Sound.[14][15][16]

Administration

On April 30, 2014, Bloom.fm announced on their blog that their main investor, TNT Media Investments, had pulled out.[17] On May the 2nd, administrators Moorfields Corporate Recovery published a Press Release urging for the sale of Bloom.fm [18][19] by the 9th of May, however no sale was finalised. Operations were ceased in the following days, which were managed by Moorfields. After the administration, Bloom.fm offered users access to Tesco's Blinkbox.[20]

gollark: https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted#pastebins
gollark: You know there are already *at least* two open source ones.
gollark: It compiled, though, thus it must contain no bugs.
gollark: You can use my extremely bad Haskell-based paste API from ages ago!
gollark: There is also `wget run`.

References
  1. "Bloom.fm". Apple Store. Retrieved September 16, 2013.
  2. "Bloom.fm". Google Play. Retrieved September 16, 2013.
  3. Stuart Dredge (January 16, 2013). "Interview: Bloom.fm talks mobile-first personal radio". Music Ally. Retrieved September 16, 2013.
  4. Tina Hart (August 6, 2013). "Bloom.fm strikes Merlin deal and reaches 250k registered user milestone". Music Week. Retrieved September 16, 2013.
  5. Shane Richmond (February 7, 2013). "Bloom.fm app review". The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved September 16, 2013.
  6. "New Contract - Bloom.fm". EmuBands. December 7, 2012. Archived from the original on April 13, 2014. Retrieved September 16, 2013.
  7. "-We'll keep this short because we're pretty..." Bloom.fm. April 30, 2014. Archived from the original on May 3, 2014. Retrieved April 30, 2014.
  8. Tim Ingham (January 10, 2013). "£1 per month streaming service Bloom.fm launches". Music Week. Retrieved September 16, 2013.
  9. Nick Summers (September 3, 2013). "Bloom.fm brings its stunning on-demand music streaming app to Android in the UK". The Next Web. Retrieved September 16, 2013.
  10. Thomas Rowbottom (May 17, 2013). "Bloom.fm agrees deal with TuneCore". Music Week. Retrieved September 16, 2013.
  11. Nick Summers (January 18, 2013). "Bloom.fm combines Internet radio, streaming and a local music player into one stunning iPhone app". The Next Web. Retrieved September 16, 2013.
  12. "Bloom.fm review". Stuff. Retrieved September 16, 2013.
  13. Tina Hart (September 4, 2013). "Bloom.fm app launches on Android". Music Week. Retrieved September 16, 2013.
  14. "Liverpool Sound City teams up with Bloom.fm". Liverpool Sound City. April 4, 2013. Retrieved September 16, 2013.
  15. "Tramlines + Bloom.fm Join Forces". iHouse Limited. July 17, 2013. Archived from the original on September 21, 2013. Retrieved September 16, 2013.
  16. "Connecting people". Rootstock Trading. August 15, 2013. Archived from the original on September 21, 2013. Retrieved September 16, 2013.
  17. "Streaming music startup Bloom.fm shuts down after investor pulls out". The Guardian. May 1, 2014. Retrieved May 1, 2014.
  18. "Buyers sought for music streaming app with over a million users". Moorfields CR. May 2, 2014. Retrieved May 2, 2014.
  19. "Press release: Bloom.fm is up for sale". Bloom.fm. May 6, 2014. Archived from the original on May 22, 2014. Retrieved May 6, 2014.
  20. "Bloom closes down - Blinkbox takes over!". Bloom.fm. May 22, 2014. Retrieved May 22, 2014.
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