Imeem was already part of the Open Social initiative, but today the media-centric social network is opening up its own platform, on which developers can build applications. No biggie, right? Everybody's doing it. Why? Because of the access to huge user bases. Well, what if developers had access to the network's content as well? That's what Imeem is focusing on, even more so than the access to the user base.
Having created the platform for its own application-building purposes, Imeem discovered that it could be largely beneficial to open up this platform for third-party development. While the platform grants access to Imeem's videos and images, it's probably the music that most developers are going to be interested in. This is because any application running on Imeem's platform is under Imeem's legal "graces."
This allows for startups and developers to enjoy the benefits of launching a music tool without having to pay royalties, go through a third-party service, or worry about the "ask forgiveness, not permission" attitude that Mark has mentioned, specifically in regards to Imeem's recent acquisition, Anywhere.fm. So far, Imeem will be focusing on getting the platform into the hands of developers, so the app directory and the full internal leveraging capabilities needed to make an application viral (deep access to Imeem's user base) won't be available until later on down the line.
But this move on Imeem's part could mean a lot for the online music space. One can create their own recommendation engine built on Imeem's platform, or a radio station player that works off of recommendations, which could directly compete with last.fm's recently implemented features.