imeem will no longer allow user-submitted photos or video.
In local SocMed company news, second-tier-but-still-pretty-massive social network imeem has alerted its users that users can no longer upload photos or videos, and soon won’t be able to access user-generated ones. They’re shedding those aspects of their service in order to focus on their core audience: sharers of music & playlists.
“Simply put,” they wrote in a June 25 post, “There’s no ROI for us in UGV.”
Predictably, their user base is going a little nuts over the news. 
In their coverage, ReadWriteWeb criticized imeem’s handling of the transition:
Overall, we would have to side with imeem's users and it doesn't look like the company is handling this current affair very well. Comments on the blog post are closed, nobody from imeem's staff (as far as we can see) is interacting with customers on imeem's forums, and the service isn't giving paying customers a chance to get a refund.
Imeem, to their credit, listened and acted quickly.
Timely transparency from imeem.
Barely three hours after the news story broke on ReadWriteWeb, imeem stepped up on three fronts:
1. Matt Graves, imeem's VP of marketing and communications showed up on ReadWriteWeb to elaborate and address commenters’ concerns.
2. The announcement post on imeem, which didn’t allow comments initially, finally allowed them a day later…although it does seem like a little cherry-picking is taking place.
3. The surge of user comments did prompt imeem to add another ten days to their deadline for photos, to allow users to “transition those photos to other services.”
It does my heart good when a company—particularly one I like—avoids a Motrin-mom stonewalling debacle. I’m sure imeem will still shed users over their decision, but they’re handling it in the way a good social media company should—with transparency, customer focus, and by living to fight another day.
Staying afloat, for now.
imeem’s core competency is that of sharing music—I used their player widget for band promotion for months when it first came out—and they have built a strong community from that. Though these days I question whether any company that’s trying to make its rent from music is long for this world.
Regardless, if shared video, and the bandwidth costs that come with it, is causing imeem to bleed out their recent $2.4 million infusion, then it goes. Shrinking their footprint might help imeem stick around when the shakeout ends.
Thanks to Michael Robertson for the heads-up on this news.
people have the power - patti smith
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Comments
Yes, there is cherry-picking going on in the comments on imeem's blog. My two critical comments -- which had proper spelling and punctuation -- were "awaiting moderation" long after other comments had been let through. Now they appear to be outright deleted.
Thousands of imeem's users came there primarily to watch video. It was not founded as a music-focused service and, if anything, emphasized video when I joined a few years ago.
Five days warning — on a blog post, no less — is barely a warning at all. Not only are we losing comments and view counts on our videos, we have to reupload our videos (for those of use that still have copies -- hard drive failures can happen to anyone), reform interpersonal relationships at another website (or three), recreate thousands of playlists, attempt to correct links in already published blog entries, find another service to embed video in a few online scholarly articles, and fruitlessly attempt to correct a citation in a pending academic artic
Um -- the view counts of UGVs on imeem were, like, right there beside the video. Many to most of them were not getting volume views and so many of the user complaints are either not representative or are else simply cranky.
The whole combo of apps, music, and symbolic interaction (videos and pics) was brilliant, but if the whole was not catching fire in good time, then it is a good move to cut the fat.
For those users who are now complaining, the asnwer is: Use it or lose it! I hope the current strategy works for Imeem and I wish'em luck!
I am so angry at Imeem for just deleting my videos and photos. I was a paying VIP member and it didn't matter. They just are full of lies and I am so angry. They can reimburse my VIP fee, but not my time or faith. All my friends now are left looking for a company not going bankrupt like Imeem.
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