We first heard of OdyseyLive about 4 months ago from Luis Buenaventura of SyndeoMedia. Odyseylive, formerly known as Mobiuslive, is a social music network that sell songs from local indie and signed artists.
However, the idea of having a local iTunes-like is yet to be tested. We know that local DVD movies and music CDs are selling like hotcakes to our OFWs abroad, but will they be attracted to the same if the products were digital (a question I tried to tackle in my entry “Will Filipinos buy music online?“)?
The problem though with such local ventures like Oddyseylive is that they end up in the back burner even before they formally launch. And this is what seems to be happening with the service right now. I got from a reliable source very close to the project that the service is close to being ditched.
Apparently, Digital Media Exchange (the original company who conceptualized and developed MobiusLive) partnered with Odyssey Music & Video wanted to divest from the business, a few months after Odyssey infused capital into the project. DME felt that the online music industry is not part of their competencies and far from their core business which is online gaming.
Since the project was outsourced to SyndeoMedia, the development deal was to get a share of the profits (though I think it was minimum cash + %age of profits), the latter stands to lose a lot of investment in time and human resources.
Odyssey on the other hand, being at the losing end and having already investment a sizable amount of money on the project, took over the development of OdysseyLive. Another source says since the core/engine of Odysseylive is still owned by SyndeoMedia, Odyssey will need to retain them as the developer or totally start from scratch. The second option is the one being considered although it looks like Odyssey has little or no clue how to go about it. I won’t be surprised if the project is completely scrapped anytime soon.
