
TuneTo.com
A streaming technology that delivers near cd-qualitymusic, which in and of itself is quite uncommon in internet radio.
Date | Investors | Amount | Round |
---|---|---|---|
investor | €0.0 | round | |
N/A | Acquisition | ||
Total Funding | 000k |

TuneTo.com was established in 1998 by co-founders Tim Bratton and Nicolas Sincaglia. The company, based in Redwood City, California, initially launched as an internet radio service. Bratton, who also served as the company's president, and Sincaglia secured initial funding from Whelan & Gratny Capital Management and various angel investors to get the venture off the ground.
The service officially went live in May 2000 after an extensive six-month beta testing phase involving 10,000 users. TuneTo.com's platform was designed for broadband customers, offering a personalized internet radio experience. A key feature was its use of MP3 compressed music that cached directly onto a user's hard drive, a distinction from competitors at the time that primarily used streaming audio formats like Windows Media. This hybrid system of streaming and caching supported multiple formats, including mp3, Real Audio, and Windows Media.
The business model centered on user engagement to curate content. Listeners could create their own personalized channels based on their musical tastes. As they listened, they could rate songs with a 'thumbs up' or 'thumbs down', and this collective feedback from the user community would dynamically shape the playlists for each channel. This approach aimed to deliver a mix of familiar favorites and new music discoveries. The company operated as a privately-owned entity before its eventual acquisition. In a significant milestone, TuneTo.com was acquired by Listen.com on April 5, 2001, marking the end of its journey as an independent company.
Keywords: internet radio, personalized music, MP3 caching, streaming media, music discovery, online music service, community filtering, broadband music, listener-controlled radio, digital music, Tim Bratton, Nicolas Sincaglia, Listen.com acquisition, audio streaming, playlist curation, music rating, Redwood City startup, web-based music, streaming and caching hybrid, user-generated playlists