MOG is officially gone. The service was once one of the largest streaming music options available, behind competitors like Spotify and Rdio, but yesterday the site was shut down for good. MOG was purchased by HTC-owned Beats Electronics in 2012 for $14 million, and the streaming music service’s technology was used to build Beats Music. Of course, MOG is now owned by Apple after the company acquired Beats for $3 billion last week. The service was originally set to go offline on April 15th, but that date slipped back to May 31st.
After 9 years in the game, MOG has completely shut down its streaming music service and now directs users to Beats, which acquired it in July 2012 for $14 million…and which was itself acquired by Apple this week. After providing subscribers a pro-rated refund and a 60-day free trial of Beats, the MOG concluded its delayed sunsetting schedule last night by scuttling its web streaming player. MOG was founded by former Gracenote CEO David Hyman as one of the first serious on-demand music streaming services back in 2005. It raised $24.9 million from Menlo Ventures and other investors, but never gained big traction. MOG watched Spotify surge past it in the US market. It cited 500,000 active users in February 2012 compared to Spotify’s 3 million paying subscribers. MOG cut its losses and sold to HTC-owned Beats Electronics later that year, though the MOG Music Network ad network wassold to Townsend Media.
