Hi, from Daren Tsui

Thursday, 6/24/2010, 5:26pm

I have been overwhelmed by the positive and constructive feedback we’ve received since launching the private beta of mSpot, our music cloud service, a month ago.

I want to express my appreciation to everyone who has tried our private beta service. We will do our best to reciprocate by building a music service you’ll want to use everyday. Please keep the comments and feedback coming!

This is an exciting time for mobile. There’s been so much innovation in such a short period of time and I don’t see the pace slowing. I’ve been in the mobile space since 1999 and I’ve seen so many false starts– WAP, local directory, payment, advertising, etc. – that it’s hard not to be cynical. But I feel this time is different. The networks are fast, coverage is decent, handsets have become powerful computers with fabulous touch screens, and the ecosystem is starting to open. We’re looking at the perfect storm for mobile entertainment.

The mobile space now feels so much like the beginning of the commercial Internet in many ways, but with more inertia. It boggles the mind. (In the early 90s, I worked with a small Seattle startup called Spry which created the first off-the-shelf Internet tools software called “Internet-in-a-Box,” featuring browser, email, FTP, gopher and news reader with an automated modem dialer that would sign users up to a “lightning fast” 56kbps ISP account. Let’s just say we had a feeling we were onto something…)

We now see a potentially larger opportunity: jumping into the wild “open” mobile web and create services that address real mass consumer needs.

mSpot is in a great position to offer a world-class mobile music service: In the last six years, we’ve had some great early successes offering white label streaming entertainment products in partnership with carriers like AT&T Radio, Sprint Radio and Sprint Movies.

We plan to announce our first music in the cloud service very soon. It’s going to make listening to your music on your phone an entirely new experience.

Stay tuned…

Daren