WebProNews

The “first and only”s we hear about often aren’t worth mentioning; some piddly little company makes a piddly little announcement every other day.  But thanks to a new deal with Universal Music Group, Imeem is able to use the phrase in a way that tends towards the important and large side of things.

As a spokesperson wrote in an email to WebProNews, “imeem is the first and only social networking service to secure licenses from all four major music companies (Warner Music Group, EMI Music, Sony BMG, and UMG) to give consumers free streaming access to their music and video.”

That means just about every artist you can think of (this latest deal adds names like Guns N’ Roses, Johnny Cash, and Queens of the Stone Age) can be heard at Imeem.com.  And to repeat a significant point: it’s all free.

That’s possible due to a revenue-sharing program.  The details of the program have not been made public, but it’s reasonable to assume that Imeem has been rather generous; just seven months ago, Imeem was actually being sued by Warner Music Group.  Coming such a long way in such a short time can’t be due to charisma alone.

Regardless, we’re pleased to hear about the UMG announcement, and believe it could cause Imeem’s current user counts (19 million unique visitors per month and 50,000 new registered users per day) to skyrocket.