So, according to Wired magazine, the fools at MySpace delivered a late Christmas present to bloggers worldwide who had Imeem widgets embedded on their web pages, by replacing the Imeem-powered playlists and streaming tracks with generic untargeted ads for ringtone services and the MySpace Music website. Because presumably what said bloggers really wanted to appear below their editorialised introduction to whatever song they'd carefully selected from the Imeem catalogue was a bright orange banner ad pushing Lady Gaga ringtones.

As previously reported, MySpace Music bought the Imeem user database for a bargain basement price last month as its Warner Music-backed rival spiralled into a gloomy oblivion. The social networking giant wasn't so keen to take on any of Imeem's liabilities, meaning that as soon as MySpace had bought up the usable bits, the rest of Imeem's operations were quickly switched off to ensure no new licensing fees were added to the collapsing company's debts. Such was the need to avoid any new Imeem liabilities there was no opportunity to put systems in place to softly migrate Imeem users over to MySpace's comparable services. 

This meant Imeem users were immediately re-directed to a page on the MySpace Music website where they were greeted with the fabulous news that none of their playlists or user data would be available if they chose to sign up for the social networking giant's own already pretty shoddy streaming music service. The holding page says that Imeem users' personal data will be available via their MySpace accounts in due course, though it's not currently clear how that will be done or how long it will take.

Given the Imeem site was switched off overnight, it was inevitable that any Imeem-powered widgets embedded by music fans on their own blogs or websites would stop working too. To be fair, as soon as MySpace had agreed to take over those widgets they were caught between a rock and a hard place. Assuming it was impossible to continue pumping a streaming track or public playlist into the space occupied by the embedded widget, whatever Team MySpace chose to plonk in that spot instead wasn't going to be well received.

The only good solution would have been to utilise another of MySpace's recent acquisitions - iLike - which likewise streams music onto other people's websites via an embedded flash player. But, realistically, getting iLike to match track for track every song being streamed via an Imeem widget with next to no notice wasn't going to happen. Still, surely something better than the bright orange ringtone ads that appeared last week could have been used to replace the old Imeem streams.

All in all, in PR terms MySpace's acquisition of Imeem has been pretty disastrous. Imeem users lose (temporarily at least) their personal data, bloggers get bright orange ads plonked on their sites and, as also previously reported, unsigned bands selling their music via Imeem's Snocap tool won't receive any of the royalties they were owed. And everyone will blame MySpace for these developments. Even though none of it is really MySpace's fault, it was Imeem that fell over leaving all its users stranded. Then again, opting to run bright orange ads in place of the embedded Imeem player was a MySpace decision, and bosses there chose to do the deal with the faltering music service in the first place, which was probably unwise.

True the social networking giant got a large database of email addresses by doing the deal, but how many of those former Imeem users will really become loyal MySpace Music members given the calamities of the transition. Particularly when you consider most of those users had probably already used and rejected all things MySpace before signing up with Imeem in the first place. 

Still, all of this adds to the stuff we can talk about when we finally get to write MySpace Music's obituary. Which will be in, well, hey, place your bets people.