Yahoo Music exec leaves for start-up

Ian Rogers, vice president of video and music applications at Yahoo, is leaving the company to launch a start-up, Rogers said on his blog.

During his time at Yahoo, the company released the Yahoo Media Player, purchased FoxyTunes, and launched a new version of Yahoo Video.

His new company, Topspin Media, is a venture-funded start-up that aims to "help independent artists make a living." The company, which Rogers founded with Peter Gotcher and Shamal Ranasinghe, is developing Web applications that enable distribution and marketing of digital content.

A few months back, in a blog post recounting a presentation he gave for music industry players, Rogers summed up some of his thoughts on how those folks should finally come to grips with the Web. Matt Rosoff of CNET's Blog Network gave a thumbs-up to many of Rogers' points--for instance, spend on improving quality, not on marketing--but took issue with his call for a new set of standards for labeling media files and playlists, and for sharing data among social-networking and user-generated-content services.

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