Rhapsody acquires music discovery service Ex.fm & 'Instagram' for music SoundTracking

Updated at 2:35 p.m. PST with a comment from Rhapsody exec Paul Springer and details about the company’s acquisition of Schematic Labs.

Music discovery startup Ex.fm has been acquired by Rhapsody for an undisclosed amount, the companies announced today.

Ex.fm’s service attempted to catalog every song you encountered while browsing the Internet; it then used that data to give you recommendations. Plenty of other services provide the same or similar functionality, including most recently Shazam for desktops, as VentureBeat previously reported.

Ex.fm also has been somewhat wishy-washy when it came to informing its users whether the service was sticking around or shutting down. It first announced a shut down last year, changed its mind later on, and then decided once again to shutter the service back in May.

“By teaming up, we can build the ultimate music service with an amazing social discovery engine backed by Rhapsody’s catalog of over 30 million songs,” Ex.fm wrote in a statement.

Rhapsody, which recently announced that it now has 2 million paying subscribers across the globe, hasn’t stated what it plans to do with the Ex.fm team. It seems likely that they’ll end up working on some aspect of the newly launched digital radio service UnRadio on T-Mobile.

Founded in 2010, Ex.fm previously raised $2.8 million in funding, which means the acquisition was likely to bring on talent and not the technology alone.

“The Exfm team have done a great job of helping people discover more music to enjoy across the web,” Rhapsody International chief product officer Paul Springer said in a statement to VentureBeat. “We’re thrilled to have them join Rhapsody, and put that product, design and technology expertise to work on the things we’re building here. Together, we’ll help music fans explore, play and love more music.”

But Ex.fm isn’t the only startup Rhapsody purchased today. The company also announced that it has acquired Schematic Labs, which produces popular “Instagram” for music app Soundtracking. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed, but it appears the purchase was also to help beef up Rhapsody’s product and development teams.

The SoundTracking app will continue to operate post-acquisition, according to Schematic Labs.