Didiom
| Company type | Private |
|---|---|
| Industry | Digital media, Software, Music streaming |
| Founded | 2005 in New York City, United States |
| Founder | Ran Assaf |
| Defunct | 2011 |
| Fate | Acquired by Exclaim Mobility (later SnapOne, then Synchronoss) |
| Headquarters | New York City , United States |
| Products | Peer-to-peer audio streaming software, mobile music applications, music bidding platform |
Didiom was a company focused on digital media, specializing in peer-to-peer audio streaming and mobile applications for music bidding. Its placeshifting technology allowed users to stream music directly from their home computers to mobile devices without the need for cables or memory cards. Additionally, Didiom provided access to a licensed catalog exceeding two million tracks, enabling users to either buy music outright or participate in a novel bidding system by setting their own price. In February 2011, Exclaim Mobility acquired Didiom; this entity later rebranded as SnapOne and was eventually purchased by Synchronoss.
History
Established in New York City in 2005 by Ran Assaf during his graduate program at Babson College, Didiom initially launched an adaptive bargaining music download platform in 2007 for Windows Mobile smartphones, featuring a limited selection of independent artists.
In October 2008, the company rolled out a public beta hybrid mobile service that allowed BlackBerry and Windows Phone users to stream audio from their personal computers over wireless networks. This offering also included access to Didiom’s MP3 store, which housed more than two million songs sourced from independent distributors such as CD Baby, Finetunes, Phonofile, and eClassical.
By February 2010, Didiom concluded its beta testing phase and discontinued the name-your-own-price model, unveiling Didiom Pro—a subscription-based audio streaming service. The revamped mobile and desktop applications supported streaming from personal computers to devices such as iPhone, iPod Touch, BlackBerry, and Windows Phones. Key functionalities included wireless downloading for offline playback, streaming of Windows Media DRM-protected content, and on-demand shuffle capabilities.
Didiom formed partnerships with major industry players including Apple, Microsoft, Samsung, Verizon, and BlackBerry to distribute its service through platforms like the Apple App Store, Windows Marketplace for Mobile, Samsung Apps, Verizon’s VCast App Store, and BlackBerry World. The acquisition by Exclaim Mobility in 2011 positioned the company within the growing consumer cloud-services sector before its eventual integration into SnapOne and Synchronoss Technologies.
Technology
Didiom engineered a peer-to-peer (P2P) audio placeshifting system that enabled users to stream music from Windows-based PCs directly to smartphones without relying on centralized servers. By utilizing the computing resources of users—such as processing power, storage capacity, and network bandwidth—the platform reduced dependency on centralized infrastructure, delivering a scalable and cost-efficient media access solution. This decentralized approach also enhanced user privacy by keeping content stored locally rather than transferring it to Didiom’s servers.
The desktop client scanned the user’s PC for audio files and made them accessible for secure wireless streaming and downloading via an SSL-encrypted connection through Didiom’s mobile application. As long as the PC remained online, users could remotely access their music libraries from mobile devices.
The technology supported multiple audio formats including both DRM-free files and DRM-protected Windows Media Audio (WMA), MP3, WAV, AAC, M4A, and Ogg Vorbis. It also integrated with playlists from iTunes and Windows Media Player using formats like WPL, PLS, and M3U. However, DRM-protected AAC files (M4P) from the iTunes Store as well as Audible AA audiobooks were not compatible.
By distributing processing loads across user devices rather than central servers, Didiom’s P2P architecture facilitated natural scalability while lowering server maintenance expenses and operational overheads—resulting in a flexible and efficient solution for remote audio streaming.
Awards
Didiom received notable accolades from prominent organizations such as The One Club and the Academy of Interactive & Visual Arts. In 2010, Red Herring magazine recognized Didiom as one of the top 200 private technology companies in North America and also featured it among the global top 200 private tech enterprises.