Loudeye IPO Hits the Market

Loudeye (http://www.loudeye.com) had its IPO yesterday in a rough day at the Nasdaq.

Loudeye's opened the day at $16 and closed at $40, yesterday, a 150% rise in price. Today, the stock is trading moderately up a few points as of midday.

Analsysts said that the company, trading in the Nasdaq market under the symbol LOUD, was lucky it did so well considering the lackluster day the Nasdaq stock was having.

Loudeye's main competitor, Sonic Foundry, had a down day.

Loudeye (previously called encoding.com) has been reinventing itself since getting into more services-related offerings. Aside from its encoding services, it has been getting into other offerings like presentations and slideshows.

Loudeye also announced today that it has encoded over 2 million audio files since its inception in 1997

Loudeye has encoded music for record companies such as EMI-Capitol Music Group and Sony Corporation, and online music distributors like Emusic.com.